Beyond the Checklist: Redefining Global Mobility Success Through the Family Relocation Experience

In today’s dynamic global talent landscape, international assignments are more critical than ever. Boards increasingly identify business disruption caused by skills shortages as a top workforce risk to growth, with 81% citing it as a concern. CEOs are actively expanding global footprints, driven by goals such as building new products and services, optimizing operations, and attracting fresh talent. With up to 800 million professionals worldwide potentially seeking international opportunities, the scope of global mobility is immense.

However, the true measure of a successful international assignment goes far beyond the traditional checklist of logistics. It hinges significantly on the wellbeing and successful integration of the entire family. For too long, the family’s experience has been an overlooked variable, leading to hidden costs and missed opportunities within global mobility programs.

The financial implications of neglecting family needs are substantial. Family concerns are consistently cited as a leading cause of assignment hesitation, unsatisfactory experiences, and early termination. A recent survey revealed that 25% of respondents experienced an unsatisfactory relocation due to unmet family needs, 16% hesitated to accept an offer for family reasons, and 10% had previously declined an international assignment due to family concerns. Even more critically, 7% of assignees reported ending an assignment early because of family needs and wellbeing. The financial impact of a failed international assignment can be significant, potentially reaching up to five times an employee’s annual base compensation.

Beyond direct costs, overlooking family wellbeing can lead to tangible productivity losses. Employees distracted by family-related stress or logistical challenges during relocation are less able to focus on their new roles. The average productivity loss per relocation is approximately $6,900, with employees spending significant work hours on relocation-related tasks during their initial weeks abroad.

In an evolving global workforce, global mobility policies must be inclusive and equitable. Traditional policies based on a conventional family model with a primary assignee and a partner are outdated and can lead to unequal experiences. Survey data reveals disparities in relocation satisfaction based on gender, indicating that some assignees may require additional support due to family responsibilities. Policies should cater to diverse family structures, including single parents, blended families, separated families, and LGBTQ+ families, to ensure fair and comprehensive support.

Finally, there’s a notable “care perception gap” where employers believe they demonstrate care far more than employees feel cared for. This gap, nearly 30 points in 2024, is critical because employees who feel cared for are significantly more likely to exhibit better outcomes across key metrics, including holistic wellbeing (2.1x), engagement (1.3x), and loyalty (1.3x). Redefining “successful relocation” means proactively assessing the impact of support benefits on the family relocation experience, especially for employees with children.

Unlocking Insights: How to Measure Your Organization’s Family Relocation Experience
Moving beyond anecdotal evidence and assumptions, systematic feedback is paramount to understanding and addressing the nuances of the family relocation experience. This is where a dedicated Family Relocation Experience Survey becomes an invaluable tool for global mobility leaders. Such a survey is designed to capture vital feedback directly from your internationally mobile employees and their families.

Designing Your Survey for Impact:
A robust survey should gather insights from both business stakeholders’ perspectives (regarding provisions for accompanying family members and the overall family relocation experience) and the employee’s perspective (focusing on their family relocation experiences, recommendations, ideally in the context of demographics).

Consider these key measurement areas, inspired by our Family Relocation Experience Survey:

Overall Family Happiness and Employer Ambition: Gauge whether families are ultimately happy with their decision to relocate internationally and if they perceive their employer genuinely wanted their family members to have a positive experience.

Information Provision: Assess if employees had sufficient and reliable information to make well-informed decisions concerning their family members’ needs and wellbeing in the context of international relocation.

Time and Confidence in Preparation: Understand if employees felt they had enough time to prepare their family for the international relocation and if they felt confident in meeting their family members’ needs at every step.

Communication of Provisions: Evaluate the clarity with which the organization communicated the possibilities and limitations of benefits offered to support family members’ needs and wellbeing.

Support for Stress Management and Job Focus: Measure how effectively the received support contributed to managing stress for both the employee and their family, and whether it allowed the employee to focus better on their new job.

Sense of Community: Determine if families felt they became part of a larger, supportive community of international colleagues and their families.

Perceived Family-Friendliness and Satisfaction with Support: Understand employees’ perception of the organization’s global mobility program as “family-friendly” and their overall satisfaction with the support provided to their family.

Willingness to Raise Concerns: Ascertain the degree to which employees feel comfortable posing (future) questions or concerns regarding their family members’ needs and wellbeing to their employer or its relocation suppliers.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS): Integrate an NPS question to measure loyalty and the likelihood of recommending an international relocation offer with your organization’s support to a colleague with partner and children. This metric provides a clear, quantitative benchmark for overall satisfaction and can highlight significant differences when filtered by demographics like gender, revealing equitable experiences.

Qualitative Data for Richer Understanding: Supplement quantitative ratings with open-ended questions. These are crucial for gathering specific recommendations and identifying both “helping factors” and “missed support”. For example, insights can be gained on what assistance employees found most helpful (e.g., support from service providers, conversations with fellow expats, existing benefits), and where improvements are most needed (e.g., more comprehensive family support, adjustments to family-size dependent budgets, enhanced information provision, or improved service provider efficiency). These unsolicited comments often reveal critical pain points that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Your Next Step: Gaining Deeper Insights
Conducting your own Family Relocation Experience Survey provides invaluable data to:

Benchmark your organization’s current Family Support against internal and external best practices through Expat Valley’s dataset.

Build a compelling, data-driven business case for investing in enhanced family support programs (see also our Family Relocation Experience Insights).

Identify specific gaps and opportunities for improvement in your global mobility policies and benefits.

Drive a more equitable and inclusive global mobility program that truly meets the diverse needs of your workforce.

Ultimately, improve employee experience, satisfaction, wellbeing, and loyalty, thereby reducing assignment risks and fostering long-term talent retention.

Inspired to gain deeper insights into your employees’ family relocation experiences? Contact us for a advisory call. We’d be happy to help you set up a successful survey that provides the data you need to drive meaningful change in your global mobility program.

At Expat Valley, we believe international migration should be an enriching experience that allows children and their families to thrive. We are committed to helping organizations achieve this.

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