Aligning Talent Management and Global Mobility: Shifting from Relocation Management to Global Talent Brokering | Mercer

This 13-page paper provides ideas on how to drive greater alignment and linkages between an organization’s talent management and mobility teams. It argues that talent mobility—often associated with relocating talent—needs to be discussed in the broader context of the talent management cycle — including selection and long-term career management. However, the limited purview of many HR and mobility teams tends to result in a “relocation exercise” of individual talent rather than part of a broader integrated talent strategy. The paper is organized into three sections: 1) Linking talent management and mobility, 2) The role of the global mobility team: from relocation manager to talent broker, and 3) Addressing barriers to global talent brokering. Each section provides useful insights and practices for enabling internal talent movement and talent mobility. Page 19 includes a four-component model (shown below) organizations can use to determine the intent of their talent mobility program. Determining the intent is critical since it will inform the practices associated with the program. Page 20 covers different forms of talent mobility, such as internal (between business units) or external moves (gig workers, talent exchange, peer talent pool) and cross-border moves (traditional long-term expatriate assignments, rotator, and commuter assignments). Other ideas are discussed that can help organizations shape their approach to talent mobility.