Policies on Hiring Couples and Relocation Assistance

Recent studies have shown that many employees are less willing to accept relocation offers from their employers. The most important factor related to their willingness to relocate is their spouse’s willingness. Couples prefer working in the same city once they get married and in rarest of the rare cases they are willing to move. It is not surprising finding as it has been happening since the time when women started taking up jobs. Earlier relocation was not a real problem but when both the individuals are working, organizations are facing huge problems in relocating their employees. If they pressurize the employee to relocate, they start looking up for other employment opportunities and put in their papers with their current organization.

Some large scale organizations, popularly known as people developers have already begun offering relocation assistance to their employees. They make arrangements for the relocation of their spouses also. However, the level and degree of such assistance is quite low. It depends on the necessity of the relocation of that particular employee.

Mostly, the relocation assistance is offered to the employees of higher grade. Low level or middle level employees still do not come in this category and organizations still don’t find it feasible for them to provide relocation assistance to these employees. Yes, top-notch employees can definitely take advantage of this policy.

Providing relocation assistance does not mean that the organization would offer job to the spouses of their employees. Rather it means, they offer a specific amount to a spouse in order to help him or her with resume writing and job hunting. Some companies also assist them in finding job in the state or country where they’ll be relocated through their references and networking. Motorola is known to offer such assistance to the spouses of their employees who are relocated to take up international assignments. This is a positive development for both the parties. Unisys has a policy to pay around $ 500 to the working spouse of their employee to help with job hunting and resume writing.

Even Johnson & Johnson offers career counselling to the spouse of their employees and provide them with job-related information in order to foster relocation. Many organizations including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and ConAgra have specially hired relocation consultants and even firms to assist them in planning the relocation of their employees. Not only this, they also involve their employees in the entire process and relocate them only when they find out a feasible solution.

Some organizations have reworked on their policies and allow their managers to hire both spouses. They have altered their policies on nepotism but they still have this rule in place that they still can not work under the same supervisor in the same department or can not work under the direct supervision of his or her spouse. In order to hire both spouses, they have introduced several policies that are beneficial to them. This is beneficial for the employer as well because it includes less expense on employee relocation and transfers. They can now relocate the entire family easily. The major disadvantage of this policy is that if one spouse leaves the organization die to any reason, the other may also leave.