15 Nov Preparing for a Period of Complexity in Global Mobility

As 2025 heads into its final stretch, global mobility leaders are preparing for a period of continued complexity, heightened expectations, and accelerating change. The forces shaping mobility next year—geopolitical instability, hybrid work experimentation, cost pressure, and rapid technology adoption—may not fade. Instead, they will intensify as organizations navigate the near future of global work.

Drawing on insights from the Talent Mobility 2025 Outlook Spot Survey, this year-end analysis highlights the trends that defined 2025 and the priorities mobility teams must carry forward as they finalize plans for what comes next.

Global mobility demand remains resilient

Despite economic fluctuations, skills shortages, and shifting market conditions, mobility demand held strong throughout the year. A third of mobility leaders expect continued growth in the near future, and half anticipate stable volumes—demonstrating that mobility remains a core engine for global talent access and business expansion.

Short-term assignments continue to rise, driven by project-based work and organizational agility needs. Business travel, permanent moves, and international local hiring remain steady contributors. Meanwhile, the long-predicted decline of long-term expatriate assignments once again failed to materialize; most mobility leaders expect these traditional models to remain stable.

As mobility teams close out reporting cycles, one message is obvious: cross-border talent movement is not shrinking—it is evolving.

Policy transformation becomes urgent

A dominant theme across survey responses is the need to modernize mobility policies. Sixty-seven percent of organizations cite policy review as a high or medium priority—reflecting the reality that legacy frameworks no longer fit the mobility patterns emerging today.

Hybrid work, commuter arrangements, project rotations, and cross-border remote work have stretched traditional assignment categories beyond their limits. In response, organizations are reevaluating:

• The purpose and duration of assignments
• The consistency and logic across policy types
• Eligibility for different mobility pathways
• Flexibility within packages and support levels
• How policies align with career and skills needs

As the year ends, many organizations are preparing to launch comprehensive policy redesign efforts early next year—work that will shape how efficiently and fairly they deploy global talent moving forward.

Cost pressure shifts toward smarter mobility

Cost management has been an unavoidable theme of 2025, but the conversation has evolved. Rather than cutting mobility outright, companies are now focused on value-aligned cost optimization, ensuring mobility investments produce measurable returns.

Survey responses highlight ongoing efforts to:

• Use automation to improve productivity
• Reduce assignment failure risk
• Strengthen mobility-finance collaboration
• Align package types with business value
• Leverage data to make strategic choices

As budgets close for the year, mobility leaders are emphasizing that cost control should not reduce mobility—it should refine it.

Mobility–talent integration remains unfinished business

The integration of mobility and talent management remains one of the field’s most persistent gaps. Sixty-five percent of mobility leaders consider aligning mobility with broader talent strategy a top priority, yet structural barriers remain.

Organizations continue to call for:

• Clearer links between assignments and leadership development
• Integration of global mobility into succession planning
• Inclusion of global experience as a predictor of advancement
• Earlier involvement of mobility in workforce planning conversations

With talent shortages intensifying globally, mobility’s role in developing and retaining critical skills has never been clearer. The near-future push will be moving from discussion to execution.

Employee experience must move beyond benefit tweaks

As teams gather year-end feedback from assignees, a recurring theme emerges: improving the employee experience requires systemic change, not incremental updates.

Survey respondents emphasized that satisfaction is most influenced by:

• Communication across the assignment lifecycle
• Coordination between mobility, HR, finance, and business units
• Transparency around career impact
• Digital tools that remove administrative friction

While benefit enhancements matter, they cannot compensate for poor coordination or unclear expectations. The next phase of mobility experience will be holistic, integrated, and career-centric.

International remote work needs structure and measurement

International remote work (IRW) has matured significantly throughout 2025, with a third of organizations reporting increasing relevance. Yet the function remains young and often unmanaged.

A striking 96% of organizations still have no metrics to track IRW effectiveness. Those that do rely mainly on request counts or survey sentiment—limited indicators for a model that introduces compliance risk, tax complexity, and duty-of-care considerations.

As organizations prepare for the near future, IRW urgently needs:

• Defined policies and risk tiers
• Clear approval and review pathways
• Metrics tied to business value and legal exposure
  Integration with mobility and talent frameworks

Without structure, IRW creates more uncertainty than opportunity.

Resource constraints limit mobility’s strategic potential

Survey data reinforces what many mobility leaders have felt throughout 2025: the function remains under-resourced.

• 66% lack adequate technology
  65% lack sufficient headcount
• 41% lack expertise in emerging mobility areas

These constraints hinder mobility’s ability to act as a strategic advisor. As the scope of mobility expands—encompassing relocation, hybrid work, global compliance visibility, and remote work governance—organizations will need to rethink how mobility is staffed, supported, and empowered.

A more complex but more strategic road ahead

As 2025 comes to a close, global mobility is positioned for a transformative period. Demand remains steady, leadership increasingly recognizes mobility’s strategic value, and new technologies—particularly automation and AI—promise greater insight and efficiency.

But mobility teams must also navigate rising complexity: volatile immigration environments, intensified compliance demands, hybrid work frameworks, increased cost scrutiny, and continued under-resourcing.

The mobility organizations that thrive in the near future will be those that use this year-end moment to:

• Modernize their policies
• Strengthen internal partnerships
• Embrace emerging technologies
• Clarify mobility’s role in career paths
• Build frameworks for remote and hybrid mobility
• Address resource gaps strategically

Global mobility is no longer simply moving people—it is shaping how organizations grow, compete, and build global capability. And as the year closes, the next chapter is already underway.