Continental, EY are working hard to connect international teams
A growing swell of organizations are offering their employees the chance to work abroad for a year or more. Their goal: boost staff retention while providing ample opportunities for dispersed workers to connect in person.
Organizations like car manufacturer Continental and EY are among them. And some of the companies offering this have found themselves placed in LinkedIn’s recently announced 2024 Top Companies list.
Deloitte, which is #4 on the list, offers a global mobility program, and American Express (#49) offers international buddy programs. Airbus, #42, offers international assignments as part of employee growth, meanwhile, Bank of America, #12, encourages employees to travel as part of their new sabbatical program, which gives four to six weeks of PTO after 15 years of service. Continental, which came in at #29, offers short- and long-term international job rotations, giving workers travel perks and opportunities for internal mobility.
EY, which placed #18, consistently receives over 50,000 internal applications annually for cross-border positions, with numbers increasing each year. People who have been on a mobility assignment stay with EY longer, as they show on average a 15% higher retention rate compared to peers who have not been on an assignment, according to the company.
How it works
Launched in September 2021, EY’s Global Mobility4U program was created to promote internal mobility opportunities across its global workforce.
“Global mobility is integral to our talent strategy, enabling our business and talent priorities by offering diverse experiences that enhance our employee value proposition and career growth,” said Steve Baisley, EY Americas assignment services lead. “This flexible, business-driven platform benefits our clients, business, and people.”
Approximately 900 EY people have started new mobility assignments, and more than 4,100 of its people are either on mobility assignments or one-way transfers. Over the last three years, EY’s mobility program has seen about 600 unique home/host country combinations and more than 1,700 unique city-to-city combinations, according to Baisley.
Global mobility programs are especially important for those looking to grow within an organization, explained Anna Potter, Continental’s head of global mobility services, the Americas hub.
“It’s not something that is a nice to have,” said Potter, who has been on an assignment herself to Germany on a temporary delegation for a job swap to give her and a colleague of hers more international experience. “It’s a you-have-to-have-it. If you don’t have global experience, you can’t really be an effective global leader. There’s going to be a limitation there. It goes hand in hand with why companies like Continental invest heavily in international experiences and assignments. It does matter, especially as people are developing throughout the organization.”
She’s noticed that the traditional global assignment has evolved over the years. What used to be one plant manager going to another country to help a new plant manager get off the ground, has changed to where people can move about and stay places for months at a time to better understand how operations work.
Continental employees can opt for anything from a three-month to a year-long stay. The short-term stays might be to help fill a position that is temporarily open, while a long-term stay could allow someone to build their portfolio and really dive into what it means to be a global leader. No matter the length, the company supports them with housing, cost of living and transportation.
Similar to EY, Continental has seen significant interest from their employees wanting to go on an assignment, but Potter explains that the business case needs to be there.
“We really invest in those trainee programs to get those early career employees the opportunities to have international experiences for shorter periods of time,” said Potter. “The more you invest at an early career level, the less expensive it is, and the more they’re building upon it during their career with Continental.”
Small companies see the importance too
The benefits can seem more obvious for larger companies, but smaller companies are following suit, albeit on a smaller scale.
For example, Maine-based 50-person creative agency VIA has a Hey, you. Go. Do. sponsorship program where one employee, picked at random, gets to go to a random place anywhere in the world, with locations ranging from the Burning Man festival to the North Pole. The one requirement: when you return you need to present on what your experience was like and what you learned.
The company has done it for the past six to seven years and have sent people across the world.
“Whenever the whim strikes me, whenever there is something amazing going on in the world, I pull a name out of a cup, and whoever I pull goes on an adventure,” said Leeann Leahy, CEO of VIA.
Whoever is picked is allowed to bring a significant other, spouse, or another colleague.
VIA also has a sabbatical series that offers employees who have been at the company for 10 years the opportunity to go on an eight- to 12-week sabbatical. The application process involves answering two questions: what and why? Folks have gone on trips to ride their motorcycle through Ireland, to India for yoga and meditation, to the highest mountain peaks in the world, and more.
“Our product is creativity,” said Leahy. “Creativity is a state of mind that we have to deliver across every discipline to every client every day. If you are only stuck in the rigor of every day, you almost optimize to mediocrity. It’s important to sprinkle in a little magic here and there.”
Similarly, the 100-person company Jobbatical has workers across 43 different global cities. That’s why it has introduced a global buddy program. When someone new onboards with the company, they are paired with someone who does the same job in a different part of the world – like Dubai or India – to better understand how it’s done and what it means to work in a global company.
“Since we are very diverse, and being able to understand how Jobbatical works, it means feeling the international spirit of it,” said Karoli Hindriks, founder of Jobbatical, a relocation management software.
If someone wants to move, Jobbatical will support them with that move, whether or not it’s a move made for personal or professional reasons related to their job. Someone just moved from South Africa to Barcelona.
“We support his and his family’s move so he can still do the same work,” said Hindriks. “We support the relocation for the employee and their family members. Overall, we are seeing more and more companies enabling that kind of flexibility to attract the right team and talent.”