Doosan (Chairman Yongmaan Park) recently initiated the Global Mobility Support (GMS) program to offer consistent support to its expat staff throughout the world. The fundamental goal of the GMS program is to enable staff to enjoy the same ‘quality of life’ regardless of the regions and focus on one’s duty.

The fundamental concepts of GMS are “global integration” and “regional customization.” This means same quality of life by offering allowance and benefits customized based on price, standard of living, and security by cities. The concept is applied not only to Korean staff who are going abroad but also to the executives and staff of foreign subsidiaries who are coming to Korea and moving to different countries.

Allowances are calculated in the two categories of “living expense allowance” and “quality of life allowance,” and the system is operated to provide a higher living expense allowance to staff in regions where prices are high, and a higher quality of living allowance to staff in regions with relatively poor living environment, including poor education and security. The larger the size of a family, the bigger the assistance provided to maintain the quality of life, including housing size. Allowances will be determined based on indices by city, as calculated by professional survey agencies. The figure is adjusted per annum.

Another purpose of GMS is to relieve staff from many hassles including documentation for immigration, housing rental contracts, handling of moving freight, admission of children to schools, insurance policy purchase, and payment of local taxes in the designated country. A Doosan official said, “Simply put, the system is designed to provide a highly sophisticated service to ensure that staff can leave with a small amount of luggage, just like going on a vacation.”

To this end, Doosan has signed outsourcing contracts with global professional companies specialized in migration, insurance and taxation. Doosan is outsourcing immigration and settlement to SantaFe Relocation, insurance to MetLife, and taxation to Deloitte. Contracts were signed with these companies at Doosan Tower in Euljiro 6 ga, Jung-gu, Seoul on May 15.

SantaFe Relocation will provide comprehensive hands-on assistance, ranging from the settlement of staff overseas to their return to the motherland, including issuance of immigration documents, recommendation and contracting of rental homes, and recommendation of schools for children and the admission process. Doosan has also introduced an “advance visit” system, which pays for staff and their families’ vacation and the necessary expenses to visit local housing and schools at the duty station in advance. SantaFe Relocation will assist Doosan staff with this visit as well.

MetLife provides assistance to ensure that staff stationed overseas get quality medical service with virtually no limits on coverage through staff’s subscription to the insurance policy. Deloitte offers tax counseling for individuals by taking into account tax laws that differ from country to country, and assists staff to ensure that they handle their tax matters properly.

Additionally, Doosan provides leave for home country visits to staff and their families every year. If the spouse of a staff member stationed overseas wishes to take a job at a duty station overseas, Doosan will provide educational expenses, as it has significantly improved the welfare and benefit program to minimize anxiety and inconvenience faced by staff and their families when stationed overseas.

Seong-woo Choi, staff in charge of human resources at Doosan Corp. Holdings, said, “There were cases where different allowances were paid to staff who were moving to foreign countries according to the level of the city they were stationed in, but there are very few programs like Doosan’s GMS, which creates integrated global standards, offers a service through the same global professional agencies, and covers staff and executives of overseas executives and staff,” adding, “We have established this system based on judgment that providing consistent assistance to all staff stationed overseas is an essential element of our success as a global enterprise.”