HR teams need a smarter approach to global benefits, compliance, and employee experience. As businesses continue to expand across borders, the number of globally mobile employees, from project-based engineers to long-term expatriates, is rapidly increasing. While international assignments can open new opportunities and help organisations deploy talent where it’s needed most, they also introduce complex and often overlooked challenges, particularly when it comes to managing employee benefits.
From fragmented healthcare policies to tax residency surprises, organisations are discovering that traditional HR processes aren’t designed for a workforce that moves between countries. We’ll explore the hidden challenges employers face and why centralised, technology-led solutions like Eppione’s global benefits management platform are becoming essential for modern mobility programmes.
According to a recent survey by EY, 75% of businesses lack a fully developed mobility function, meaning three-quarters of companies are not adequately prepared to manage globally mobile staff.
Here is why:
1. Fragmented and inconsistent benefit coverage
One of the biggest issues for globally mobile employees is the lack of consistent benefits as they move between project locations or countries. Many organisations still rely on:
- Localised insurance policies
- Multiple brokers across regions
- Static spreadsheets to track entitlements
- Outdated systems that don’t communicate with each other
This fragmentation increases the risk of coverage gaps, particularly when employees transition rapidly from one jurisdiction to another. In high-risk industries like engineering and construction, even a short lapse in healthcare, life, or disability coverage can have serious consequences.
Centralising benefits on a global platform like Eppione helps organisations ensure continuity of cover, regardless of where the employee is located.
2. The compliance trap: tax residency and social security complications
Cross-border work doesn’t just mean a change of scenery — it can also trigger unexpected tax residency and social security obligations for both the employer and the employee.
Common compliance pitfalls include:
- Employees are becoming tax residents overseas without HR being aware
- Misalignment with local social security rules
- Double taxation risks
- Incorrect contributions or reporting
- Local regulatory requirements for insurance and pensions
Many mobility teams only discover these issues after an audit or when employees raise problems themselves. The result? Costly corrections, potential fines, and unnecessary administrative burden.
Organisations should look for employee benefits management platforms that provide real-time visibility into benefits, contributions, and compliance across every country, reducing risk and ensuring peace of mind.
3. Lack of visibility for employees working abroad
For globally mobile workers — especially those rotating between project sites — understanding their benefits can be difficult. Many don’t know:
- What insurance do they have in each country
- Who their provider is
- How to make a claim abroad
- Whether their cover changes during travel
- Where to access policy details
This lack of visibility creates confusion and reduces trust in the organisation. You should implement a benefits management platform that solves this by giving employees 24/7 digital access to all their benefits, allowing them to check coverage, download documents, and manage their own information no matter where they are in the world.
4. Data scattered across regions makes governance harder
International HR teams face increasing pressure to provide accurate reporting on:
- Global benefits spend
- Compliance status
- Insurance coverage
- Country-based costs
- Risk exposure
- Employee allocation
When data sits across multiple brokers, systems, and spreadsheets, governance becomes extremely difficult. Manual consolidation of all this data is slow, inaccurate, and prone to error. A single, centralised platform eliminates these issues by providing one source of truth for global benefits, simplifying internal governance, financial reporting, and audit preparation.
5. Why organisations are turning to global benefits technology
The challenges above aren’t going away — in fact, as global mobility increases, they’re becoming more complex. Companies supporting employees across multiple jurisdictions are realising they need infrastructure that matches the scale of their mobility programme.
That’s where Eppione comes in.
With Eppione, organisations can:
- Standardise and centralise benefits across all countries
- Ensure continuous healthcare, life, and disability coverage
- Track global benefits spend and compliance in real time
- Eliminate fragmented processes and manual spreadsheets
- Empower employees with full visibility over their benefits
- Simplify governance, reporting, and global mobility planning
Eppione gives global employers the tools they need to support their workforce — wherever they are in the world.
It’s time to rethink global mobility benefits
Globally mobile employees play a crucial role in helping companies expand and deliver complex international projects. But without the right systems and processes, managing their benefits can become a costly and risky challenge.
By addressing fragmentation, compliance risks, and the lack of employee visibility, organisations can build a more resilient and scalable mobility strategy — and platforms like Eppione are at the heart of that transformation.
If your organization struggles with any of the challenges mentioned above, we’d be happy to share how other global employers are solving them using Eppione’s technology.
