If managed effectively, expatriates will generate tremendous benefits for your organisation, including the transfer of cross-border knowledge, leveraging of local investments and provision of career development opportunities for your employees. Although expatriates may represent a small proportion of your workforce, the time and resources involved in managing them can be immense and the risks high.

How can we help you?

To assist your organisation to maximise the value of your expatriate workforce, Mercer has developed a three-phased approach to help you think through the issues involved:

Strategy

• What are your business needs with regard to internationally mobile employees?
• What types of assignments are appropriate?
• How do you define the pool of talent that is required?

Design

• What approach best suits your needs (home, host, local, other, or a combination of these)?
• Are your pay, benefits and career programmes appropriate and competitive?

Implementation

The implementation phase has three key stages:

Pre-assignment	During assignment	Repatriation
How do you select the right candidates? How do you manage pre-assignment logistics? How do you relocate the employee and family? What basis will be used for calculating pay and allowances? What should you do about pensions and social security? What are the best health benefit solutions?	How do you manage employee performance? How does the employee maintain links with home? How are pay and allowances reviewed and when should you consider localisation? What impact do family issues have on employees and how can these be managed?	How will the employee move to the next stage of his/her career? How do you ensure consistency of remuneration and benefits provision with your existing workforce? What can you learn from this assignment and how will it benefit the business?

• Assistance in formulating an expatriate policy suitable for your business needs and the potential talent pool
• Advice on cost-effective and efficient solutions for remuneration, allowances, pension, health care and other benefits
• Benchmarking data tailored to your industry sector, your geographical coverage and your specific global expatriate needs
• A single point of contact for your questions and for dealing with issues

Why Mercer?

We are ideally positioned to help you to effectively manage your expatriate workforce:

• Unrivalled global footprint – Mercer has more than 18,000 employees serving clients in over 180 cities and 41 countries and territories worldwide.
• Global and local experience – Mercer advises 25,000 clients worldwide on their most important HR and financial management issues. You can draw on our extensive experience in implementing and managing expatriate programmes for organisations across the globe.
• Excellent expatriate data – Whether your concern is retirement programmes, benefits or incentive schemes, we have the data to enable you to benchmark your expatriate programme against others and to make informed decisions on effectively managing your expatriate workforce.
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