Quick Q&A

Q. What are the main reasons organisations move people around the planet?
A. Someone’s moved up or moved on; a project’s just started or just finished; there’s been an acquisition or merger; a new product has come on stream; they need to upsize or downsize.

Q. Wouldn’t it be simpler to recruit?
A. It goes against the grain for global corporations to pay a stack of money to get rid of someone in one territory, and another stack of money to headhunt their equivalent in another. They’d rather shunt established people around who already know the company’s objectives, values and products.

Q. What’s the executives’ usual reaction to being moved?
A. They’re usually excited and flattered. Their wives or partners usually blow several fuses.

Q. Why should moving home be such a big deal to people who spend half their lives on planes or in hotels rooms, anyway?
A. It isn’t. Efficient people soon adapt. Demand on their time is the problem. Sorting out somewhere appropriate to live, then schools or further education for their kids, organising language lessons for their families and shunting possessions around, all takes valuable time when their job is the main priority. A bit of help from someone with plenty of local know-how makes a big the difference.

Q. How does it work?
A. I get a very detailed brief from the HR people and find some suitable properties. Then, usually, the executive gets off a plane and goes straight to the office, while his spouse or partner gets the residential tour with me (I even throw in a free architectural tour of the district!). By the time they meet for dinner it’s generally a done deal. The first time many of the transferees actually see where they’re going to live is on their first day in the new job - unless, of course, they’re not in a relationship in which case they do the property tour with me.

Q. How much does it all cost?
A. A whole lot less than recruitment fees, legal wrangles over rentals and dilapidations, expensive mangers’ downtime, divorce and family breakdowns, appointments failing and disruption to the company!

Q. What type of properties do consultants like you cover?
A. Palaces for princes, penthouses for plenipotentiaries, estates for top executives, mansions for managers, apartments for apparatchiks, lodgings for locums. It varies hugely but it’s fair to say that many relocations involve top-end properties.

Q. What areas do relocation consultants cover?
A. Most of us know our own region pretty well. We all know someone in the association who knows everything there is to know about any other region, too.

Q. How would you describe the benefit your sector offers, in 10 words?
A. We help busy executives hit the ground running.

Alastair Gibson can be contacted on 07713 328490 or www.corporatehomesearch.com