Compliance - keeping our promises

Much energy has been devoted to GDPR compliance; we have all learned that it’s now a GDPR world.  While we’re all exhaling a bit after the sprint to May 25, let’s not forget the day-day mundane need for contract management.  We promise in our agreements to comply with all laws, and so we should. Our clients - employers, relocation mgmt companies, suppliers - all expect promises to be kept.  Therefore, we need to keep a sharp eye on program activity and performance and align it with the promises made.

New customers with special needs, customer-specific pricing, customized services all are part and parcel of the flexible nature of relocation.  In each case we need to document and track as time goes by.  This is particularly true of agreements with “most favored pricing” clauses.  And don’t forget those regulatory changes that hit you know where!

Contract management is part of client service management.  Look often, be alert to impending renewal dates and added services that were promised at a client review.  Remember too that evergreen contracts are not always a good idea.

Diagnostics to Identify and Cure Risk

A periodic review of program home sale management may be useful.  Taking a selection of closed transactions through the process in place, compared to the process actually followed turns stones over into the sunlight.  For example, on a group of 100 files, find out how often brokers outside of standard were used and compare to inventory results. 

What if on the 100 files, 25% were outside of standard, resulting in 20% increase in home sale loss and  carry cost?  The aggregate result would lead to, once corrected, a substantial refinement in service results and program performance.

The exercise will likely reveal risk mitigation opportunities, whether due to process errors or changes in needs.  Process changes may be needed, systems or forms or reports may be added, policy changes may be identified, insurance coverage issues uncovered.  (inspections, CLUE, etc)  We can help.

All kinds of risk to manage

Relocation industry pros must manage many kinds of risk in handling mobility.  The newest issue on the list is GDPR and the proliferation of state rules - like the recent California law.

Here are a few other matters which require attention and process foundation to fully serve corporate clients: loss on sale from real estate, tax and expense management, computer, regulatory, property management, IT and business continuity, and insurable risk covered via liability insurance.

In today's rumbling world, we need to be very mindful of the risks presented by assignments in foreign countries.  We need to help employers profile candidates to see if they match the location.  Political risk - from unstable societies or internal conflict - requires special attention.  Also disease and epidemics and the ability of the host country to provide medical care. 

Take a wide view of the risks associated with mobility management.  A failed move may lead to loss of a key executive, an expensive proposition in any case

Fourth of July

So what was the world like in 1776?  Why were the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence so remarkable after all?

Europe was dominated by empires, ruled by kings, emperors and sultans.  The great powers were Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Turkey.  Most were ruled by absolute monarchs, beholden to no elected assembly who could curb their power and authority.

Democracy was, to some extent, a historical curiosity.  The Athenians (Greeks) had installed democratic government that ultimately failed; so too the Romans.  The Italian city-states had short-lived republics, but each had fallen either into despotism or had been overrun by the armies of France.  The Pope in Rome was not only a spiritual authority, he controlled territory and fielded armies. 

China and Japan were closed societies and mostly unknown to Europeans.  Descendents of Genghis Khan were losing their grip on India.  The African interior was almost totally unexplored.  Australia had just been discovered and would be colonized by convict immigrants.  North and South America were vast wildernesses with only the coasts and great river valleys settled.

People believed in demons and witches; deep, dark woods were terrifying.  Travel was very dangerous after dark, only candles and torches provided light.  Medicine was crude by our standards - intentional bleeding of the patient was a common treatment for all kinds of ailments.

Yet, it was also an era of great men and women.  Mozart, Beethoven and Napoleon were alive.  Catherine the Great ruled Russia.  Edmund Burke, the Scottish philosophers Adam Smith and David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, the influential German philosopher, were in their prime.

To our good fortune Jefferson and Madison, Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton can also be counted among the great.  But in the imagination of the age, George Washington, was the indispensable man.  It was his leadership and example as commander-in-chief, and later at the Constitutional Convention, that inspired the revolutionary generation. 

Where did our founders look for inspiration?  Well, to lessons of history about the rise and fall of nations.  They especially studied Greek and Roman history, for the ancients’ triumphs and failures.  They read and studied the influential Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle who wrote so often about politics. 

In the crucial years of the 1770s and 1780s, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws helped guide those who would have to create a new government if the revolution was a success.  During the Constitutional Convention and the lively debate over ratification that followed, Montesquieu was a crucial authority on republics.

So, in a world of empires and absolute monarchs, at the edge of a vast continent, our forebears set out to overthrow the authority of Europe’s most powerful nation. 

Between 1775 and 1776, armed conflict with Britain broke out, and still there was wide disagreement on independence.  Many remained loyal to Britain.  It was not only the long odds of defeating Britain that caused uncertainty.  Declaring independence was treason, punishable by hanging. 

Yet, our founders took the momentous step and announced their independence from Britain boldly to the world: “all men are created equal”, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. 

For this new nation, the United States of America, sovereignty would reside in the citizen, not in kings and aristocrats.  To this Declaration of Independence 56 men signed their names and pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”.

Something to think about this July 4^th.

NYC rental prices top $4000 per month

In recently published rental data, several neighborhoods of Manhattan turned in average rents of over $4000 per month for a 2 BR apartment.  The prices moderate as one travels into and beyond Morningside Heights.  But Midtown and, especially, Downtown still experience high demand, low vacancy and increasing prices.  All the major analysts expect the trend to continue through 2016.

And this, in spite of the fact that a 15% brokers fee is still charged by apartment finders - and that's 15% of the annual rental cost.

There are less expensive options in Brooklyn, Queens and the New Jersey towns just across the Hudson from Manhattan.  As in other parts of the country, increased building of new rental units cannot keep pace with demand.  The New York City economy is robust and the lure of the big city draws people from all over the world.

Memorial Day

Monday we celebrate the holiday set aside to honor those who died fighting in America’s wars.  It was first established as Decoration Day during and after our Civil War, a conflict that claimed 620,000 lives in the North and South.  May 30 was chosen for remembrance because it was a peaceful day – not the anniversary of any battle.

We should recall the impetus for such a day of remembrance.  In 1861, at the outbreak of war between North and South, our nation’s population was only 30 million.  If we experienced casualties today at the rate we did in our Civil War, there would be 6 million American dead.  So you can imagine the crushing weight of grief and the impact on society of such carnage. 

Decoration Day became Memorial Day in many places over the decades.  After World War II, May 30 became Memorial Day all over the nation.  By law it was moved officially in 1967 to the last Monday in May to make a long holiday weekend, and symbolic beginning of summer.

So nations learn how to cope, and how to honor those who sacrificed so greatly.  Our Memorial Day growing up was our most solemn and moving celebration, especially with nearly all the men in town having served in World War II.  Taps and prayers at the cemetery, decorations on graves of the fallen, comforting of those who felt the sting of loss – these helped us heal and move on without forgetting.

History provides the perspective we need to carry lessons with us, and pass them on to our children.  But Memorial Day is not merely a history lesson; it is a life lesson.  Wars take a terrible toll.  We should honor all of our veterans, who remember those that died as fellow soldiers in the crucible of battle.

 

 

Give Us theTools

The news keeps coming on.  Occupancy is staying high.  Millenials are renting, and that takes a big chuck out of the first-time homebuyer market.  Boomers are downsizing into apartments.  New household creations from new job holders leans heavily toward renting.  Even record delivery of new inventory only slightly dents the tight market.

So now that we've established a trend, likely to hold for a long while, it's time to adjust and deploy the tools we need.  Give assignees a head start with market insights.  Allow them to profile markets to focus on lifestyle preferences.  Help them with upfront funding when they have banking access issues. Get useful, actionable market data on both departure and destination markets.

Don't believe the heavy emphasis on the young & mobile using technology; everybody used tech and it has to be on the mobile phone.

It's a new normal - flip side relocation world.