Accelerate May 2015 | Page 20

Mobility This structure is representative of our regional programme volume. The Americas/EMEA region is unique in that the regional Global Mobility team member is responsible for immigration matters that are related to local hires, not just immigration matters related to permanent relocations or temporary assignments. As such, the U.S. domestic immigration case volume and related email volume is quite high. The Americas/EMEA team member was spending a disproportionate amount of time just managing the email traffic related to U.S. domestic immigration cases. In many cases, the team member was simply “forwarding” emails to our global immigration law firm for a response; there was no value being added by having these emails routed through Global Mobility. Since additional headcount to manage U.S. domestic immigration was not an option, I turned to my partnership with our global immigration law firm for a solution. Through discussions and review of our caseload, we concluded that the nature of many of the emails did not require the attention of a specific paralegal, attorney, or Seagate Global Mobility team m ember. An agreement was made to create an email alias that would be managed by a team at our global immigration law firm, to which we would drive most of general email traffic from Seagate. The email alias was initially rolled out to our largest internal clients – Human Resources Business Partners and Talent Acquisition. While it has been a relatively short time since we went live with the alias, all indications are that the use of the alias has improved our overall service delivery with timelier responses. Our next step will be to roll out the email alias to all employees with U.S. domestic immigration cases. Use of the alias is slowly being adopted by the employees through incorporation by the global immigration law firm in its email responses, but our goal is to promote widespread use by the employees. Viewing your external vendors as simply tactical service providers is extremely limiting; your vendors should be viewed as an extension of your organisation’s Global Mobility team. By strategically partnering with your vendors, you will quickly find that your Global Mobility team’s bench strength is expanded beyond the limits of your internal headcount. Penny Reyes Bonhagen leads the Global Mobility/Immigration team from Seagate’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Penny began her Global Mobility career at Yahoo!, Inc. where she also led their Global Mobility/Immigration team. She has managed the teams at both organisations through various corporate restructuring activities, evolving business climates and cultures, and service delivery model transformations. 20 May 2015