Ongoing Inflation. Chronic supply chain shortages. The looming threat of recession. For many businesses, cutting costs is a 2023 imperative—and that means cutting relocation budgets, too.
After all, more than 80% of CEOs are bracing for a recession. According to the Wall Street Journal, companies are actively seeking ways to cut costs: reevaluating suppliers, renegotiating contracts and reducing spending in any way they can.
However, WSJ also finds that employers—overwhelmingly—don’t want to cut their workforces. Or step back from their recruiting goals, since many remain in dire need of talent.
If you’re one of those employers, how do you thread the needle? How do you downsize your relocation expenses while aggressively recruiting?
There are a number of ways to respond to a dwindling relocation budget, but some make more sense than others when it comes to supporting your recruiting efforts.
For example, you may be tempted to slash your relocation program across the board—tier by tier, benefit by benefit, in one clean sweep. But then, your recruiting efforts will take a hit, because your job offers will become less attractive.
Or, you can stop offering relocation packages altogether for most positions, limiting benefits to a chosen few.
But that means limiting job searches to your local candidate pool. For industries that require specialized training—say, healthcare—that will make recruiting infinitely harder, and open positions will remain open even longer.
Or, you can do the smart thing—the thing that won’t hurt your recruiting efforts. It’s easier than you might think, and it may give you a competitive edge just when you really need one.
Rather than cut relocation benefits, why not work on cutting relocation costs? Frankly, it may not be too difficult, as many relocation programs are teeming with waste…once you know where to look.
Chances are, you can design a significantly leaner program without compromising benefits or services—and possibly even improving them. Here are three ways to get started.
Whether you offer a traditional, fully-covered relocation policy or a modern lump sum plan, upgrading to a managed-budget policy is one of the best money-saving moves you can make.
Managed-budget policies blend the versatility of lump sum plans (i.e., employees can use their benefits pretty much however they wish) with the superior service of fully-supported relocations.
However, unlike lump sum policies—which allow employees to keep all unspent dollars, a really unwise idea—unspent managed-budget funds stay in the employer’s account. And unlike fully-covered plans, they gently steer employees toward cost-effective choices.