5 Tips to Make Relocating Easier for Your Employees

5 Tips to Make Relocating Easier for Your Employees

When you manage a company that has multiple locations across the country, you might have to make difficult decisions regarding relocating your employees. Nobody wants to uproot a family and ask them to relocate to another city. However, it sometimes is necessary for the good of the business.

How you handle this process will speak volumes about your compassion and care for your employees.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: MOVE TO ANOTHER CITY PAINLESSLY—EVEN WITH A HOME-BASED BUSINESS

 

Try These Five Tips

If you’ve ever had to move for work reasons, then you know how challenging the process can be. Psychologically, you have to deal with leaving behind friends and family. Then, you need to settle into a new place. Practically, you face numerous challenges with regard to housing, money, and family responsibilities.

You can’t solve every issue for your workers. And they always have the option to refuse to move, even if that means finding a job with another company instead. However, there are some considerate things you can choose to do that will make the process a little easier for them.

 

1. Cover Moving Expenses

Moving expenses can really add up. Your employee shouldn’t be expected to cover all the costs when the company is insisting on the shift for its benefit. You’d be smart to cover these expenses as part of a relocation package. Maybe you can’t afford to foot the entire bill. However, you could help out with logistics. This can be a huge time saver, and your employee will appreciate it.

 

2. Help People Find Housing

“Relocating to a new city, whether for work or personal reasons, is often an anxious time,” notes Green Residential, a Houston-based property management company. “Not only do you have to uproot your family and leave behind friends, jobs, and a community that you’re familiar with, but there’s also the challenge of finding a house.”

The more helpful you make yourself in assisting your employees with finding housing opportunities, the more willing they’re apt to be about having to relocate when you ask them to. There are plenty of ways to help on this front. For example, you can assist with the sale of their existing home. You could offer to pay for Realtor fees and closing costs. Further, you can suggest attractive neighborhoods in the new location where they might find housing. You could even offer to pay for temporary housing for the first few months.

 

3. Assist with Finding the Spouse a Job

Relocating an employee who is young and single isn’t typically a big deal. However, relocating an employee who has a working spouse can be problematic. If you really want to go above and beyond the call of duty, assist with finding the spouse a job. This will and make the relocation process as simple as possible for your employee and their family. Work your connections and set up interviews and/or job opportunities where you can.

 

4. Coordinate the Details

The obvious big-picture facets, like the move itself and finding housing, are the most crucial. But dozens of smaller logistical details can make a relocation so much more stressful and time-consuming. If you can help to coordinate more of these details, you will lift a huge burden off your workers’ shoulders.

“The most common problems that new residents encounter typically involve the time-consuming cycle of local registrations like opening up a bank account, applying for a national insurance number, setting up internet, or registering with health providers,” says Brynne Herbert, CEO of MOVE Guides, a professional relocation company. “Provide clear and accurate information on what they will need to register for in their new city.”

 

 

5. Give Them Time to Settle In

One of the more inconsiderate things you can do is to expect an employee to move on a weekend and return to work on Monday. Give people a little time to settle in and figure out the personal aspects of relocation. At a bare minimum, you might extend three to five days to give them the opportunity to figure a few things out.

 

Set Your Employees up to Succeed

From a business perspective, you have a vested interested in helping employees relocate in a quick and relatively painless manner. The easier they can make the shift, the better they’re apt to perform in their workplace.

Keep that in mind the next time you send an employee to a new location.