Welcome to the latest issue of Mobility Minute, a newsletter created by Worldwide ERC®. Once a week, this newsletter will land in your inbox to keep you up-to-date on the news from and about the global workforce mobility industry.
What's happening?
Here's a quick glimpse of what you'll find in this week's Mobility Minute:
A Call for Immigration Reform
Weighing the Cost of Return to Office Policies
Student Debt Relief in the Benefits Package
A Call for Immigration Reform
“As in past years, the 85,000 cap for these coveted (H1-B) visas has already been reached,” wrote Lynn Shotwell, GMS, SHRM-SCP, this week. “One more avenue for companies struggling to find qualified workers has been closed,” Shotwell noted that companies began filing petitions to sponsor high-skilled foreign-born employees on April 1.
Get the facts:
USCIS announced a trio of reforms to reduce backlogs and ease visa processing delays
“In 2022, a country’s national security and economic vitality center around talent,” wrote Stuart Anderson in Forbes magazine this week. Noting that China and Russia have taken steps to ensure they have the scientists and engineers they will need for the 21st century, Anderson says “the United States…risks falling behind because it is too difficult for talented foreign-born individuals to stay or immigrate to America.” In the critical fields of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, the US competes directly with China and Russia for a small cohort of the most gifted STEM professionals. Their choice of destination country represents a clear win for one country and comparable losses for the others.
According to the National Foundation for American Policy, immigrants to the United States were responsible for 38% of Nobel Prizes awarded to the US in 2000-2001 for Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine. In 2016, all 6 American winners of the Nobel Prize in economics and scientific fields were immigrants.
Google’s voluntary work-from-home-policy ended on Monday, April 4, and those who have not applied for an exemption are required to report to the office three times per week. But there are distinctly different sentiments coming from surveys of employers and employees. Many may rightly wonder if the search engine giant may soon be searching for new employees.
The April Human Workplace Index reported that more than half of all respondents reported being required to return to on-site work full-time in April. According to recent surveys by GoodHire of 3,500 American managers, 77% were willing to impose severe consequences for employees who refuse, such as reducing pay and benefits or firing outright. But as large organizations implement return to office policies, employees are increasingly looking for and accepting positions that offer more flexibility.
According to recent research by Topia, organizational inflexibility is cited as a reason for 29% of employees who changed jobs in 2021. Fully 64% of those who returned to the office said the requirement to work from the office full time made them more likely to begin a job search for a position with more flexibility.
As the competition for talent heats up, even Wall Street’s financial giants are making concessions to employees whose overweening “Masters of the Universe” personas have given way to desires to skip commutes into the city and indulge more in work/life balance.
72% of respondents cite flexible work arrangements as the third most essential quality in a new employer, behind high compensation and employee well-being.
60% of managers either strongly agreed or agreed that a full-time return to the office was happening in the near future.
51% of managers thought employees wanted to return to the office full-time
51% of managers said their companies would definitely consider pay cuts for those employees that refused to return to the office.
Why it's Important
Here at Worldwide ERC, we have read (and written) a lot about the Future of Work and Remote Work in the past two years. What seems clear is that the final answer is still being actively negotiated by all stakeholders. Organizations that can strike the right balance will claim the best of remote and in-office work. Ultimately they will benefit in recruitment, productivity, and retention.
While upper management and rank and file employees work out their differences, mobility and HR professionals should pay attention to the Topia study. The majority of employees (66%) admit to not reporting all the days they work outside of their home state or country. In contrast, the vast majority of HR professionals (90%) are confident that employees are accurately reporting this work away from home. Happily, the vast majority of employees (91%) are content to have their employer track their location at the city level, so technologies and policies should be implemented at the earliest opportunity to be prepared for the Future of Work whatever it is.
Green Acres is the Place for Me—Suburban communities outside the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex region accounted for roughly three-quarters of the population growth in the past 12 years. Deb Borrell, CRP, GMS, attributes much of the growth to various forms of transportation that were put in place before the actual need, beginning with the DFW International Airport. The airport set the region to be recognized as a national crossroads. Strategically centered in the middle of the country, DFW Airport allows travelers to travel to either coast in a matter of a few hours—an ideal point of departure for remote workers with an occasional need to visit headquarters anywhere in the United States.
Student Debt Relief in the Benefits Package—Large organizations searching for young, well-educated workers now offer to assist with student loans. As a primary factor in financial stability and a means to earn employee loyalty, more employers are addressing employee’s student debt as a recruitment tool, similar to health insurance, transit passes, and gym memberships.
Hybrid Work Models Risk Proximity Bias Issues—Proximity bias assumes that in-office workers perform better and ultimately find more success in the workplace than their remote counterparts. This bias often presents on-site workers access better perks, more face time with executives and other leaders, and more promotions and better pay. In contrast, remote workers may be left out of meetings, unrecognized on projects, and paid less than their in-office peers.
SEC Proposes New Rules for Climate-Related Disclosures—a Proposed Rule released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires a public company to disclose Board oversight and governance of climate-related risks, any climate-related risks likely to have a material impact on business and consolidated financial statements, and climate-related risks that affect the company’s strategy, business model, or outlook
On Tap
Spring Virtual Conference, May 17-19, 2022. This conference was created for relocation professionals interested in current issues affecting the relocation industry. We will focus on sustainability, compliance, growth strategy, remote work, and more. Click here to register.
Webinar: Green Card Process for Nurses, Physical Therapists, and Med Techs, April 28, 2022. By 2025 the U.S. will face a shortage of 29,400 nurse practitioners, among many shortages throughout the healthcare industry. WR Immigration attorneys will illuminate a path to reversing this trend in this webinar. We will run through techniques that can be used to meet this shortage, showing the process for how HR/Global Mobility professionals can bring nurses, physical therapists, and med techs into their U.S. company from around the world via a Green Card. Click here to register.
Registration is Open for the 2022 CRP® exam; the deadline is April 29, 2022. The deadline to apply to sit for the CRP is April 29, 2022. This will be the ONLY opportunity to sit for the CRP exam this year. The Worldwide ERC Certified Relocation Professional (CRP) designation is the only credential dedicated to identifying professionals that demonstrate a broad understanding of managing employee mobility within the United States. Learn more on Worldwide ERC.
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