Talent Mobility Series – Ep. 1 with Vladimir Vrzhovski @ Mercer

With Special Guest: Vladimir Vrzhovski, Global Mobility Practice Lead, Mercer

This show will focus on trends & topics shaping Talent Mobility. Karolina Saviova, the Co-founder & COO of AltoVita, will be welcoming guest speakers from the travel & global mobility industry around the world.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has spawned new forms of risks & challenges for corporate travelers. In order to contribute to a safe and responsible travel recovery, temporary housing providers need to demonstrate a unified understanding of Duty of Care and implement concrete steps to ensure a safe and stress-free mobility process for corporate travelers.

Video Transcription

Karolina: Welcome to AltoVita Mobility series on trends and topics shaping global mobility. My name is Karlina. I’m the co-founder of Altovita, and today I’ll be speaking to Vladimir Vrzhovski, who is supporting organizations and scaling their talent mobility policies. He’s with Mercer and he’s based out of the UAE. Today’s session will be revolving around the topic of temporary housing and duty of care.

This session will be particularly interesting and exciting for property management companies and service support operators around the world who want to play an integral part in the corporate housing sector. Thank you so much, Vladimir for being with us today. Would you be able to give us a little bit of an introduction about your journey and your current role?

Vladimir: Thank you, Karolina, for inviting me. I have actually been in the mobility space for almost  10 years now. I started from working with DSPs, then I  joined a global relocation management company. Then I  actually went on to the other side into the globality consulting space with Mercer.

So currently I’m actually based in the Middle East, I’m based in Dubai, and I’m heading Mercer’s mobility practise for the Middle East and African markets. So I’m covering these two regions and I’m primarily working with companies which are based in the region – helping them shape their policies, help them understand how to deploy talent and help them to put a bit more structure around their programs just to be able to actually scale it.

Karolina: Great. So because you’re the mastermind behind the talent mobility programs., can you tell us a bit more about, what duty of care means and what does it mean for the corporate traveller?

Vladimir: I think that duty of care overall has been an integral part of HR since the beginning of the concept of HR and lately, it has been evolving more and more. And then technically that has been cascaded down to global mobility. So as for duty of care, we see it more on a corporate level. However, it has been cascaded down across different HR functions and parts of that are actually global mobility.

So in a nutshell, really what it means is just taking care of your employees, when they’re deployed in various types of assignments overseas, especially in the global mobility context. And that, in particular, would mean that companies do really have to take care of their employees, regardless of if they’re in the office or they’re on an assignment and they ensure that they have the right policies and practices in place to align the duty of care practices of the overall company with the global mobility.

Karolina: So does that mean safety, security and perhaps wellbeing as well during the moves?

Vladimir: I think that from a conceptual perspective, safety and security always came first. After that, it kind of evolves more into health, and with COVID I think we got an extra emphasis on wellbeing as well.

So it’s a bit more of a holistic package these days. Traditionally, it started with safety and security, looking at evacuation measures, looking at providers that can evacuate assignees during terrorist attacks or during a tsunami or during any kind of emergencies. After that. it slowly started evolving into providing better healthcare benefits, providing more wellbeing or mindfulness programs these days.

And also that’s been started cascading down to the vendors as well. That started technically to look into how vendors are looking after their assignments, overall, and one of the measurements that they implement to ensure this duty of care.

Karolina: Why do you think that we’re seeing such an increasing human-centric approach?

Vladimir: I think that there is a bit of a conflict here between providing more flexibility to the assignees and at the same time, ensuring that we have the right duty of care . Traditional mobility is evolving into a space where we want to provide more flexibility to assignees. Flexibility of choice, flexibility of deciding what’s best for them while they’re actually gone on assignment. At the same time, we need to ensure that all of these programs are being compliant. That technically does create certain complexities for mobility managers and for relocation management companies at the same time. Understanding how they’re able to really merge this “do it yourself” type of concept of mobility with still ensuring that there is enough duty of care, or at least, the minimum duty of care that needs to be provided from a corporate perspective.

Karolina: Great. Well, thank you so much for this. It is definitely a trend that we’re seeing as well, in AltoVita particularly when we are providing different destination services, and services which are evolving around the wellbeing.

I wanted to ask what does duty of care really mean for corporate housing providers?

Vladimir: Alright. I’ll tell you maybe what it means to me, as a corporate, a business traveller, and then how do I see that being transmitted across different kinds of vendors. If we look at corporate travel in general, there is a lot of flexibility around do it yourself, right?

You book your own flight, you book your own hotel, you book your own accommodation. However, the problem is compliance. Different companies take compliance in a different way, right? A lot of the companies traditionally are going to be very strict around compliance, and this is why we don’t really see a lot of flexibility, especially around travel. Personally, I’m a heavy traveller in my region, at least pre-COVID.

I used to travel at least once a week for a couple of days to visit my clients around the region. So I used local flights, stayed in a lot of hotels, or other accommodation. Ensuring all of those providers, from my travel agent to which hotel where I’m staying. have the right health insurance to have the right risk insurance in place.

My company has ensured that I have the right International SOS app on my phone – in case something happens, I can get back here immediately. They had to make sure that I received the right risk assessments of the city that I’m travelling to, 24 hours prior to travel or any kind of timely update.

All this actually falls under the duty of care. concept. and that has helped me perform my job better. So I didn’t need to care about my safety and security , and I could focus on the path that I’m doing.

In the corporate travel world, let’s say that I’m looking at your side of the business, at what AltoVita is in, I think that would apply pretty much in the same kind of way. There have been a lot of attempts, and a lot of companies are still doing it very successfully. I would have to say that they have very stringent measures of saying these are our providers. This is who our assignees can stay with, and this is who they’re not allowed to stay with. There is already a sort of a threshold that needs to be fulfilled when it comes to corporate housing providers.

During COVID that has actually raised the bar significantly – from a concept of social distancing, how employees check-in, how do you form the corporate travel manager that employee has checked in? All the way to, is the WiFi good enough in their apartment in case they get quarantined to be able to work from that apartment. How are they able to get groceries delivered? Is there an elevator in the building?

There are so many different points that are equally important, if not even more important these days to ensure that duty of care for corporate housing.

Karolina: Yes, from our perspective it’s definitely that. On top of that, I would also mention that for our property managers, it’s important to really consider how the like, services.

That would be, for example, a 24/7 support line, emergency line in case something happens. It would be professional incident management, as well as weekly cleaning if requested by the client. These are all really important parts of the duty of care.

Vladimir: Throughout my career, I have stayed at different kinds of accommodations. The experience was always very important. Especially in housing, you kind of grow to become a provider or a preference or a provider of choice, based on the feedback that you receive.

So property managers, even when we go on Airbnb, we always look at the type of amenities that are there, and then we choose. Maybe the first option is looking at the type of amenities or the type of services the department provides, and then actually you look at the feedback after that. But these kind of go hand in hand.

Quality does go hand in hand with safety security, which is going to be our number one priority for care. And ensuring safety security as well. It’s not just saying that if there is a crime happening in the building, we’ll be able to report it, but actually, how do property managers take a proactive approach, towards ensuring safety and security.

And after that, we are looking at the health and the wellbeing of the employees as well, or their tenants, and then what are the other measures that they will be able to implement to ensure that this holistic approach towards duty of care is actually implemented in the accommodation.

Karolina: Do you think that the duty of care concept evolved with the current global pandemic?

Vladimir: I think it evolved and will probably continue evolving at the same time. And I think, again, that the two key forces are the pandemic and the demand for flexibility.

Traditionally, travel managers will book you in accommodation, and you’re going to stay there for the next X amount of days, until your assignment is done or until the purpose for your trip is over, and then then you’re back.

But now, more and more employees are actually requesting to be able to choose that apartment. To choose where they want to be. People don’t want to be located next to the office anymore. They want to maybe be located in the different parts of the city, that can be more of an exploratory visit, at the same time. There are different factors impact that duty of care from a flexibility perspective.

And then, there is the pandemic. So the pandemic puts extra care or an extra emphasis on this concept as well. Not just looking at apartments where you have an outbreak, or high-density areas, for example, which are most susceptible to COVID. This goes all the way to whether an employee can be reliant on public transport, how difficult it actually is, or how expensive it is to get a taxi and get to where they need to be. And all these factors can mitigate the risk of them getting sick.

Let’s assume that the corporate travel business is not going to come back at the same level as it was before, during the pandemic. However, post-pandemic. we do see that the moment that the travel industry or the corporate travel industry bounces back, how services are provided is going to be changed significantly. But also, what assignees choose and where they want to stay is going to be changed significantly as well, in terms of area, location, safety, security, health, additional different factors from an amenity perspective of the apartment as well.

Karolina: You’ve mentioned several points that we are absolutely seeing in terms of the corporate demand that we are receiving. First, you mentioned the amenities, so, just an interesting observation.

We’re definitely recording a demand for Netflix equipped apartments. As well as, of course, very stringent rules when it comes to disinfection. But as well, various amenities such as virtual guides of the city. So where’s the closest hospital? Where’s the closest pharmacy? Which should be something that property managers should always provide to the guests to help them get around the city.

Vladimir: I think that is a sort of shared responsibility between the corporate, the relocation management company, the DSP, maybe, the service providers, and the host, if we call them that.

I think hosts are supposed to drive that experience as well, to become a host of preference. Especially if now they can get rated and they can get chosen by the next and the next. That word of mouth is always there. I said it was a great apartment, recommend it and said I would love to stay there again.

And there’s that flexibility. Then the corporate needs to say we had a great experience with this host. We’d like to actually use them again. Then it’s the responsibility of the relocation management company and the valid chain of providers to ensure that that host continues providing services at the right level.

I think there is no really a top-down decision. The duty of care drivers is set at a corporate level who envision our minimum standards that need to be fulfilled. However, innovation and quality are driven by the hosts. They drive the innovation on  how often they can clean your apartment. They drive innovation of are you in to provide Netflix to them or provide three more on-demand services as well, right? Are they going to provide just a basic WiFi connection, or are they going to provide enhanced fibre connection? Is it security? Is it not secure? Is there a VPN in the apartment?

There are so many different points, which I understand they come at a cost. However, in the current environment, I think that cost is something that is probably going to get a bit more acceptable. If I need to pay some percentage extra, but I’m going to get all these extras why would I not do it?

We still have, from a hotel perspective, the five-star, four-star, three-star hotel, and all of them have their own target audience. So I think that from an apartment perspective, especially apartments, which their target are these corporate travellers, not the  typical tourists, Airbnbers, etc. I think that they need to be aiming for the four-star, five-star hotel service, because, again, duty of care and quality are going to be playing a more crucial role than the price itself.

Karolina: You’ve mentioned cost efficiencies, which are probably not going to be the priority at this stage because the objective is going to be to ensure speedy and responsible travel recovery.

What we’ve been seeing is that there has been an increased demand in what we call seamless experience. So basically when a client books an apartment with AltoVita they can as well, seamlessly via technology that we provide, book airport transportation as well as fridge refill. Potentially get as well, a fitness class secured through our verified vendors.

So we definitely saw an increased demand for the services, which again goes hand in hand with the seamlessness and safety of the whole travel journey.

Vladimir: Yes. And I think that one of the key points is going to be language dependencies if we just look at across different markets. If we just say that English, will probably be the language of choice for most of the corporate travellers, how do you bridge the barriers of language dependencies?

Not just across the European market, but anywhere else, right? And being able to provide a good service, with the right support, having no language dependencies. The host being able to speak multiple languages, serving these corporate travellers.

From what the hosts would provide, it’s not going to really create extra work for them. Typically, business travellers, if there is something that they need, they tend to actually talk upwards. They would talk to their providers, they would talk to their corporate. They’ll talk to the RMC. They’re not going to actually try to reach out to the host.

However, if the host is able really to respond and provides that assurance that they’re able to come in very quickly. It’s simple as fix the sink. The sink problem has been there for ages. You reach out to your corporate travel manager, it goes back to there, that goes in a different time zone. Then the request gets generated and by the time the sink is fixed you actually left the apartment.

Right? So I think that these are the small stuff where there need to be certain kinds of guidelines for hosts to be able to support you in these matters. However, probably if you need something a bit more complex, you need to go back into the value chain or the supply chain and understand from where you can get that help.

However, the fix is a typical situation where tenants can actually go straight to the landlord and get speedy service.  It comes at an extra cost and then, of course, the landlord needs to communicate that back to the supply chain to understand how they can rectify that.

However, there should be a clear distinction between the type of services that can be provided on both sides. And the assignee should know in which direction they should go for which kind of issues.

Karolina: Absolutely. I would just add that here, in this case, property managers absolutely need to have a plan ahead, in case there was an incident they need to manage swiftly. Because it’s slightly a different situation when you’re living in an apartment for 30 days and the washer isn’t working. Then it really is a big issue. You don’t even have the time to concentrate on these small problems because you’re there on an assignment. You need to focus on your job.

Exactly.

And if it’s the top-down approach, which you’ve been advising the companies on temporary housing providers, for example. What would be the criteria that you would advise them to use in order to make the selection and do an onboarding process?

Vladimir: I think that what we try to do is match corporate travel, business travel with global mobility, as close as possible. From a policy perspective, what we see is that travel, arranging flights, understanding what kind of airfare employees get to touch on – we try to synchronize that as close as possible with corporate travel. So we don’t really create two distinct kinds of approaches. Especially from an assignment perspective.

Sometimes to consider an assignment is over three months, however, more often these days, the global mobility function starts looking after business travellers as well. Business travellers, very often, fall between the cracks from an ownership perspective.

Is it HR? Is it home? Is it host HR? Is it global mobility tax provider that’s supposed to be taken care of it? However, we do see a shift in ownership and we see that global mobility is trying to take ownership of that process as well. And hence, we see that synchronizing. And I think that corporate travel policies have been very well established for ages now. However often they are not really reinvented or reimagined, very often, because of the trend BBNC and because of how difficult it is to change policy at a scale.

So what we see is that global mobility is going to bring on to the table of corporate travel that potential approach towards flexibility. And that corporate travel is going to drive the decisions on the type of providers used minimum requirements.

There is a lot of wrongs. Cash expenses, payments, automation that is being dictated there. And then that takes us into a direction of whoever can provide the best service. Not from a, from a host, but rather from a provider perspective – who is able to actually to provide scale, speed, innovation and efficiencies to companies, and cater to their needs, ultimately, and would be able to evolve as key providers in that space. Which is business travel and mobility as well.

Karolina: All right. Thank you. And my last question would be because you’ve mentioned SOS International app, which helps mobility tracking. So how do you see new technology and innovation enhancing duty of care?

Vladimir: good question. I think that there’s going to be a lot of speculation around what the next normal would look like for corporate travellers and what they would need. I think that the needs will change. The demand will change as well. Traditionally, there have been a lot of providers which are operating in that space and do a very good job.

They come at a certain cost. However, corporates, when it comes to duty of care are sort of willing to ensure that there is a standard of care that is met, every single time someone travels.

So International SOS, I think there were a couple of companies in shield, Travel Q a Tatra, which are providing similar services from an app perspective. I think that innovation is going to come within the do it yourself kind of travel.

So it’s not on assignment or post assignment type of services, but the pre-assignment type of services. Here is where we see the rise of mobility platforms, which provide that sort of do it yourself type of experience with relocation experience. Which already starts to merge even more, based on how the typical demographics of signage has changed, right? So the clients are getting younger and younger. I think the majority of the assignees these days for corporates are millennials.

Millennials have actually different kinds of needs. The demand for flexibility is there. So actually the need for do it yourself mobility is going to be there. And then corporations would like to actually put only a framework around that and ensure that there is a right framework where that freedom is going to be provided.

I think that more and more the drivers are going to be probably pre-assignment. And then maybe add to the assignments some sort of high-level support – maybe, chatbots. Maybe I don’t need to call anyone, but I can WhatsApp you or send a Facebook message. I can probably pay through an app. I don’t need to go and pick up the keys but I expect the apartment is going to be ready.

There are multiple ways that the COVID is going to drive this. But from an experiential perspective, I think that experience is going to play the key role going forward here.

Karolina: Thank you so much. That sounds like a possible way to really combine duty of care and the self-service type of bookings and mobility experiences.

Vladimir: Yeah. Thank you, Karolina, for inviting me and have a good day as well. Thanks, bye.