People Mobility in a Complex Global Environment

People Mobility in a Complex Global Environment
July 20, 2026 8 mins

People Mobility in a Complex Global Environment

People Mobility in a Complex Global Environment

International employee and expat assignments remain popular despite headwinds. Employers looking to develop their employees’ skills and distribute talent can take advantage of the opportunities revealed by these challenges.

Key Takeaways
  1. Many workers, especially younger workers, still see international assignments as attractive.
  2. Rising costs and complexity need to be addressed with a global approach.
  3. A comprehensive and consistent strategy that focuses on agility and data-informed decision making can help employers capitalize on opportunities.

Despite rising medical costs, geopolitical uncertainty and increasing compliance considerations, international assignments remain an important tool for business expansion, talent development and leadership growth. While assignment numbers and durations are shrinking, employee demand remains strong, especially among younger workers. Aon research finds Generation Z employees are 36% more likely than their peers to value travel opportunities, while millennials are 7% more likely.

Here are four top challenges for long-term international assignments and how employers can strategically respond:

#1: Rising medical inflation is increasing the cost of mobility.

What’s Happening: The medical trend rate has averaged a double-digit rise over the past three years. Those increases have led to higher costs for international private medical insurance, which is now the most offered benefit for international assignees, with 79% receiving coverage.1 In addition to medical inflation, international medical insurers are changing their renewal strategy, making premiums more volatile and unpredictable.

The Opportunity: Shift focus away from cost containment measures like increased premiums, reduced coverage and higher costs for employees. Instead, lean into a data-led strategy to understand who is making claims, where the claims are happening and what the claims are for. There is also an opportunity to look at alternative ways of providing benefits like virtual offerings.

How to Make it Work: Frequent benchmarking of what is offered to international assignees is a good start. Employers should move beyond cost-containment measures and adopt a data-led approach that identifies key cost drivers, supports benchmarking and improves program sustainability. Advances in analytics and AI can help detect inefficiencies, predict high-cost claims and optimize wellbeing programs.

82%

of respondents are focusing on assignments lasting less than three years.

Source: 2025 Aon International People Mobility Report

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I see many of my clients across Asia Pacific shifting from a cost containment mindset to a cost intelligence mindset. Technology, data and analytics are helping firms better understand what drives costs, and how to best control them.

Matthew Brown
Head of International People Solutions, Asia Pacific
#2: Regulatory changes and compliance are more complex.

What’s Happening: Immigration rules and labor regulations are more complex than in the past. For example, the availability and cost of H-1B visas in the United States is unpredictable, as proposals to eliminate, charge drastically increased fees or severely restrict their availability have ebbed and flowed over the past few years. Certain countries are introducing visas tailored for remote workers, facilitating easier relocation and stimulating work across borders. At the same time, we are seeing a reduced number of employers permitting workcations. This is likely due to complicated compliance and regulations that necessitate expert tax and legal guidance.

The Opportunity: Companies should stay agile to adapt to changing immigration policies that can impact international assignments. This could come from a dedicated global mobility strategy, which only about half of companies reported having, according to Aon’s latest mobility study. A dedicated strategy not only gives employees clarity around available opportunities and defines expectations for international travel, but it also signals that the company takes equal treatment of employees across regions seriously.

How to Make it Work: Employers should work across risk, HR, finance, tax and legal departments to define the goals of their mobility strategy. From there, developing consistent standards and policies becomes easier. As international profiles grow, so do the number of employers contributing to the wellbeing and safety of their international staff members through business travel coverage, as well as other safety-focused tools and services.

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A dedicated strategy gives companies a consistent approach for all mobile employees, regardless of where they are moving from or to. It helps ensure global mobility policies work effectively for both the business and its people.

Linda Beavis
Head of Carrier Relations and Mobility, Global Benefits
#3: A volatile geopolitical landscape is reducing opportunities for international assignments.

What’s Happening: Several factors across different regions have created a more volatile geopolitical landscape. Unrest, changing high-risk areas, restrictive trade policies and increased scrutiny around immigration have all contributed to a more challenging environment for international assignments.

The Opportunity: Increased geopolitical instability can shift the duration or location for international assignments. As assignments become shorter, demand goes up, especially for younger workers who may be less risk-averse or more willing to travel for shorter periods if they don’t have other family commitments. The availability of services, data and technology offered by insurers contributes to fulfillment of the employer’s duty of care and the safety of international staff.

How to Make it Work: While geopolitical volatility cannot be eliminated, employers can reduce exposure through structured travel risk management frameworks such as ISO 31030 and policies that support informed decision making.

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Geopolitical volatility is not new, and risks are constantly changing. While specific circumstances may change, there will always be risks that need to be mitigated. Prevention and actual insights are key to maximizing international mobile staff safety. That’s all the more reason to dedicate a strategy and use available data and technology to make decisions fairly and confidently.

Michel Teunisse
Principal Consultant, International Mobility Solutions, Europe, the Middle East and Africa
#4: Pay transparency is here.

What’s Happening: Implementation of the EU Directive on Pay Transparency, along with regulations in other countries and U.S. states, may complicate international assignments. The patchwork of regulation can be a compliance issue, especially for multinational companies with significant workforces in affected areas. Regulation is forcing companies to rethink how they structure and justify international assignment packages. Under emerging rules, all compensation components, including housing allowances, cost-of-living adjustments, tax equalization and mobility benefits, count when evaluating pay equity.

The Opportunity: Employers increasingly view pay transparency as a strategic differentiator. Consistent, data-driven mobility policies help support equity, improve governance and reduce exposure created by case-by-case assignment arrangements that may be difficult to justify under increasing regulatory scrutiny. It also aids in the transition to a skills-based workforce. However, it can create unanticipated exposure for many organizations, namely expatriate packages that were negotiated case-by-case and now require documented, defensible criteria to withstand scrutiny from works councils and regulators. This raises a practical question for mobility and HR professionals:

Can you explain why two employees doing similar work receive different total compensation?

Employers will have to understand what counts as pay and where ad-hoc practices create liability.

How to Make it Work: While pay transparency is vital to employers’ overall business strategy, it is particularly important to international mobility. A primary reason for providing international mobility is to build specific skills, and these skills should be rewarded fairly. Job architecture that supports a skills-based workforce allows employers to more fairly compensate employees across the globe. An employer’s focus should be on what is actionable, meaning what needs to be documented, how policies are structured and how to track exceptions in a way that will hold up under audit.

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In a transparent world, every exception needs a defensible explanation. Pay transparency is shifting the conversation from what organizations pay to why they pay it, and that demands stronger governance, clearer policies and more intentional mobility programs.

Michael Ray
Rewards Advisor, Talent Solutions, North America

The Strategic Advantage of Workforce Mobility

The organizations that get mobility right will be those that treat it less as a stand-alone HR process and more as an integrated business policy. That means using data and benchmarking to make better decisions that connect risk and total rewards.

It also means having well-considered and integrated global benefits, insurance and services with a strong return on investment. This includes tax, immigration and wellbeing strategies, as well as designing assignment profiles that reflect how employees want to work today.

Within this stakeholder landscape, communication is key. In a more complex global environment, successful mobility strategies will do more than move people internationally. They’ll help employers deploy and engage talent more effectively, while maintaining a strategic business advantage.

Aon’s Thought Leaders
  • Linda Beavis
    Head of Carrier Relations and Mobility, Global Benefits
  • Matthew Brown
    Head of International People Solutions, Asia Pacific
  • Terry McSweeney
    Vice President, Global Benefits, North America
  • Michel Teunisse
    Principal Consultant, International Mobility Solutions, Europe, the Middle East and Africa
  • Raul Trineto
    Broking Manager, International Clients, Latin America

1 Unless otherwise noted, all statistics come from Aon’s International People Mobility Report 2025

General Disclaimer

This document is not intended to address any specific situation or to provide legal, regulatory, financial, or other advice. While care has been taken in the production of this document, Aon does not warrant, represent or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, completeness or fitness for any purpose of the document or any part of it and can accept no liability for any loss incurred in any way by any person who may rely on it. Any recipient shall be responsible for the use to which it puts this document. This document has been compiled using information available to us up to its date of publication and is subject to any qualifications made in the document.

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