UNITED STATES—It has become common practice for many companies to relocate employees domestically or internationally. You could relocate workers overseas for various reasons, such as ensuring a position is filled by the best candidate, taking advantage of a shifting economy, or even minimizing taxes. Relocation can benefit the employees too, as they get to broaden their horizons, develop their careers, and work in positions that they’re best suited to. However, relocating employees globally does not come without its challenges. If you want everything to go smoothly, here are the best practices you should adopt.

Use a Global Relocation Service

From putting together packages to finding overseas accommodation, and a hundred things in between, there’s a lot to do in order to relocate employees to other countries. So, you need to make use of a global relocation service that can handle the important stuff for you. For instance, the services available at ARC relocation include the planning and strategic undertaking of a global relocation program. That means things like finding accommodation, researching taxes and immigration requirements, and handling transportation and removals. A professional global relocation service can also help your company to put together attractive, budgeted, comprehensive relocation packages. The contents of a relocation package can make or break an employee’s choice as to whether he or she accepts the relocation offer. If you’re trying to retain your top talent, you need to ensure the relocation package includes everything an employee needs, such as transport, professional packing and removal services, accommodation, storage rental, and assistance in selling an employee’s home.

Arrange Employees’ Housing

One crucial part of international relocation is providing accommodation for the employee and his or her family. That could mean providing temporary accommodation, enabling more time for the ideal property to be found, in addition to assisting with long-term housing. It’s not just about finding accommodation. The housing must also be suitable. The employee will have limited geographic knowledge, so he or she will need to be somewhere that’s easily accessible and is close by to shops, transport links, and other essentials.

Provide Cultural Resources

Don’t overlook how important it is to provide employees working abroad with cultural resources before they depart and during their first few months at the new location. It takes time to absorb a new culture. If the employee is relocating to a country where he or she needs to learn the language, that will obviously take time too. But your company can help employees get up to speed with cultural differences by providing excellent resources. That should include things like how to identify the best school for the employee’s children and understanding how the medical system works in the country. Employees also need to understand the requirements for visas and work permits before leaving. 

Support Your Employees’ Families

You not only need to think about the employee who is relocating. You also need to consider his or her family. After all, they will also be going through a major upheaval and they will need to access cultural resources too. In fact, families can potentially face a higher degree of cultural and language barriers than the employee, so it’s vital the whole family is supported at every step of the way. That could include helping to find childcare facilities or jobs for spouses.

Give Your Employees Time

It’s bound to take time for any employee to adjust to living in a new country, so it’s best practice to allow a relocating employee time to acclimatize. Give the employee some time to become familiar with his or her new surroundings and provide flexible working patterns in the first few weeks so that your employee and his or her family can adjust. The employee will then be ready to shine in his or her new position in the new location.