International assignment support: Vodafone

“PricewaterhouseCoopers are overall highly professional and the right choice for Vodafone”
Group Compensation & Benefits Director
Vodafone

Derek Steptoe

The issue

Following the merger and acquisition that created the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world, Vodafone was left with over 100 international assignees worldwide, under several different policies. Vodafone needed to consolidate their expatriate policies into one, global, centrally administered policy.

Vodafone’s objectives were clear:

• to establish effective, centralised communication and control over their expatriate scheme, enabling them to know about every international move taking place in all of their offices worldwide
• to work in partnership with their adviser, who would be able to provide proactive and timely centralised support to Vodafone, on a global basis

Our approach

PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Services was appointed as Vodafone’s global expatriate adviser in a competitive tender. One of the key benefits to Vodafone is our global coverage. Our team of over 100 experts meant that we are able to support Vodafone assignees on the ground in over 30 overseas locations.

In keeping with the spirit of partnership that is important to both Vodafone and PwC, we arranged a econdment to Vodafone for one of the PwC team members. This helped us to establish relationships with the HR team, understand internal procedures and processes and to assist the HR team with developing policy process maps and workflows for the global International Assignment Policy.

In close consultation with Vodafone, we also drew up and implemented a transition plan to formally agree the scope of the work we would undertake, service level agreements and monitoring processes necessary to achieve full global compliance.

For a global client the size of Vodafone, ongoing effective communication and coordination is key to success. To this effect we hold monthly conference calls, quarterly meetings and an annual review meeting to discuss our annual report. Our annual report provides an excellent opportunity to review and highlight the past year’s achievements and to look ahead by agreeing Vodafone/PwC objectives for the year to come.

The outcome

Vodafone has successfully rolled out version two of their International Assignment Policy to their global teams. We have met Vodafone’s original objectives and, as time has gone on, have focused on implementing best practice and identifying cost saving opportunities for Vodafone. We have added value over and above Vodafone’s original expectations:

• a custom-built reporting database has provided Vodafone for the first time with a clear picture and
  a true understanding of the additional costs involved in international assignments
• feedback from assignees receiving tax compliance services is positive. Last year, 98% of assignees were either very satisfied or satisfied. Over 56% of assignees were very satisfied with our service, against Vodafone’s target of 45%
• we helped Vodafone to undertake an international assignments survey, which fed into the second version of their International Assignment Policy
• Vodafone are more than able to cover our fees through the tax savings initiatives we have identified
  and implemented.

We continue to work closely with Vodafone on agreed objectives and key tasks for the future, including reviewing data collection procedures, extending the use of the custom-built database and advising on tax and social security implications for short-term assignees.

For more information about our services, please visit our International Assignment section.