4 Tips To Become an International Employer of Choice

 What is an international employer of choice? Well, in today’s world, it is about building an employer brand which makes your business attractive to the global employee market-place. This is not applicable to all businesses as many business strategies can be executed effectively using domestic talent and resources.

Talent shortage

But, as the Manpower 2012 talent shortage survey shows, many countries, industries and professions are suffering specific talent shortages with 34 percent of employers struggling to find top talent. One area of talent shortage, which has caused considerable concern for employers and governments, is the national and global shortage in the STEM disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Location mismatch rather than talent shortage

However, a survey by Accenture suggests that there is no talent shortage in this area, but rather a location mismatch. They report that the talent is available, but not necessarily in the location where it is needed. For example, while there may be a shortage of materials engineers in Germany, there is a large and growing pool of such talent in China. This location mismatch will (at least until nations develop their own STEM talent pipelines) drive companies to venture beyond the traditional domestic hunting ground into the international market for talent. This is currently taking place and the need for companies to hunt for overseas talent to fill gaps, especially in the STEM disciplines, is expected to intensify in the short-and-medium-term future.

This means that many employers, especially those in the STEM areas, will need to be able to attract overseas talent. Sure, there may be an abundance of overseas talent waiting to travel to your location for work, but if you want to attract the cream of international in a competitive global market, you will need to present yourself as an international employer of choice—and below I have set out several steps you can take to help you achieve this.

1. Your brand must address the main motivators for international relocation

In order to appeal to expatriate workers you need to understand what their underlying motivations to move actually are. For example, according to the Global Talent Mobility  survey, the main three reasons that workers relocate abroad are: chance to broaden experience, better career opportunitiesand personal challenge.

An interesting study from Nature, which is more focused around the STEM sector, found that the four main reasons for scientists to move abroad were: better quality of life, more research funding, better salary and wanting to experience another [positive]culture.

So in order to be attractive to international talent your brand message must reflect and satisfy these criteria.

2. What constitutes an attractive relocation package?

If you want to appeal to the top talent you need to offer a competitive relocation package and this should be clearly reflected in your brand message. In the Sante Fe Group’s Global Mobility Survey they outlined the top ten features of a relocation package and we have shown the first five below.

1. Immigration visa/work permits (89%)

2. Temporary Housing (84%)

3. Medical Coverage (83%)

4. Household Moving (78%)

5. Pay arrangements (78%)

These are the kind of relocation benefits you will need to offer if you are to be seen as an international employer of choice and attract top talent.

3. What information do potential international workers need to make their relocation decision?

The Global Talent Mobility survey also found that employees wanted to be given key bits of information about the potential international assignment early on in the process, in order to feel more at ease about the role and to make them more likely to apply. These five pieces of crucial, upfront, priming information were: accommodation,standardofliving,comfortablesocialenvironment,languagelearningopportunitiesandrelocationarrangements.So, it is clear that this kind of information should be reflected in the international employer brand message from the beginning of the candidate communication process.

4. What is the ideal assignment duration?

The Global Talent Barometer survey tells us that international job seekers are ideally looking for fixed-term assignments of 12 months or longer and the average length of assignments is about 2/3 years according to a Bosson Consulting survey. So, ensure that you benchmark your assignment periods alongside industry norms to ensure that you appeal to the typical international worker.

I realize that developing your business as an international employer of choice will take considerable investment of time and resources – beyond reading an article – but I hope this has served as a useful introduction to the topic.