Global Mobility: The Complete Guide [2025]
Global mobility has become a crucial component of successful organizational growth and talent management in 2025.
This comprehensive guide explores everything you need to know about global mobility, from its fundamental concepts to implementing effective programs within an organization.
What is Global Mobility?
Global mobility is the practice of managing and facilitating the movement of employees across international borders for work-related purposes. This field has evolved from simply managing expatriate assignments to becoming a strategic business function that supports organizational growth, talent development, and global operations.
Why Global Mobility Matters for Organizations
As businesses continue to expand internationally and interest in work relocations grow, organizations can no longer ignore global mobility.
Effective global mobility programs are essential for:
Accessing new markets and business opportunities
Developing global leadership capabilities
Transferring knowledge and skills across borders
Building diverse and inclusive workplace cultures
Meeting international staffing needs
Types of Global Mobility Programs
Organizations typically implement various types of mobility programs to meet different business needs:
Long-term Assignments: Traditional expatriate assignments lasting 1-5 years, often used for strategic roles or significant project management.
Short-term Assignments: Assignments lasting 3-12 months, commonly used for specific project work or knowledge transfer.
Permanent Transfers: One-way relocations where employees permanently move to a new country.
Commuter Assignments: Regular travel between countries while maintaining primary residence in the home country.
With the rise of remote work, some international responsibilities are able to be managed by employees at a distance. However, this has also opened up interest in travel and workplace flexibility. As such, many organizations are including remote work support as part of their overall global mobility programs.
For example, Zapier, PwC, Airbnb, and Spotify are a few examples of organizations with flexible work and policies allowing for employees to work from different countries for extended periods of time.
How to Implement a Successful Global Mobility Program
Global mobility has complex risks and organizational challenges for businesses, so it’s essential to develop a clear global mobility program with a few key areas of focus.
Strategic Alignment
Mobility programs must be aligned with overall business objectives. Insights from Mercer suggest that mobility and talent management must be deeply and strategically integrated–not part of siloed and separate teams.
The overall goals of mobility should be considered up front and evaluated as Key Performance Indicators of the program: enhanced talent development, business agility, and resource utilization.
Policy Development
Developing clear policies that address different assignment types and employee needs is crucial for both employers and employees in global mobility programs. According to KPMG’s 2022 Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey, flexibility is a growing trend and key feature of successful policies.
“Policy flexibility is key to enabling choice in relocation support and for on assignment allowances and services for mobile employees. This allows business groups to offer compensation and benefits packages that are best suited to personal needs and overall employee experience, which is a key workforce expectation by millennial and Gen Z employees demographics.”
In practice, the “core versus flex” policy model is recommended and most common, allowing for consistency and stability by providing employees with a set of core, static benefits as well as a menu of flexible benefits to choose from.
Core Benefits: These are essential, non-negotiable benefits that all employees on international assignments receive, ensuring compliance with legal, tax, and corporate policies. Core benefits are likely to include immigration and visa support, tax compliance assistance, health insurance and security support, and compliance with duty-of-care obligations.
Flex Benefits: These are optional benefits that employees can choose from, depending on their individual needs and preferences. Companies offer these benefits within a predefined budget or points-based system. Examples include housing allowances, company-provided accommodation, schooling support for dependents, cultural and language training, spouse/partner career assistance, and more.
Risk Management
The EY 2024 Mobility Reimagined Survey highlights that 71% of employers have observed an increase in cross-border mobility risks (legal, tax, and cybersecurity risks) over the past two years.
“While 84% of employers recognize data privacy risks from hybrid mobility arrangements, just 55% have policies to address those risks — a moderate improvement from last year’s 47%. On the other hand, an even greater 87% of employers are aware of cybersecurity risks from hybrid work, but just 46% have policies to address them, down from 51% last year.”
Simply having clear policies in place to address these risks is the first step, which is why risk management should be a large part of any global mobility strategy or program.
Global Mobility Services
Global mobility services encompass a wide range of support functions designed to facilitate international assignments and relocations. These services can be plugged into internal global mobility programs, allowing organizations to fill the gaps with third-party providers and experts.
These services typically include:
Immigration Support
Working with immigration experts to secure necessary visas and work permits is fundamental to global mobility, and can be one of the most complex tasks depending on the locations involved.
Tax Planning and Compliance
International assignments involve intricate tax implications, requiring careful planning to comply with both home and host country tax regulations. Global mobility teams work with tax specialists to optimize tax efficiency for both the organization and employees.
Relocation Services
Comprehensive relocation support includes housing assistance, school search for dependents, cultural training, and settling-in services.
Compensation and Benefits Management
Managing international compensation packages requires careful consideration of factors such as cost of living adjustments, housing allowances, and maintaining home country benefits while complying with host country requirements.
What Does a Global Mobility Team Do?
Many large organizations implement global mobility teams to manage the development and oversight of the mobility programs and mobility services. Their primary responsibilities include:
Policy development
Compliance management
Benefits administration
Relocation logistics
Cross-departmental collaboration
A global mobility team can be helpful to provide oversight and maintain strategic alignment, especially in large organizations with multiple departments involved.
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Contact New Roots Relocation to discuss your organization’s global mobility needs & programs today.