Atlas Forum Lightning Talks

Is your company providing lump sum payments for the right reasons? Are you really experiencing cost savings when issuing lump sums for relocation? Scott Michael spoke to attendees about the important considerations regarding lump sum payment usage, noting education is one of the most important pieces to the lump sum payment puzzle and critical for employees making good decisions when opting for payment and utilizing the funds. As the head of AMSA, he is seeing an increase in fraud and misinformation in the moving marketplace, which is a major issue when transferees are attempting to find the most affordable service providers. To ensure lump sum payments work for everyone, employers should take ownership in assisting employees through the relocation process from start to finish.

Kristen Peterson spoke about how managing expectations in business is just trying to minimize exception. In mobility and relocation, what if the business and its integral leaders had a larger say in the process? Kristen suggested to better this process, expand plans to include more decision makers and provide mobility thought leadership with business leaders looped in. When making decisions and looking to your human side, it's important to keep the balance. Don’t approve or deny specific relocation requests because of what your business has done in the past or might do in the future, but track the exception by the specific business need.

You would assume people associate themselves with their specific generation for a sense of belonging, right? Thanks to Jim Carroll’s data-driven breakdown on generational differences, we now have some answers to consider. Surprisingly enough, the data shows people more often associate themselves with identifiers of numerous generations and fall on a continuum instead of in a box. Generations are more alike than they are different, and not everyone identifies with their assigned generation wholeheartedly. When we focus on what makes us similar instead of different, we can start to appreciate our generational continuums and utilize them to better our personal and professional lives.

Imagine waking up one day as a mobility manager and being told your company needs your help in moving thousands of employees to an entirely new company headquarters in Plano, Texas. Dawn Mugavero doesn’t need to imagine it--she lived it and helped Toyota execute an unprecedented and successful group move. As she shared with attendees, critical to her team’s success were collaboration, communication, resources and connections. The Toyota mobility team embodied these principles throughout every initiative and process to ensure vendors worked together, employees were heard and educated, and families always remained a priority. As a result of their commitment, Toyota experienced a 65 percent relocation acceptance rate, relocating more than 3,200 employees and managing over 2,500 moves.

Our final presenter helped identify three syndromes critical to the success and evolution of human resources as we navigate today’s attention economy. First and foremost, syndrome one was identified as the “headline grabbers,” representing the economic and legislative issues of today’s landscape that require constant attention and oftentimes mobility policy changes--think Brexit, immigration and Amazon HQ2. Syndrome two, the “whale syndrome,” was described as “things that can bite you,” meaning business models are changing and mobility must be a part of the conversation and decision making at the highest levels of leadership. Finally, syndrome three can best be described as “the things you miss might kill you.” Given the global talent shortage, the move away from traditional employment models, and so many other industry-impacting changes, mobility professionals must innovate and find ways for their programs to stand out.

Atlas forum Lightning Talks

LUMP SUM PAYMENT CONSIDERATIONS

MANAGING RELOCATION EXCEPTIONS TO BUSINESS NEEDS

DEBUNKING THE MYTH OF GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES

THE CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF A GROUP MOVE

THREE SYNDROMES IN THE ATTENTION ECONOMY