By Michelle Quah

Companies around the world are keeping a close eye on costs, compared to a decade ago - while also finding more innovative ways to keep them down, says KPMG's 2009 Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey.

Companies surveyed said that given the economic climate, they have made cost-saving adjustments to their international assignment programmes - but continue to send assignees overseas.

More than 470 human resources executives took part in the survey. Of these, 48 are from Fortune 100 companies and 103 are from Fortune 500 companies.

Respondents said that their organisations are implementing a variety of options to save costs associated with long-term or standard assignments. Some of these options include short-term assignments, currently being used by 79 per cent of organisations, and permanent transfers, utilised by just under half of the organisations surveyed.

'As the decline in the global economy affected almost every area of business and most companies assessed the cost-effectiveness of their operations, international assignments were no exception,' said Ooi Boon Jin, head of international executive services at KPMG in Singapore.

'The KPMG survey results mirror our experience with clients; we saw that companies and employers often adjusted parts of their programmes and examined alternate assignment types based on their business needs, but continued to send assignees to work on long-term business opportunities overseas,' he said.

Organisations surveyed said that they are keeping the lid on costs by adjusting their human resource (HR) policies. For example, since 2003, there has been nearly a 10 per cent increase, to 31 per cent, of organisations using an 'efficient purchaser index' in their cost of living allowance calculation to systematically achieve greater cost efficiency.

Organisations have also adjusted the class of air travel for international assignees. This year, 54 per cent of the programmes moved to a policy of economy class travel, which is an increase from 47 per cent in KPMG's 1999 survey.

Forty-nine per cent of respondents found that assignees take too much time to administer and so, almost half (47 per cent) of respondents outsource parts of their international assignment programmes to gain access to a service provider's global resources and expertise.

'In some cases, HR departments have been downsized, leaving fewer people to manage more work. In these situations, administrative models are often reviewed to achieve efficiency and cost savings. Outsourcing certain programme elements can help reduce the time and effort spent by HR professionals and allows the organisation to tap into the economies of scale in an outsourcing environment,' Mr Ooi said.

'Our discussions with clients map to the survey results indicating that reducing programme costs are top of mind for HR executives. As organisations continue to utilise international assignments, they also need to make sure there is a mechanism in place to measure how these assignments provide long-term benefits to the organisation,' he added.

This article was first published in The Business Times.