If this is your first time relocating your employees, you’ll quickly come to realize that it’s a bigger task than you first expect it to be. Your employees are your company’s lifeline, and you just need one unhappy staff member to shatter the productivity of the entire team.
If you’re planning to relocate for the company’s long-term financial benefit, you can’t take that risk. The best way to mitigate this is by understanding issues people tend to face when relocating for work so you can act quickly.
In this article, we’ll take a look at common employee relocations concerns and suggest how you can address them.
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
How Will They Be Compensated?
Relocating is expensive, time-consuming, and tiring. Your employees want to know that they are compensated fairly for their effort.
Obviously, an employee that’s fresh out of college with no dependents will be easier to relocate compared to a manager with a family of four that has a mortgage tied to his name. There’s no strict guideline to follow, as there are many ways to structure relocation expenses.
A common method would be by using tiered packages that offer different benefit allocations depending on their position in their company and current living arrangements. With this method, you will be partly involved in the relocation project and guide them along the way.
If you don’t have the manpower to manage each of your employee’s movements, perhaps it’s better to offer them a lump sum of money to cover relocation costs.
Housing Issues
This is perhaps the biggest roadblock for most employees. If they own a home, they may need to sell it first. This is a race against time because on average, it takes 65-93 days to sell a home.
This depends on the economy, location, price, and many other factors. We haven’t even talked about another issue, that is looking for a new home in a city or town that’s alien to them.
A way to address this is by paying for their temporary accommodation for the first few months. This gives employees time to sell their current mortgage while looking for the perfect neighborhood to call home.
Overall Quality of Life
Your employees will be concerned about settling in a new city. Work is just one part of their day, but what do they do during their free time? How do they plan on getting around if they don’t have their own transportation? Is access to healthcare facilities and schools easy?
The best way to ease their anxiety is by granting them paid time off to visit the area with their spouse for a few days. This gives them time to familiarize themselves with the area and chat with locals.
To show your support towards your employees, consider reimbursing their travel and accommodation expenses during their visit.
It’s a win-win situation. Your employees will not be as stressed when they move into a familiar city, and you won’t experience such a drop in productivity within the first month or so.
