Flexibility… this is the watchword of these times… flexibility in the choice of the type of expatriation, in the destinations, in the benefits packages, in the expatriate profile… in other words… in everything…
Until a new expatriation policy is written, approved, and implemented, it will be common for companies to be faced with many requests for exceptions to the current policy.
These adjustments and changes have their positive points: They can make a transfer of a talent of extreme importance to the company that was not feasible because of the family’s profile, because of specific needs of that talent, for example…
On the other hand, if exceptions are applied too frequently, they can destroy the consistency of the policy, promote inequality among expatriates, and even cause retention problems and high costs.
Thus, it is important to be aware of which items are the most susceptible to review requests. Usually these are:
- Housing
- Homeleave
- Education
- Temporary accommodation
Here’s a tip:
Anticipate future problems:
Assess which items in your policy are most susceptible to exception requests;
Keep track of each request to have a history and analyze this data;
Analyze and implement a segmentation of benefits (separate which are mandatory and which are optional).
Consider reinventing your policy to make it flexible and in line with the times we are living in.