Nearly one in four expatriate teams has dealt with a critical incident in the past year involving a mobile employee, according to the 2017 Global Mobility Survey from Santa Fe Relocation. The most common risks facing businesses with expatriate workers are medical issues and the severe penalties imposed by host authorities for breaching local laws on immigration and tax.
Terrorism is also high in the list of common risks, the survey finds. More than one in ten (12%) of the 929 global mobility/HR professionals taking part in the research said that their business does not monitor or manage risk and host country environmental factors in any way. However, 68% of those surveyed now have a policy to better mitigate risk, up from 55% in 2016.
Martin Thaysen, group CEO of Santa Fe Relocation, said:
‘Businesses continue to become more and more global, providing great opportunity for markets and personal development – but also increased risk. The significant growth in business travel along with tightened regulations and strengthened controls has significantly increased the exposure businesses and employees have with regards to immigration and tax compliance. Many companies have some process in place, but mostly not effectively managing to the specifics requirements of immigration of tax. Companies often don’t realise their risk and responsibility and employees don’t realise their exposure.’
The research was conducted by Circle Research among 929 global mobility professionals taking part from across 56 countries, as well as 55 business leaders at organisations with a global mobility function from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Belgium, Poland, the USA and Canada.