Despite intense business pressures and talent shortages, less than a quarter of organisations are leveraging global mobility strategically, according to new research.
Global mobility, the function responsible for enabling talent to work effectively and compliantly across borders, is largely underestimated by business leaders, a new survey from Vialto Partners reveals. Their 2025 Global Mobility Market Survey, which gathered feedback from 223 participants across multinational corporations in 35 countries, highlights a significant gap between strategic ambition and current practice.
Only 23% of firms surveyed report reaching a “strategic” or “influencer” level where global mobility aligns directly with overarching business goals and actively manages risk. This indicates that for many, mobility remains an operational necessity rather than a key strategic lever to unlock workforce agility and long-term value.
Key Challenges Facing Mobility Programmes
The survey sheds light on the primary hurdles preventing mobility from reaching its full strategic potential:
- Compliance and Cost Pressures: Nearly half of respondents (49%) cited compliance as their top challenge, closely followed by cost management (36%). This points to mounting economic pressures requiring organisations to deliver “more with less” while navigating complex global regulations. EMEA regions, in particular, reported the heaviest compliance burden related to tax and immigration policies (59%).
- Data Gaps: A critical finding is the pervasive lack of data tracking. 43% of teams do not track core success measures such as employee satisfaction or business alignment. Furthermore, a striking 76% fail to track what happens to employees after an assignment ends, making it difficult to demonstrate mobility’s role in talent development or retention. This data deficit significantly undermines the function’s ability to prove its strategic impact and influence business decisions.
- Operational Focus: While 45% describe their mobility programme as “meaningful” with defined processes and a solid compliance foundation, a significant 32% still operate in “unstructured” or “operational” models, lacking the influence needed to shape wider business priorities.
Shifting Priorities for the Next 12 Months
Despite these challenges, leaders are signalling a clear intent to elevate global mobility’s strategic importance. The top three core priorities for the next 12 months include:
- Aligning mobility with talent strategy (34%)
- Enhancing employee experience (32%)
- Introducing new tools and innovation (32%)
Eileen Mullaney, Vialto’s Global Workforce Transformation and Managed Services Leader, highlighted the urgency of this shift. “Global work should be a lever for growth and resilience, not just a support function,” she stated. “Today’s talent shortages, geopolitical disruption, mounting regulatory complexity, and speed-to-deploy demands need strategic foresight, not just operational management. But most organisations still underuse the one function built for this moment.”
Mullaney added that without the necessary visibility, metrics, and integration, companies risk underestimating one of their most strategic levers for talent and growth. Those that address this data gap are better equipped to align with business strategy, respond faster to disruption, and turn employee experience into a competitive edge.
Towards a More Targeted and Talent-Driven Approach
The survey also indicates a promising move towards more strategic approaches in communicating mobility opportunities and selecting employees. Targeted, talent-focused methods are gaining traction, with 39% using personal invitations to high-potential employees and 38% integrating mobility into broader talent management or career development programmes.
The top criteria for employee selection now reflect this strategic shift: skills required for the role (75%) and strategic business needs (74%) are paramount, alongside employee interest, performance history, and leadership potential.
“It’s promising to see mobility increasingly positioned as a career opportunity; integrated into development conversations and used to grow future leaders,” Mullaney concluded. “As global work becomes more talent-driven, the employee experience must be front and centre to support engagement, retention, and long-term business success. Those who get it right will build stronger pipelines, faster progression, and a more agile workforce.”
The report underscores that organisations failing to connect global work with strategic workforce planning risk losing talent, momentum, and competitive advantage in an increasingly borderless world.