Munich Mobility Forum

• AIRINC’s topic was Agility and Adaptability in Global Mobility,
• K2 gave some truly personal insights into the daily life of a relocation manager and then delivered an engaging presentation on relocating the modern mobile family.
• The Managing Partner of the People Mobility Alliance (a networking organisation) focused on Global Mobility and the people behind it. Topics like Leading with a Global Mindset were a great addition to the previous presentations.
• K2 also shared details on the K2 Foundation, which supports children around the world whose futures are bleak or uncertain.

‘Because it’s personal’, is K2’s motto, and it fitted all aspects of this event perfectly. Not only were the topics of a personal nature, but the group that came together also got a lot out of the personal and interactive discussions.  

AIRINC’s session started with the results of our  2023 Mobility Outlook Survey to provide some benchmarking background. (Keep your eyes open for our invitation to participate in the 2024 Mobility Outlook Survey!). 

However, our main focus was on the results of AIRINC’s more recent Remote Work Survey. Many of the companies that attended have large and well-established mobility programmes, so many of them have remote and/or work-ation policies, providing lots of material for a truly interactive discussion about remote work and self-initiated assignments. Companies struggle with ease of administration and finding the appropriate tools to determine an employee’s eligibility – indeed, after going through this complicated process, in the end, they might not be eligible to work remotely from their desired location after all! The discussions took on such an animated format that we never made it to our next topic of AI in Mobility! 

K2 brought some interesting personal insights into explaining the role of a relocation manager and which attributes they need to guide individuals and families smoothly and empathetically through the relocation process. K2 also spoke about how to support modern families on assignment, including female assignees, same sex couples, single parents, transgender individuals, or assignees relocating with their parents or other dependents. It became clear that the key attributes of the global mobility manager are indeed empathy and adaptability when it comes to managing modern assignments. And, of course, mobility policies have to be kept up to date to support diversity and inclusion. 

However, even the most inclusive policy cannot influence certain laws in the receiving country. So, if the host country is not tolerant and accepting of all the assignee’s circumstances, an assignment may not succeed despite the best intentions and planning – or might not even go ahead at all. 

The concluding session by the People Mobility Alliance focused on how to successfully integrate into the host country. The overarching theme was the importance of having a global mindset – for the assignee, their family, and the receiving hosts.  So, careful education and raising awareness on all levels are crucial for successful international assignments.
 
Both informative and inspiring, all parties left the event with new ideas to take back to their Global Mobility teams. And as organisers, Emma Kerslake and I were very happy that our friendly chat earlier in the year had generated such a successful event!