Planning Phase 

Purpose

Usually, a global assignment – be it extended business trips, expatriation or working abroad under local terms of employment - is triggered by the host manager when a business need arises within his or her company and is forwarded to the international HR department, whose task is then to find and attract a suitable candidate (The selection phase, however, is not within the scope of mySAP HR Management of Global Employees) and store all the necessary information in the following infotypes by executing personnel action Assignment Planning (81):

·        Personal Data(0001)

·        Organizational Assignment (0002)

·        Global Assignment Details (0710)

·        Global Assignment Status (0715) with the status automatically set to Planned

·        Family Status(0021)

·        Assignment Activation Details (0707)

The preparation phase is a process involving a great variety of actors such as the future global employee, the home and host managers and the international HR department as well. This leads to a constant information exchange, which you can automate by means of workflows.

Prerequisites

Before triggering this process, make sure that the personnel number of the successful candidate is available in the home country.

Process Flow

Once a suitable candidate has been found, the international HR department has to define the length and the start date of the global assignment (long or short-term assignment, extended business trips, etc). This is done by maintaining infotype Global Assignment Details (0710) prior to all other MGE-specific infotypes.

The cost of the assignment is a crucial factor for the host-based manager when deciding whether or not to promote the assignment. Likewise, the employee’s decision will be largely influenced by the compensation package he/she has been offered.

After maintaining the required data, such as current contract data and tax information of the involved countries, as well as the number of accompanying dependants, you can prepare the compensation package offer in infotype Compensation Package Offer (0706) - usually, with the help of a third-party consultant - according to your global transfer policy and submit it to the candidate in the form of an offer letter.

The offer is subject to a series of factors, such as:

·         The duration of the assignment and the country the global employee is sent to. In case of long-term assignments, a relocation allowance is usually paid to cover initial expenses and relocation assistance is offered by a third-party provider. Moreover, if a global employee is sent to high-risk countries such as tropical countries or countries at war, he or she is very likely to receive a hardship allowance and be reimbursed for his or her health care needs (vaccinations, etc.).

·         The number of dependants. If children are coming along, an education allowance will be included.

·         The exchange rate. Usually, the employee’s package is protected against exchange rate fluctuations and evaluated on a regular basis. If applicable, a compensation is paid out.

·         Salary adjustments (that is, a cost-of-living allowance to compensate the cost of living differences between the home and host countries), if applicable.

·        Tax and social insurance regulations in both home and host countries. In most cases, tax planning and equalization is dealt with on a country-to-country basis by your company’s service provider. This is mainly relevant for short-term assignments and enables you to protect the global employee’s package against tax disadvantages. As far as benefits are concerned, you should check whether or not the global employee continues to participate in his or her home benefits plans.

Result

In parallel to the preparation of the global assignment, the responsible HR department triggers the relocation preparation process. Once all conditions have been met, the assignment can start.