ESG: Mobility's new mandate

Today’s human resources (HR), talent, and global mobility managers face an existential question: How does global movement play into enterprise talent strategy, sourcing, and distribution in a world where businesses and employees increasingly connect virtually, not physically?

This question has been top of mind over the last two years as COVID-19 forced many into lockdown and companies accelerated the rollout of virtual collaboration and remote work technologies. Yet, the idea of remote and hybrid work isn’t new or entirely unexpected. Even prepandemic, the global mobility landscape was fast evolving, putting pressure on mobility departments to drive value in innovative ways, beyond simply moving people between locations. Many mobility departments were already exploring new ways to hire and retain top global talent, aligning policies and processes to the needs of today’s employees, and balancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts with candidate fit. The pandemic only fast-tracked mobility’s evolution, making it clearer than ever that its future will be very different than its past.

In this report, we explore an emerging and high-potential role for mobility departments—to contribute to enterprise environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts. In a world where ESG issues are at the forefront and physical location is less vital, we believe mobility has an opportunity to leverage its unique position in the wider organization and its access to unique data to help drive enterprise-wide ESG results.

We call this new mandate “global illumination” because it describes how mobility functions can cast light on ESG activities and gaps across the many areas of the business it touches. Making these key insights visible outside of individual business units helps foster a holistic and strategic view of ESG impacts, a critical step to progressing the ESG vision.