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 a series of fully customizable infotypes:

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.

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.

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 to 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 the global employee continues to participate in his or her home benefits plans.