Pictured: Andreas Strohschein, Tom Richardson, Mary Weaver, Jordan Blue and Krista Dieffenbach
What makes a global mobility program successful? Is it managing costs, delivering a great employee experience, supporting talent strategy, or demonstrating measurable business value?
The answer, of course, is all of the above. But how organizations define and prioritize success can look very different.
Recently, I had the opportunity to explore these questions with a group of global mobility professionals at Genentech's South San Francisco campus. Together with colleagues from Equus Software and NetExpat, we hosted Mobility Mindset: Learning from Peers in a Time of Change, an interactive workshop focused on evaluating the effectiveness of mobility programs.
Using AIRINC's THRIVE framework as our guide, we explored what makes mobility programs successful, where organizations face challenges, and what we can learn from one another.
Three themes stood out to me.
One of the most interesting aspects of the workshop was the diversity of organizations represented. We heard from large, well-resourced mobility programs as well as smaller teams that are earlier in their journey.
For example, one organization described having dedicated vendor managers who go well beyond monitoring service-level agreements. Their role is to actively manage relationships, optimize performance, and help vendor partners deliver greater value. It's almost like having a customer success manager dedicated to getting the most out of your vendor ecosystem.
For other organizations, that level of specialization simply isn't practical or necessary.
And that's an important distinction. What it means to thrive in one organization may look entirely different in another.
There isn't necessarily a right or wrong approach. The objective is to understand where your program stands today, what your organization needs from mobility, and where you have the greatest opportunity to improve.
During the workshop, we introduced THRIVE, a framework designed to help mobility teams take a broader view of program effectiveness.
THRIVE examines six interconnected dimensions:
Too often, mobility performance is evaluated through familiar operational metrics: costs, initiation volumes, service levels, and processing times. Those measures are important, but they don't tell the whole story.
Our conversations around Human Experience and Influencing were particularly interesting.
Participants discussed the importance of delivering information at the right moment, tailoring communications to different stakeholders, and using data to tell a more compelling story about mobility's impact.
The broader lesson was that program effectiveness requires a balanced perspective. A program can be operationally efficient while still having opportunities to improve the employee experience, strengthen stakeholder relationships, or demonstrate its strategic contribution.
THRIVE gives teams a way to step back, consider these different dimensions, and identify the areas that matter most to their organization.
Perhaps my favorite insight came during our rapid roundtable discussion about return on investment.
We quickly discovered that everyone had a slightly different definition of ROI. More importantly, there was broad recognition that simply producing more metrics doesn't necessarily demonstrate greater value.
One participant shared an example of spending months developing a comprehensive presentation for their CFO, covering program costs, performance, and other measures. When the presentation was finally delivered, the CFO was interested in just one number.
It's a great reminder that effective reporting starts with understanding your audience, not building a dashboard.
Before deciding what to measure or report, mobility teams should engage with stakeholders to understand what success means to them.
For one leader, it may be cost management. For another, employee retention, speed to deployment, or the ability to support a changing talent strategy.
The goal isn't simply to generate data. It's to turn that data into a story that informs decisions and demonstrates value.
Global Mobility teams spend so much time managing the day-to-day complexities of their programs that it can be difficult to step back and ask a bigger question: Are we delivering what our organization actually needs?
That's what made this workshop so valuable.
THRIVE isn't about achieving a perfect score or comparing your program against someone else's. It's about understanding your starting point, defining what success looks like for your organization, and identifying practical opportunities to improve.
A big thank you to Genentech for hosting us, to our partners at Equus Software and NetExpat for helping lead the conversation, and especially to the mobility professionals who generously shared their experiences and perspectives.
So, what does it mean for your mobility program to thrive? And where is your greatest opportunity to improve?
Explore AIRINC's THRIVE framework and assess your mobility program.