4 Things You Can Do To Make Relocation Less Stressful On Employees
Moving to a new location for work is sure to be stressful for your employees because it disrupts their regular routine and tends to turn their households into disorganized spaces during the process. If there's stress, it may have a negative effect on productivity among employees who relocate within your company. Here are a few things you can do for your employees to reduce stress levels and maintain expected production levels throughout the relocation process:
Provide a Pre-Visit Allowance
Make it easy for your employees to their family's move by providing them with a small pre-visit allowance and a little time off so they can spend time in their soon-to-be new community and learn about schools, banks, libraries, and other services they'll need after the move is made.
Consider providing plane tickets for each relocating employee and hotel accommodations for their entire family to help with visiting costs. Make sure that your relocating employees have a three-day weekend in the weeks leading up to their move, so they have the time to visit their new neighborhoods without severe time constraints.
Put Together a Relocation Guide
Putting together a basic relocation guide for your employees will make acclimation to their new communities less stressful and more convenient. Include information about local health clinics and hospitals, schools, shopping centers, banks, community facilities, and childcare services, so they have a list to work from when choosing new services to make use of. You can also include a list of restaurants and local attractions that will provide some enjoyment to your employees as they get to know their new communities. Consider printing off restaurant reviews from websites like Yelp to include in your guides.
Offer Custom Moving Options
An excellent way to make sure that all your employees' needs are met during their move, so their production doesn't suffer is to offer them a variety of customized moving options to choose from. In addition to having a moving company load, transport, and unload your employees' belongings during their move, consider offering service options such as:
- Storage facilities before or after the move.
- Specialty packing services for fragile items.
- Utility connection services.
- Car rental and purchasing options.
Provide each employee with a purchase allowance to ensure that your budget stays on track. If they need services beyond what's covered in their relocation package, employees can pay for them out of pocket or have the fees deducted from future paychecks to offset the costs. Click here to find out more information on corporate moving companies.
Host Support Group Sessions
To ensure that your employees have the support they need while making a move for their job, host support group sessions on a weekly basis throughout the year. As an employee prepares to transition to a new location, they can take advantage of the group sessions as needed. These sessions will give employees an opportunity to share personal experiences and ideas with one another, and those who happen to be relocating to the same area can collaborate on a variety of moving issues as they come up.
Make sure that the group sessions are held outside of business hours to ensure that everyone who wants to participate is able to do so no matter what their work schedule is like. Weekends are a great option if your business maintains long weekday hours. If possible, hire a relocation expert to facilitate these meetings so they can provide professional guidance and advice as well as help participants create effective plans for their moves.
With the help of these services and your employees should find relocating to be an enjoyable experience, and you'll likely enjoy profitable production levels before, during, and after the move.