The pandemic has proven employees can work wherever they want to across the globe so IPMI providers need to adapt product offerings to accommodate these needs, the Health & Protection IPMI Summit heard.
This is according to Benjamin Bader, associate professor in international human resource management, Newcastle University Business Management School and strategic adviser to and board member of RES Forum.
Bader explained the link between international assignments and the digital communication needed to transfer knowledge was just getting “tighter and tighter” as the pandemic has provided “proof of concept”.
“A lot of these things could have been done before [the pandemic],” he said.
“It needed the pandemic to force organisations, force people and organisations into trying things that they wouldn’t have done before and they just saw it works.”
But Bader added that in a world in which employees can choose to work in which ever country they choose, health insurance was becoming the individual’s problem so they needed to ensure they were insured in the country they are living in.
And this meant a need for product evolution to meet that demand.
“Although it is just at the beginning,” Bader continued.
“It is certainly a trend we believe is going to increase in the future. So we need much more flexibility in terms of the products offered.
“The products offered need to reflect the needs of the global mobile workforce.
“If you think about the individual circumstance, I think we are better off going from country specific products to global products to cover much more to a different extent.”