Best Practices for Supporting Disabilities Within Global Mobility

You may or may not know how often your mobility program supports someone with disabilities. That could be an employee, a partner, a child, or another family member. Because this can create unique relocation challenges, and because we've just completed  National Disability Employment Awareness Month (October), it's a good time to explore how your mobility program is set up for supporting people that may not fit the typical mold. 

This article from HR Executive, “What HR leaders can do to help autistic employees succeed”, shares some ways HR leaders can reevaluate their hiring, talent management, and culture to ensure all employees feel valued and involved. Let's take a look at the 10 ideas in this article and apply them to global mobility programs, synthesizing them into three best practices to consider.

1. Increase the number of benefit options and consider additional non-traditional benefits. This lets you offer a greater number of serivces that apply to a larger range of needs. You can do this by connecting with employees that have previously had challenges due to having a disability or a family member with a disability and learning what they could have used that would have improved their support and experience. 
    
2. Give them access to a more flexible move experience. Providing choices and allowing employees to select what they need will make a difference in meeting any more specific needs for someone with disabilities. Unfortunately, most move management forces people to share private details and request exceptions for additional services for their unique situation. Instead allow them the ability to make adjustments that they would prefer. Technology can help you achieve this, giving you an affordable and interesting approach that can increase flexibility, add choice, and help employees more effectively navigate the relocation process. For instance, you could consider a wide range of core-flex policy approaches, or a credit-based technology like Plus's Point C platform. Not only can these improve the experience and translate into higher satisfaction levels, they can reduce much of the administrative efforts of policing policies!
    
3. Develop and roll out effective communication about your program. What percentage of people relocate within your company? It is likely a small percentage, so stakeholders, internal customers like recruiters, hiring managers, and employees may need clear and comprehensive details regarding the program and how it has been built to support those with all needs! Host training sessions. Record them and make them easily available. Create and share quality materials aimed at the various audiences that describe the program and clearly articulate its value. 

While the article we referenced is primarily focused on how to support individuals on the autism spectrum, this process can be expanded to consider all types of abilities and disabilities. It can even sometimes address temporary employee situations that change in the midst of the moving process. Employees can become ill or get injured and need support that is not available within traditional tiered policies. 

And, if you're looking for more to read on similar and related mobility topics, try these other posts:

What's on your "menu" of relocation benefit options?

How to tailor talent mobility to your company

What Do You Have to Offer to Get People to Relocate?

Considering your mobility program and autism