How to Get Your Global Mobility Team a Seat at the Strategic Table
After attending three major global mobility conferences recently—FEM APAC, FEM EMEA, and WERC Global—one theme dominated every conversation: mobility professionals want out of the operational weeds and into strategic discussions. Here’s how the best teams are making it happen:
- Stop talking about processes. Start talking about outcomes.
- Track assignment success versus failure rates.
- Measure employee satisfaction and retention. When you show leadership how mobility impacts the bottom line in real dollars, you’re suddenly strategic.
- Global mobility teams often spend their week answering repetitive questions, from basic destination inquiries to policy clarifications, that employees could find themselves. Leverage technology and self-service resources wherever possible. The more you automate routine inquiries, the more time you have for strategic work that moves the needle.
- Learn what keeps your executives up at night, then show how mobility solves those problems. Leadership doesn’t care about visa paperwork, they care about talent deployment, business expansion, and ROI. One leader told me: “I stopped talking about relocation policies and started talking about talent strategy. That’s when I got invited to leadership meetings.”
- Understand that Duty of care isn’t just compliance, it’s about setting employees up to succeed, not just survive. When your approach reduces risk AND increases assignment success, that’s strategic value leadership understands.
- Get close to talent acquisition and workforce planning. When you’re involved in strategic workforce decisions, you become a strategic partner, not just the execution team.
You’re managing one of your company’s biggest investments—international talent. Position yourself as the strategic partner you already are. Show up with data. Understand the business. Free yourself from operational tasks.
The table’s waiting.
At Living Abroad, we help global mobility teams reclaim their time by handling those repetitive destination questions, so you can focus on strategic work. Want to learn how? Let’s connect.
