Winner of the 2018 Relocate Award for Best Relocation Management Company

MSI Global Talent Solutions

The judges celebrated MSI Global Talent Solutions for its proactivity in responding to client needs and anticipating the services that would add value. Describing themselves as a human capital advisory firm, their entry showed a flexible approach to client requirements across a wide range of outsourcing and consulting services.

With the number of business travellers on the rise, their Business Travel Compliance programme responds well to two key challenges clients face today, compliance in areas such as immigration and tax and employee security, and duty of care responsibilities.

Immigration support is critical to keeping assignees and business travellers mobile. MSI is now regulated by the UK government and as such the MSI UK team is permitted to provide direct UK immigration advice to clients. A case study illustrated how MSI worked with a client following the acquisition and merger of a company with over forty locations. MSI’s approach was to invite key HR stakeholders to a meeting to review future requirements, map out a process and agree roles and responsibilities. This resulted in MSI’s immigration team piloting an outsourced immigration model for six key locations as a cost-effective solution that reduced HR’s workload and improved the assignee experience.

Thinking outside the box

Elaine Phipps, vice president EMEA is passionate about helping HR to understand business pressures and come up with a melded solution that both meets the needs of the business but also achieves the goals of HR whether that is around compliance, a new initiative or building a global mobility programme fit for the future.

Coming from an HR background and a business background, she understands the importance of seeing things from the company’s perspective and not just from the relocation point of view. This dual perspective is replicated in the delivery of their Strategic Insights Round Tables (SIRT). These dynamic and innovative workshops, attended by senior decision makers and facilitated by MSI specialists, enable clients to realise their own key objectives. Each workshop, provided at no cost, is part of their investment in their clients and helps provide a clear roadmap and action plan for achieving identified goals.

The judges praised MSI’s Strategic Round Table (SIRT) initiative which has proved to be an effective collaborative tool. Their entry explains, “The SIRT serves as an essential conduit that connects great ideas and minds and forms a consensus and call to action.”

Read about the winners of the other Relocate Awards in the Summer issue of Relocate Magazine.

The same philosophy was used to support a client bid on a project in Qatar. They needed to source a project team that could move speedily and compliantly to the new location once the contract was awarded. Elaine Phipps explained, “When I knew the client was looking to start up a new operation in Qatar, I understood all of the different aspects they needed to think about – in terms of business start-up, employee legislation, immigration and the restrictions for the different types of employee they might be intending to hire, etc. You need to have an awareness of who you will be able to mobilise and relocate and think about how you will be able to employ them. Do you have an entity available to you in that country to do that or do you need another solution?

“Several meetings were held with the global mobility team, project director, and the finance director and the output was powerful and prompted them to think in a different way. It was also incredibly rewarding from my perspective,” she added.

“It’s important to have a holistic view of what the company needs to think about. Global mobility is often no longer a stand alone specialism, frequently being one aspect of a broader HR role. Thus we are seeing an increasing need to bring in external resources who can add a wider perspective and value to the process,” she concluded. The approach seems to be paying off.

Relocate’s new Global Mobility Toolkit provides free information, practical advice and support for HR, global mobility managers and global teams operating overseas.

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_{©2018. This article first appeared in the Summer 2018 edition of Relocate magazine, published by Profile Locations, Spray Hill, Hastings Road, Lamberhurst, Kent TN3 8JB. All rights reserved. This publication (or any part thereof) may not be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of Profile Locations. Profile Locations accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein.}