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CORPORATE — RELOCATION POLICY REVIEW
Relocation policy consulting: where the overspend actually starts
A dedicated mobility programme for companies moving talent into and out of the UAE — assignment management, destination services and household shipping under one accountable partner.
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Most overspend starts in the policy, not the move
When a relocation policy is vague about what is covered, the gap gets filled at the point of stress — by an exception, approved quickly, at a price nobody negotiated. Tightening the document is usually cheaper than tightening the suppliers.
What a review looks at
Entitlements by band
what is included at each seniority level, stated in terms a supplier can quote against.
Where the cost actually sits
: shipment volume, storage, temporary accommodation and vehicle shipping, in that order for most programmes.
The exception process
how often exceptions are granted, and which clause keeps causing them.
What is deliberately excluded
, stated plainly, so it is not argued at the survey.
The engagement, in writing
The questions worth settling in writing
Is the entitlement a volume or a value? Who pays if the destination property is not ready? What happens to a vehicle the employee wants to take but the destination will not admit easily? Are pets covered, and to what standard? Each of these is a routine escalation when unwritten, and a non-event when it is in the policy.
What you get
A marked-up read of your current policy against what actually happens on UAE-outbound moves, with the clauses that cause escalations flagged and suggested wording. No obligation to move anything with us.
Where policies leak money
Volume caps versus value caps
The single clause that most determines how a policy behaves is whether the shipping entitlement is written as a volume or as a value. A volume cap — a stated number of cubic metres or a container size by band — is predictable for the employee and quotable by a supplier, but its cost to you varies with the destination and the season. A value cap is predictable for your budget and unpredictable for the employee, who cannot tell from a number of dirhams what they are allowed to take. Neither is wrong. What causes escalations is a policy that states one and is administered as though it stated the other.
Clauses that reliably generate exceptions
Across UAE-outbound programmes, the same few gaps produce most of the exception traffic: vehicles, where the policy is silent and the destination is restrictive; pets, where the cost is genuinely high and the policy says nothing about standard of carriage; storage, where the destination property is late and nobody has said who pays; temporary accommodation overlapping the shipment; and insurance, where the policy specifies cover but not the valuation basis. Each is a small paragraph to write in advance and a difficult conversation to have under time pressure.
Lump sum, managed, or a mix
A lump sum transfers the decisions and the risk to the employee, and is administratively cheap for you. A managed benefit keeps control and buying power with the company, and is what produces consistency across assignees. Most programmes that work well use both: managed for the elements where the company’s buying power and compliance exposure are real — shipping, customs, insurance — and a lump sum for the discretionary end, where the employee is better placed to judge than you are. Where policies go wrong is in applying one model to everything for administrative tidiness.
Seeing it through
Repatriation and the end of an assignment
Policies are usually written for the outbound leg and go quiet on the return, which is where a surprisingly large share of programme cost is incurred. The questions worth answering in the same document: is repatriation covered on the same entitlement as the outbound move; what happens to goods bought at destination that exceed it; what happens if the assignee resigns before the assignment term ends; and who bears the cost of clearing storage that has been running since the outbound move. Writing these down at the start is a great deal easier than negotiating them at the end.
How the review runs
You send the current policy. We read it against what actually happens on moves out of the UAE and return a marked-up version: clauses that will generate exceptions, wording that a supplier cannot quote against, entitlements that are inconsistent between bands, and gaps that are being filled informally today. It is a working document, not a proposal — there is no obligation to move anything with us, and we would rather you had a policy that works than a quote you were pushed into.
Let's scope your programme
Tell us about the assignment and a corporate mobility specialist will come back within one business day — by WhatsApp, phone or email, whichever suits you.
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