In a global economy, more companies are relocating more employees to different locations. While telecommuting can allow businesses to connect with experts in ways they never considered before, sometimes you need feet on the ground in a particular location. Sending employees on a trip requires one level of organization, but if you’re relocating employees for a length of time, the process gets much more complex. This is even more complicated If the parent is a single parent.

Many companies rely on their employees to organize their own moves, but this is a poor choice for efficiency, affordability, or employee morale. Instead of leaving your employee to figure it all out on their own, use a relocation service. These professional companies know all the ins and outs of moves and are able to coordinate the various facets into a smooth process that leaves employees happier about their relocation.

Relocation services can help with a number of different issues.

Housing

One of the biggest challenges when moving to an area where you have not been before is finding a new house or apartment. Many employees end up finding somewhere to rent while they look for a new permanent home, but that’s expensive for the employer and frustrating for the employee. It necessitates two moves (at least) and uproots the employee’s family twice.

A relocation service can help find permanent or long term housing for your employee which meets their needs, is high quality, and is within your relocation budget.

Jobs for a spouse

One of the biggest reasons for a relocation to be complicated is the spouse’s opinion on the move. So-called trailing spouses are uprooted from their jobs, their friends, their routines, and more. Expecting them to give up everything they care for in their current home because of their spouse’s job is a recipe for frustration. This will spill into the employee’s work performance and cause problems.

A relocation service can help your employee’s spouse find new job prospects, or options to continue their social interests. This can improve their opinion of the move and ease your employee’s potential frustrations.

Schooling for kids

Relocating with kids to an unfamiliar area is never an easy task. When employees have kids, making sure their new home is in the right district for good schools is a crucial issue in a move. This can be even more of an issue if any of the employee’s children have a 504 or IEP plan through their school. Making sure they can access appropriate services in a new district can make or break a potential move.

Relocation services can help employees evaluate school districts and make sure that the family is in boundaries for a high quality school that will meet their needs.

Language training

Although telecommuting is becoming more common and more businesses are run by partners who only ever meet through video chats or on occasional business trips, some businesses need to have operations in many different countries. If employees are moving to a new country, language training is of huge benefit to the employee and the employer. Even in another country that ostensibly speaks the same language (the United States to the United Kingdom, for example), business customs and conventions are different, and it’s easy for employees to misstep and make a crucial error at just the wrong time.

Relocation services can help employees learn the local language, focusing on business terms and the dialect needed to be understood and understand those in their living area. In countries like China, for example, dialects vary wildly by area.

Keeps employee morale up

Employee relocations cause poor morale and frustration, and often result in diminished performance and decreased efficiency. In many cases the employee will eventually rebound; in others, they will eventually leave the company, either to find a new job in their new location, or to return to their home country, where they were more comfortable. This is a huge cost to companies, between onboarding, the outlay costs of the move, and any housing costs in the new location.

By working with an experienced and professional relocation services company, employees can focus less on the ins and outs of their move, and instead let the relocation services company do most of the legwork. They can keep their job performance up because they don’t need to worry about moving from one location to another – especially with international moves – and because their spouse and children are better taken care of.

Businesses often think they can either have the employee handle all relocation details and submit expenses for reimbursement or do the work themselves. If the employer is not experienced in relocation, however, details will be missed and can cause even bigger problems. Choosing an experienced relocation services company from the start is just good business.