Reducing the relocation burden

Moving staff for international secondments tends to be an inherently expensive and stressful exercise for company and employee respectively. What options exist to take the sting out of both the cost and the aggravation? Organisations across the Middle East are increasingly looking at corporate furniture leasing as the solution.

“After all, you lease a car and rent a house, so why not the home's interior? It really is that simple”
-Joe Hepworth, Middle East General Manager

The typical international secondment starts well enough with the pre-move survey promising seamless transition of an employee's personal effects from A to B. However, the process typically ends a number of months later in a pile of frustration and half-unpacked boxes for the secondee, and a pile of large invoices for the employer.

Is this the only option available when moving to the Middle East? No. Of course, many companies offer their expats a substantial relocation allowance to purchase new household goods & furniture on arrival. However, this means that the onus is on the employee to quickly find something suitable in an unfamiliar retail environment and inevitably also means time out of the office too, when building foundations with new colleagues, customers and suppliers should be the focus.

The other option, which negates the strains of an international move or a 'must buy' shopping trip to IKEA and saves the employer from heavy capital outlay is furniture rental.

Pioneered in the GCC by UAE based Indigo Living, furniture leasing is becoming increasingly popular amongst cost conscious Blue Chips in the region for whom bottom line savings are the main driver in the current environment. Couple that with improvements in employee satisfaction and productivity and it is easy to see why the service has a such a large following.

Savings of 10% to 20% compared to shipping personal effects in from origin countries is the typical benchmark that furniture leasing sells itself on. When you add in the savings derived from less time spent in temporary hotel accommodation (waiting for the container to arrive) and the cash flow advantages of monthly rental payments the financial justifications are compelling.

According to Indigo Living's Middle East General Manager, Joe Hepworth: "Once clients see the obvious bottom line savings that furniture rental can deliver, the concept tends to sell itself, however we also pride ourselves on being a thorough and professional service organisation and its very important for us that our corporate clients understand that we deliver a valuable service to their HR departments and employees, on top of the savings they stand to make".

With a dedicated relationship manager and full service team to fix any glitches that may arise during the rental's tenure, Indigo is able to meet even the most demanding customer's timelines and requests. Hepworth says: "We've successfully completed the full fit out of 5-bed executive villas with less than five days notice before, enabling secondees to move straight into their new homes and get started in their new lives immediately upon arrival in the region. Getting staff quickly settled is one of the major advantages that corporate clients see in our services, and having us take care of many otherwise time consuming and demanding tasks that can often fall in between HR and the employee is viewed as a huge positive ".

Rental contracts can run for as little as one month. Such short term leases are ideal for incoming expats who are still moving their things in from overseas, but want to be able to move into their new homes immediately, rather than spending weeks in a hotel waiting for their container to arrive. These leases are often booked and executed pre-arrival in conjunction with the local HR department so there is no need for temporary accommodation at all.

Indigo's position as a leading retailer in the UAE also has distinct advantages: "We're aware that people, particularly where spouses and families are joining the secondment, want to be able to choose their home furnishings and have certain design and quality criteria that need to be met. By offering our entire retail collection for rental we cater for all tastes" says Hepworth.

In addition to furniture, Indigo also provides white goods & electricals, bed & bath linen, curtains, full kitchen & tableware packages and outdoor furniture - anything needed to set up home. According to Hepworth: "We've even rented clients light bulbs before!  The complete rental model is especially popular with expats from the USA for whom having every single item on an operating lease means that there are no assets and therefore no tax liability back home".

At the end of the secondment, the interior of whole house can be simply handed back with no need to repack or dispose of anything; where an attachment has grown to certain items, a buy-back option is even available.

"After all, you lease a car and rent a house, so why not the home's interior?" says Hepworth "it really is that simple".