When a leading global food and beverage manufacturer realized it needed to streamline its global mobility program and ensure visibility for all stakeholders involved, it turned to Mercer, its trusted provider of global mobility data solutions.
Running a large mobility program with multiple moving pieces, the client felt it lacked transparency and automation, which affected employee experience and efficiency. It sought a technology solution to provide greater process visibility and streamline tasks for all global mobility stakeholders.
The client specifically wanted to solve a number of business issues negatively impacting its mobility program:
The client envisaged a system that would provide one central database for all relevant documents and ensure visibility over mobility processes for assignees and the business alike.
The client selected Mercer’s Mobility Management Platform (MMP), built in collaboration with ServiceNow®, as its technology solution of choice based on several differentiating factors:
• The client had a preexisting relationship with Mercer for its mobility information requirements, which provided the option of pulling data directly from the platform’s built-in calculators, including additional calculation tools not previously used by the client also available within MMP.
• Built on the ServiceNow® platform, Mercer shares the ServiceNow® vision of “making the world of work, work better for people.” The client’s previous experience with the solution, which delivers digital workflows to create great experiences and unlock productivity, was positive.
• MMP has powerful reporting capabilities and user-friendly dashboards.
• This solution offered the possibility of future integration with the client’s HRIS and external vendor platforms for full centralization of the mobility ecosystem.
The client and Mercer teams partnered closely together at every stage of the process.
Initially, the teams held a series of discovery meetings to document the client’s current-state mobility program and design a new vision for a technology-enabled future state.
Before proceeding to MMP implementation, it was necessary to accommodate the client’s extremely rigorous security protocol for new technology adoption. By working with ServiceNow® as well as Mercer’s internal data security team, the implementation team was able to get the green light to proceed by meeting all the client’s criteria.
Having a dedicated technology-focused practice — Mercer Digital — has enabled Mercer to offer time-tested and proven implementation methodologies as well as business-process expertise. The client’s team greatly appreciated the resulting project management efficiency and agility.
A great partnership is always a two-way street. Part of Mercer’s innovation strategy is an early adopter program, where discovery-based implementations deliver key learnings leveraged by Mercer and our clients for future success. As a member of the program, our client provided invaluable feedback, helping us shape the roadmap and contributing to continuous improvement.
Since the implementation of Mobility Management Platform, the technology has fulfilled the client’s expectations, providing a highly improved experience for all mobility process stakeholders.
Business partner and line manager platform accessManagers can now initiate international assignments and relocation processes following a clear, simple path. They have full visibility into their international talent pool and initiated moves and can avoid process bottlenecks, all thanks to the intuitive, automated notifications from the platform that indicate when an approval action is necessary.
Reduced volume of work and transactional processes associated with employee moves frees up time for more strategic, higher-value business activities.
“Business provided a very positive feedback related to the platform, post go-live. Initiators can receive notifications from the platform when they need to take action, approve costs or agreements, etc.
Parties involved have visibility over the relocation process and know who owns the step in the process.
From administration standpoint we have better visibility over workload and excellent reporting capabilities.”
— Senior Global Mobility Manager
Mobile employee engagementEmployees getting ready for their assignments will receive a link to their employee portal.
Mercer-curated country information for 140+ assignment locations is included in the license fee (MercerPassport®), providing extensive resources on the host locations to help prepare mobile employees for their moves and increasing the probability of assignment success.
MMP also allows the client to assess its mobility program diversity, mobile employee engagement and satisfaction.
Managing with easeAdministering the program has become easier for the client’s Mobility Group, with automation saving the group significant time and providing greater workload visibility.
Audit trail is much simpler, with a central database for storing, reviewing and approving the financials and letters of assignment.
Eliminating manual data entry also improves compliance and minimizes risks, decreasing the chances of human error at every stage of the mobility process.
The power of reportingAs the centralized database for the company’s mobility program, MMP gathers and provides data across all activities, enabling the client to create and share dashboards throughout the organization. The platform’s robust reporting capabilities offer easy and personalized access to analytics for business partners, line managers, mobility analysts and executives.
Defining and tracking client-specific mobility KPIs helps develop an understanding of where the program is aligned to the business strategy — and where it’s not — to reveal areas for improvement and drive performance.
The partnership doesn’t end with the Mobility Management Platform implementation. Mercer will support an HRIS integration between the client’s SuccessFactors instance and MMP — an investment bound to add significant value for the business.
Africa