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Darkness falls across the land
The big group move is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of good
To find a brand new neighborhood
And with many answers to be found
You need advanced teams on the ground
Counselors, vendors, instructors tell
Your zombie families all is well 
Last year, after a day of meetings and daydreaming, I put together relocation program challenges for Zombies. The concept captured the imagination of our readers and, like all successful stories, there must be a sequel!
So, your relocation program is a success and, for once, you are staying on budget. You hear an occasional groan – they do that a lot actually. But, for the most part, your zombies are moving with the precision of the Zombies in the Thriller video. Then, a monkey wrench is thrown into the operation! Your business model is shifting. The cost of (un)living is continually on the rise. Resources, regulations, and infrastructure issues are making you move facilities and personnel to a new city. For many companies, a group move can turn into quite the horror story.
I know, I know. So, why am I bothering to tell you about it? Well, we’ve been covering a lot of supplier diversity topics lately and I think this is an important point to make. Supplier diversity is not a function of HR BUT that does not mean that HR can’t embrace supplier diversity as an option when looking to outsource projects. What is does mean, however, is that there is a fine line between selecting a supplier because they are diverse and selecting a supplier because they are the best and happen to be a diverse supplier.
Today, I want to talk about performance reviews. We all know that most companies rely on the data provided by performance reviews for numerous business decisions. When I was in HR, reviews were a useful tool for succession planning, compensation decisions, recruitment and retention strategies, development initiatives and engagement plans. These issues are clearly very important in the workplace, so we never questioned the need for a robust performance program. The question we did struggle with, however, was how to effectively infuse accuracy and timeliness into the process.
Are you relocating employees to Moscow, Tokyo or Luanda, Angola? If so, we feel for you…and them. Apparently, these are the top three most expensive cities for expats and, if they are a part of your global mobility program, then they are likely a top three on the headache list for you.
Mercer recently released their 2013 Cost of Living Survey, which analyzes the cost of living across 214 cities across five continents. They survey compares the prices of more than 200 items in these cities, including real estate, goods and services, to the cost of these items in New York City. Why New York? Well, New York City is the most expensive city in the U.S., so it serves as a good barometer for cost of living comparisons around the globe – especially if your expats are moving from the U.S. to an international destination.
As many know, XONEX Relocation is proud to be certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council as a Women’s Business Enterprise. I’m lucky enough to get to go to all the conferences. It’s a great group of people and we learn a lot from each other about supplier diversity and its impact on organizations. As such, I get asked a lot of questions about Tier I and Tier II supplier diversity spending in organizations. So much so that I recently wrote a whitepaper on supplier diversity trends. We received a lot of good feedback and it dawned on me that a blog post on Tier I and Tier II spending would be of interest to our blog readers.
