Club 100 Global Mobility Huddle - Nov 2023

It was snowing as I set off on the morning of our global mobility Huddle but despite the freezing weather, Club 100 bundled up and gathered together at Vialto’s offices (I’m sure you’ve heard about the views!) for our final event of the year. We kicked off with a “secret talent” icebreaker where we found that we have a champion ten pin bowler and a cheerleader in our midst.

We dived straight into the technical updates where Ashish Majitha, Deborah Wilson and Julia Hensems from Vialto Partners gave us all of the key announcements from the Autumn Statement 2023. To name but a few, we covered employee national insurance, pensions, national living wage and that all important lifetime allowance abolition. We then took a closer look at the EMEA region with an in-depth look at the Netherlands 30% ruling. Then, our favourite part, the expectations and estimations for next year – I won’t set it in writing!

James Bowerbank from CooperVision was first to give us a corporate update and we heard how he has spent time cleaning up historic agreements, putting in standard guides and frameworks and how he has big ambitions in 2024 to align with talent management. Kathryn Blackley-Smith from Alvarez of Marsal then shared how she has also spent a lot of time “cleaning up” and taking her GM programme back to basics, process mapping and educating talent acquisition. We can’t wait to hear how the rollout of a new STBV tool goes!

Of course the huddles themselves are the most anticipated sessions and our first one looked at how we can shift GM from being operational to more strategic. Education, awareness and improvements all came as suggestions but we all agreed that there will always have to be some element of operational work in GM.

James Whetherly from Renishaw kicked off the second round of corporate updates and we heard how he has been putting new frameworks, parameters and education in place all whilst hoping to implement trusted vendors. Then Tommy Mann from Clyde & Co talked us through how he has taken his programme from a limited, lumpsum based, inequal affair to a place of new policies, remote working and “mobility for all” – he’s been quite busy in the last 18 months!

We covered off some of the Hot Potatoes members had been sending in before we returned to Vialto Partners with Lyudmyla Davies giving us the latest in immigration. We looked at the top 3 themes in 2023 – skills shortage vs greater protectionism, remote working and digitisation/technology. We took a look at the outlook for 2024 and with elections in countries making up 50% of global GDP, we might expect it to be a year of change with possible changes in fees, penalties, digital visas and more.

Our last session was Perspective Playground where the room was divided into 2 teams, arguing that employee experience or cost control was the most important. We learned how any argument can be enhanced and how we might be able to better influence our stakeholders, as well as what they value in a proposal.

We wrapped up the day, found a Christmas tree had appeared in the networking area, and had those all important conversations over a drink. There may have been some pool involved, but I won’t be able to confirm who won here…