Our global mobility service caters for numerous organisations that have a physical base either in New Zealand or elsewhere in the world. Sometimes, our clients struggle with finding local talent to fill important roles within their organisation.
This is when they look elsewhere in the world to find the top talent that they need to help their organisation grow and thrive. This requires the relocation not only of the new employees but quite often their immediate family as well.
That’s why Crown has a dedicated division that handles mobility and relocation services for top organisations right around the world.
Here are some case studies that outline how we do this.
Fonterra is the world’s largest dairy exporter. Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, they proudly share their products with a billion people every day. To help maximise their performance, they move people all over the world to manage strategic projects and encourage innovation. For the last 15 years, Crown World Mobility has been one of their preferred suppliers.
Nicola Spencer has worked at Fonterra for three years and in international mobility for eight years. With all this industry experience, Nicola is used to the many challenges that a Mobility Team must deal with. Her team faces great pressure to deliver outstanding personal service for their people, often with a limited budget. Business expectations are huge as they need to move people quickly, navigate tax and immigration challenges, and make sure employees are motivated and ready from the moment they land in their new roles.
Each year Nicola’s team deal with approximately 80 international assignees, as well as permanent local and short-term moves. Nicola said:
“I’ve dealt with several different mobility companies during my career. Their performance can make or break the well-being of our staff as they start work on an international assignment. If they aren’t on the call, it can increase the pressure on my team. Any problems mean we will have disgruntled executives wanting to know why their staff have had a bad experience. It can be really stressful when it goes wrong but hugely rewarding when it works well”.
Nicola could not speak highly enough of the support that Crown provides:
“We have a brilliant relationship with Sharon Brandt and Marna Fourie at the Crown Office in Auckland. We are in contact every day and they are always proactive and flexible. If they feel someone needs extra support they will tell us. They’ve moved so many people; singles, couples, families – they know what they need to do and have early conversations to make sure our people are prepared for the move. We are lucky to have them. I’ve worked with other relocation firms but they don’t seem to grasp the effect they can have on people. Crown though get it, they’re amazing.”
With coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading across the world, mobility teams are under pressure to keep employees safe. Recently, Fonterra had to repatriate one of its employees from overseas.
Nicola explains: “An employee had to be evacuated at short notice from the Philippines. Marna was able to secure accommodation for their family, organise the correct car seats for three kids for the airport transfer, and arranged a basket of goodies on arrival. She went over and above with added support on the self-isolation requirements in New Zealand. It’s a fantastic example of Crown’s incredible customer service that prevails even at the most difficult of times, like this.”
The employee at Fonterra said: “We’re all safe and sound, and settled into the apartment. We appreciate everything that Crown did, and providing grocery essentials was a great gesture given we came in late at night, and most importantly they were Fonterra products as well!”
A New Zealand-based planning and construction company found themselves struggling to recruit engineers both in the New Zealand & overseas markets. Keen to ensure their investment in a UK-based recruitment drive was money well spent, they contacted Crown to see if we could provide a solution to help promote uptake.
In addition to the initial recruitment challenge, the company wanted to provide consistency in their relocation offering and ensure their new employees had the support necessary to get up and running in their new roles as quickly as possible.
Understanding the need to provide support very early on in the recruitment stage, Crown was able to mobilise its global resources very quickly, with its UK team delivering a tailored presentation, (prepared by Crown NZ) and providing local support during the recruitment drive, which resulted in an unprecedented success rate.
Crown Mobility Advisers were also made available for very early communication with a number of candidates, to further support in the decision-making process.
Crown was able to provide a tailored and all-encompassing relocation package which would not only support the seamless, employee-focused approach the company were looking for but also ensure they could leverage their purchasing power effectively, save money through avoiding duplication in administration and have comprehensive oversight of the project spend.
Given the high volume of new employees, Crown appointed an in-house project manager along with a dedicated Crown Mobility Adviser, available as a one-point-of-contact and management for each relocating employee. After an initial briefing call with the Mobility Adviser, a relocation plan which aligned with the company’s policy was prepared for each individual. This plan formed the basis for moving forward.
Immigration is the first building block of relocation and if it topples, so does everything else. The company had previously experienced delays and miscommunications so understood how costly they can be.
Crown provided full immigration support through its in-house team of licensed advisers and this was overseen by the Mobility Adviser to ensure complete oversight of the process and effective management of the next steps.
Once the visas were in place, Crown provided support with travel & accommodation arrangements for the employees and their family members.
For employees who were relocating household effects, Crown provided a brokered support model, where the Mobility Adviser obtained two or three comparative quotations, one from Crown and alternatives from its strictly vetted service partner network.
Once the new employees arrived in New Zealand, the Mobility Adviser appointed a Crown Consultant to support in securing housing.
The same Crown Consultant also provided settling-in assistance, supporting with key tasks like banking and IRD numbers, driver licenses, doctors, and sourcing networking opportunities for the employee and family members.
Crown also provided expense management support, providing reimbursements for several relocation-related disbursements, such as Immigration medicals or other similar expenses.
The in-house provision of immigration ensured a fully managed approach and supported the desired consistency and transparency throughout the process. All stakeholders felt informed and there were no unnecessary delays.
When it came to accommodation and travel, having a dedicated Mobility Adviser who is aware of and in control of the milestones required to get to the booking stage, meant there were no issues or unnecessary costs, like those which would normally arise from last-minute travel or accommodation changes. This also meant the company benefitted from using Crown’s network and experience to ensure the best value, safest and best quality travel/accommodation options for employees.
The delivery of Crown’s brokered approach for household effects relocation meant the company was able to effectively leverage Crown’s service partner network to ensure the best value, and best service proposition, whilst still having all the advantages of a fully managed relocation process and accountability from start to finish.
In addition, Crown was able to manage the consolidation of shipments from key locations, allowing for significant savings with no impact on the quality of service or timing. The one point of contact model again mitigated issues or extra costs which we know can arise due to inexperience when considering timing or customs regulations.
The Home Finding support provided was able to alleviate the added pressure of a constrained housing market, with informed and well-networked consultants helping the new arrivals to navigate two very challenging markets, Auckland & Wellington.
The programme helped ensure employees were equipped to make the right decisions and helped them secure housing as quickly as possible, minimizing time in costly temporary accommodation.
This and the settling-in support helped the employee and their family members to integrate into their new environment and make it feel like home.
The provision of expense management helped make sure the company had oversight of the true relocation spend and also allowed Crown to prepare a consolidated invoice, minimizing internal administration for the company and avoiding the risk of misallocation of funds, which would dilute the true spend.
In summary, the feedback the client provided is a testament to the success of the project:
“Feedback received from all our people was exceptional in regard to the service provided by Crown. The process for our candidates was smooth and very professional. They felt well-informed and appreciated being kept up to date as much as possible.
From our end, we found the service provided and the flexibility with the service provided exceptional. We had some challenges and these were met without any issues. We requested additional services for some of our people that perhaps needed a little more assistance, and this was met with professionalism and handled in a timely manner.
Thank you to you and the team for providing such great support to all involved.”
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