CHART OF THE DAY: The American Dream of Renting

Ok, so perhaps that title was not totally fair, as the while the below chart could be interpreted in a couple of different ways, depending on your point of view and level of relative optimism/pessimism/cynicism.

But first, the chart in question, showing the trends in American home ownership for roughly the last two decades, (my comments of course, after the jump):

The current percentage of Americans owning their homes stands at about 65%, roughly equal to the rate in 1995, prior to the last two recorded recessions, (as indicated by the gray areas on the chart).

And the rate has been declining since about 2004, well before the American financial crisis of 2008/9, the ensuing economic slowdown, and the dramatic tightening of the availability of mortgage credit.  Combine tighter credit standards with the sharp rise in unemployment (and employment security) in the period of 2008 - 2010, then you have the basic root causes for the fall in home ownership. Even the historically low mortgage interest rates of about 2011 until, well, until now, have not been able to reverse this trend. Oh, and one more data point to consider - all cash sales of property (primarily from banks and other investors), have continued to rise - some estimates say these cash sales now constitute half of all transactions. Even if a prospective individual home buyer has a stable job, and can qualify for a home mortgage, they often find themselves losing out to a competing all cash offer from an investor or syndicate.

In the depths of the recession it was often theorized that employment mobility was becoming compromised by people's inability to sell (at a price that would be acceptable if they could sell at all), their existing homes in order to facilitate a job change or even a transfer inside their current company. In many parts of the country large numbers of homeowners were underwater on their homes, owing more to the mortgage holder than the home could expect to fetch in a sale.

In 2013 and perhaps in the future, the trends in the rate of home ownership and in the increase of all cash and investor-driven residential home sales, while seemingly not positive developments for the average employee, could be ones that end up benefiting the organization. In 2009 and 2010, organizations were probably finding it hard, (or very expensive), to facilitate employee transfers around the country or to convince that desirable candidate to relocate from one state to another when selling a home at a loss simply was too much of a financial burden to take on, no matter how fantastic the job opportunity might have been.

But with the home ownership trends heading downward, and the investor-driven all cash sales on the rise, the chances are increasing that the great candidate or that high-potential manager you'd like to send on a rotational assignment to Kentucky are going to much more able to make these kinds of moves in the future. Without the need to sell the house, well, most folks are just a few months away or a broken lease from taking the next great gig.

Of course, while not being burdened by home ownership makes someone more likely to listen to your opportunity or offer, it also makes them equally able and receptive to everyone else's offers as well.

Happy Halloween my friends.

Relocation, company growth, and asking the right questions

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is the final in a series brought to you by Allied Van Lines, proud sponsor of the “2012 Workforce Mobility Survey”, designed to capture the voice of HR on topics related to workforce mobility. Allied has more than 75 years of experience in corporate, household and international relocation.)

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Here is the simple plan for today's offering -

First, I'll drop two simple, but related charts from the Allied 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey.

Next, I will spend a sentence or two expressing disbelief, incredulity, and general hand-wringing about what the numbers are telling us about our, (that's the collective 'we', not you, dear reader. We both know you are better than that), inability to do the most simple, basic, yet important things well.

Last, I will issue a general plea for all of us, (again it's them I mean, not you), to try and do just a little better. 

Sound good? Here goes.

Chart 1 - Getting to the question of 'How important is relocation, and by extrapolation, flexibility, commitment, and possibly even drive in whether or not you're likely to become a big shot in this organization?'

Wow, turns out it is pretty important. Especially in very large organizations where 60% of respondents indicating for VP and Director-level roles, relocation is required for career advancement, and almost half indicate its requirement for Business Unit leader roles. Since relocation is a requirement for advancement into these very senior, and likely critically important roles, you'd think just about all organizations would have a great handle on just who amongst the potential internal candidates for these roles would be ready, able, and willing to actually relocate for one of them.

Right?

Chart 2 - Guess again, an incredibly small percentage of respondents, even in large companies, indicated they were actually tracking employee's willingness to relocate.

We've heard the story about a zillion times in various formats and ways over the years. The world is shrinking, US companies are looking for growth all over the world, and tapping into markets like China, India, Brazil and more, are becoming keys for many organization's strategies. But in order to make those kinds of strategies possible, to say nothing for less-ambitious but still tricky domestic-based expansion efforts, it will almost always require at least some ability to deploy internal talent in new locations. In order to drop a new store in Topeka, or open a new regional distribution center in Singapore, it is highly likely someone, (probably several someones), will have to go live in Topeka for a while. But based on the survey data in the above chart, it seems like about 88% of companies would have no real idea who might be a good candidate for that kind of primo assignment, because they never bothered to ask anyone.

So here's the wrap-up and the plea. There are lots and lots of things about HR and Recruiting that are really complex, difficult, and simply hard to do. Employees are unpredictable. Managers can go off the plot. Technology that is supposed to make it all better sometimes, unfortunately, lets us down.

Yes, much of what comprises these kinds of the talent processes can be downright perplexing and maddeningly frustrating. But not all of it is hard. Some things are actually kind of easy, like keeping track of people's ability and willingness to pursue new assignments and relocation roles. It is just a question. Ask it once a year, maybe at annual review time, maybe on their service anniversary, maybe at the company picnic, whatever.

But when the simple question isn't asked, and the data to answer the CEO when he or she wants to know if we have the talent to tame a tough market like Topeka does not exist, well then we, (them, not you), look really silly. And the shame of it is that we might have lots of other things that will make us look silly that are out of our control, we really should not be helping anyone make that case.

Many thanks to Allied for the opportunity to participate in the shaping and analysis of the 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey.

And sure, making it a little bit fun probably won't hurt.

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If you would like to learn more about Allied Van Lines, please check out their website or blog. And if you would like to get more information from the Workforce Mobility Survey, you can click here. It’s definitely worth checking out.