The ever-changing role of the travel manager seems to have changed again thanks to macro trends that extend well beyond the business travel sector. Step forward for the Mobility Compliance Manager, a role that has certainly been accelerated by new border controls in response to Covid-19, but which was already emerging due to increased, disjointed controls and restrictions on international free movement.
These controls include tightened tax enforcement for short-term business travelers, increased scrutiny of work visas, A1 social security certificates and posted worker reports in the European Union, and Brexit restrictions on movement between the EU and the UK.
Stephen Swift, the UK-based EMEA and APAC travel manager at Ford Motor Co., believes his job has changed as a result. “It’s so much more than managing the travel management company and policies,” he said. “You need to have a broader mindset on immigration, tax, and health and safety issues. Saying that your passport and e-ticket are here and there you go is a thing of the past, at least for the next few years.”
It’s not just mindsets that need to be broader. This also applies to the associated tools and processes. Swift has worked closely with a number of internal and external stakeholders to develop a pre-travel approval process that fully equips travelers with the documentation, permits, and information they need to cross borders without breaking the rules.
Swift started his Ford Mobility Compliance project three years ago, initially addressing increasingly complex immigration and tax regulations for relocations and long-term assignments abroad. It was a project made more urgent by Ford’s move to a globalized structure rather than building model vehicles from country to country. The new strategy meant an increase in international travel, resulting in 240,000 trips by 26,000 different travelers to 140 different countries in 2019, with expenses of $ 160 million.
“We found that more and more countries were using immigration as a political tool to show that they are protecting their people from workers who come in and may take their jobs,” Swift said. “It was no longer enough to apply for a visa or [visa waiver]. People have been stopped, turned and sent back at the borders because most types of visas only allow you to attend a few meetings and do some basic things. They don’t allow you to work. ”
Additionally, by working with its tax advisor Deloitte, Ford became increasingly aware that overseas visits pose a potential tax liability for the company and employees.
More recently, Swift said, immigration issues are “something we have noticed creeping into general business travel. We have noticed the authorities have picked up on this and asked us to change immigration status.”
Examples include visits by UK-based employees to Turkey, whose authorities no longer tolerated work travel visas obtained on arrival, and repeated trips by individuals to the same destinations. Swift added that he also sees more pressure on compliance audits while traveling on business due to Brexit and growing paperwork demands.
“The EU is stepping up its requirement that you publish an employee registration when you move between member states,” said Swift. “Some of these states also ask you to show your A1 certificates to prove that you pay social security in your home country.”
Travel takes the lead
Swift had identified a clear travel problem for his company. However, it was far from easy to find internal and external resources to find a solution.
Internally, as is often the case with a challenge that requires interdisciplinary collaboration, “no one has raised their hand to own it,” Swift said. As he is responsible for both moving and traveling, Swift decided to take control of the project himself. He reached out to Ford’s law firm and human resources department, but also found support at the heart of the business.
“We spoke to the executives on the traveling teams – our product development and manufacturing directors – and they saw the need to do so,” said Swift. “As much as it was a pressure from us, it was a pull from these parts of the organization. They saw this when we started to travel more to support our global products.”
Outwardly, Swift didn’t find his regular travel service providers as well equipped as he would have liked with tax and immigration issues. Instead, he turned to Ford’s global moving company Weichert Workforce Mobility. Weichert, in turn, connected him to the Irish company Tracker Software Technologies, which offers a tool called GT Global Tracker, which ensures that travelers have the correct work permits and other permits to enter a country and tracks the days spent in different countries from a tax point of view . This information is also passed on to Deloitte, which triggers the alarm if it detects potential tax compliance issues.
Travelers for review are required to submit information such as destination, duration, and a choice from a very detailed drop-down list of reasons for travel, which are often the main determinant of how much paperwork is required for immigration.
“People try to play the system by saying they are going to a meeting because they know it will be easier,” said Swift. “But if someone says that more than once, we’ll mark it, so at least they have to have a conversation with someone from an immigration perspective.”
Swift is also working with Ford’s HR communications team to explain to travelers why it is important that they fill out the admin correctly prior to travel. “We are communicating that the world is changing, immigration and tax regulations are changing, so we need to make sure that they are safe as travelers and that we as Ford Motor Company are doing the right thing,” he said.
Swift “refines and improves” his company’s version of Global Tracker to reduce the workload for travelers. This version contains pre-filled information such as employee number, passport number, nationality and country of residence. Historical travel and expense data is also loaded for automated determination of any required immigration or tax compliance measures. In addition, travelers will be informed of the Covid-19 requirements that are relevant to their planned trip.
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The big disappointment for Swift is that he sees no way to link the compliance process he created with Weichert and Global Tracker to his company’s online booking tool or travel management company. “Until TMCs come into play, we have to create these processes ourselves,” he said.
According to Liam Brennan, CEO and co-founder of Tracker Software Technologies, Ford is far from being alone in its approach to improving mobility compliance. “We’re seeing a huge surge in multi-stakeholder teams, including travel, personal or mobility, tax and law, making global proposals for standardization,” he said.
The same trend was noted by David Livitt, Director of Business Traveler Services at the mobility tax consultancy Global Tax Network. “Travel managers have always been involved, but very much on the periphery,” he said. “They were only interested in compliance in terms of budget and due diligence. Now they are being drawn into a multidisciplinary process. The direction for travel managers will be much more in that approval process.”
But what should travel managers do when they discover a need for mobility compliance that nobody in their organization is doing? The answer, according to Swift, is to take the initiative. “Build your case and bring the relevant people together – HR, legal, maybe health and safety teams – and showcase the fact that this is the new normal in the travel world,” he said. “You need to make them aware that there is an added layer of complexity – taxes, immigration, social security compliance, and that you need to create the processes and policies that go with them.”
