The past few years have brought fundamental changes to the world of work and talent mobility. Businesses that used to have one central workplace may now have as many sites as they do workers, as home offices continue to extend across the country and around the world. The workforce is more mobile and will continue to be. While a more mobile workforce brings great opportunities to expand innovation, productivity, and worker well-being, it also presents new challenges for businesses, talent mobility professionals, and policy leaders. As leaders turn to the challenge of crafting public policies for the ever-evolving world of work, our members — more than 5,000 certified relocation professionals and global mobility specialists who have mastered the process of moving working professionals around the world — can help.
At WERC we believe:
Public policies must support work everywhere.
Talent mobility professionals are experts at delivering strategies that support where work is — and that could be anywhere in the world because of recent evolutions in the workplace. They are always looking forward, preparing for and anticipating the future of talent mobility. Economic development, tax simplification, and housing policies that support a mobile workforce are imperative to give businesses and workers the advantage they need to compete in the global economy.
Public policies must be agile.
The modern workplace forces industries and workers to be innovative, thoughtful, and flexible. Public policies should be similarly proactive. Whether it be public policies governing the protection of personal information, those that relate to deploying technological solutions, or reforms for ensuring a predictable and reliable employment-based immigration system, public policymakers should recognize that it’s no longer “business as usual,” and give talent mobility professionals what they need to deploy successful talent strategies.
Public policies must be attentive.
They must protect and develop the workforce while treating people and compliant businesses fairly. They should promote employers acting in good faith and penalize those that do not comply with the law. Further, as technology creates greater efficiencies, one standard for protecting data privacy for workers should be created. Just as talent mobility professionals support the development of skilled and diverse talent who are the heartbeat of the workforce, so too should policymakers, implementing public policies that support workers as they seek new skills to prepare them for the modern workplace.