Cost of Living Index Global

Top ten cities

What is the Cost of Living Index?

To calculate each city's Cost of Living Index value, Expatistan starts by assigning a value of 100 to a central reference city (that happens to be Prague). Once the reference point has been established, the Price Index value of every other city in the database is calculated by comparing their cost of living to the cost of living in Prague.

Therefore, if a city has a Price Index of 134, that means that living there is 34% more expensive than living in Prague.

Cost of Living Index in Europe

Top ten cities

 

What is the Cost of Living Index?

To calculate each city's Cost of Living Index value, Expatistan starts by assigning a value of 100 to a central reference city (that happens to be Prague). Once the reference point has been established, the Price Index value of every other city in the database is calculated by comparing their cost of living to the cost of living in Prague.

Therefore, if a city has a Price Index of 134, that means that living there is 34% more expensive than living in Prague.

What is a group move?

You may have seen a previous post "So what exactly is employee relocation and global mobility?" that gave a brief explanation of what employee relocation is and what it entails. Organisations moving a number of employees from A to B at the same time, or over a defined period of time, perhaps in waves, undertake what is known as a "group move".

So a group move is when an organisation just carries out a lot of relocations, right?

Wrong. When a group move is carried out, the company might be moving the whole company, a department, or even just a handful of employees. This might be within the same country or even cross-border, which brings its own unique set of challenges. The need to move a group of employees can vary depending on the requirements of the business, and these must be taken into account when planning the move, administering the services and dealing with employees.

But apart from the volume, is it just the same as standard relocation?

For whatever reason an organisation decides to conduct a group move, it can cause a significant impact well after the actual move has been completed. Imagine you have lived somewhere all of your life, and your employer suddenly announces that the whole department is relocating 500 miles away. I have seen this happen in a group move from Reading to Aberdeen. You have a working spouse to consider, and a couple of kids at school. This kind of announcement isn't exactly a spoonful of sugar and raises plenty of questions; Do I have to go? If I didn't go, could I find another job here? What about my husband's job? Will my son be OK when he takes his exams next year? Will I be out of pocket? Such a period can be hugely unsettling for employees, so exact planning and preparation, as well as an empathetic approach, are fundamental to a successful group move.

So which services do we need to consider in addition to our standard relocation?

The core services for a group move generally remain the same as for standard moves, though the way in which they are delivered and managed differs. The greatest difference you will see to the everyday relocation offering is through the addition of the following services:

• Policy consultancy

• Cost estimates

• Accompanied area tours

• Information sessions

• Information rooms

• Group move clinics

• Dedicated group move website

You might also find you need to make some changes to your relocation policy and may even create a distinct group move policy. You need to ensure that the offering is cost-effective but strong enough to encourage your chosen employees to relocate to the new location.

Effectively selling the new location to your workforce can also be a major challenge but we shall look at that another time.

Why do organisations carry out group moves?

Usually, the decision to group move is the result of a requirement to reduce costs long-term. For example, consider the BBC's move out of London into Salford, or Deutsche Bank's transfer of staff from London to Birmingham. Both examples are clearly aiming to reduce overheads, generally through property and salary cost savings, but companies may opt to relocate to a region with a lower tax rate and make savings that way, e.g. Zug in Switzerland has a low corporate tax rate in order to attract business into the region.

Secondly, an organisation may relocate to be near to other industry hubs and can thus draw on the talent pool more readily, e.g. the technology hub in London’s EC1V postal district and "Silicon" roundabout, or the biotechnology hubs in San Francisco and Boston.

Undertaking a group move can be a costly business, so it is not a decision that should be taken lightly - there has to be a return on the investment.

We will shortly look in-depth at how a group move could be administered, so stay tuned.

Celsium is a relocation management company, head-quartered in the UK and providing relocation services globally to businesses relocating their employees. 

A full suite of relocation services is offered to fulfil the requirements of businesses and relocating employees, both domestically within the UK, and internationally to and from any location: orientation, homesearch, tenancy management, departure services, temporary accommodation, marketing assistance, purchase assistance, housing cost differentials, school search, area information guides, cultural training, language training, furniture and appliance rental, immigration, moving, expense management, group move management, policy build and benchmark, recruitment and tax services.

For more information about relocation and relocation policy, please email us.
 

Finding an apartment to rent in Paris

Finding an apartment in Paris can be a time-consuming process. French laws very strongly favour the tenant, so landlords only want to rent to people they are certain will be good tenants and will be able to pay the rent. Landlords aren’t allowed to evict tenants between October to March, so you can imagine how nervous a landlord might get. Also, there is a shortage of apartments in Paris and it is not uncommon for group viewings to take place, so you may have to compete with many other viewers.

Before you even start looking for an apartment, you need to establish where you want to live and what your budget is. You will to an extent be limited by your salary, as most landlords expect your net salary to be three times the rent. As for location, you will need to do your research to find areas that suit your requirements, but the 6th, 7th, 8th and 16th arrondissements tend to be "expat-heavy" and they are closer to the international schools and the American Hospital.

Next, you’ll need to assemble your all-important "dossier". Putting this together can seem like a daunting task but landlords will not look favourably upon an incomplete dossier and therefore probably reject your application. Your dossier should include:

• Identity card (carte de séjour or passport)
• Last year’s avis d’imposition (similar to the P60 in the UK and the Form 1040 in the US)
• Last three pay slips
• Current contract of employment
• Last energy bill
• Last avis d’echeance (rent bill)
• Relevé d’Identité Bancaire - RIB (A document from your bank with your account details)
• All of the above for your guarantor

Yes, your guarantor. While it’s not necessary for all apartments, it does help. If you don’t have someone who can sign for you, some employers have programs and offers to help. Once your dossier is complete, you can start the actual property search.

If you are going it alone, useful websites are www.leboncoin.fr and www.seloger.com, where you can search using different criteria. Don’t rely entirely on their automatic alerts as it has been noted that they miss properties. Check the listings at least once a day, and if you find something that looks good, call right away. The market moves very quickly and you will often find that the apartment has been taken if you wait a day. Also, you can also try going directly to agencies and seeing what they have on inventory.

You’ll probably have to visit a few apartments to find the right one, and it’ll feel like a full-time job for a while but when a landlord accepts your dossier and you’re sitting comfortably in your apartment, you’ll know that all the effort was worth it.

Alternatively, Celsium's local housing specialist can do all of this for you, providing you with guidance on the right areas for you, researching suitable properties, compiling a viewing itinerary, accompanying you to viewings and negotiating and making an offer to the landlord.

If you would like to find out more about how Celsium can support your homesearch in Paris, please get in touch with us using our contact page.

Source: http://www.expatsblog.com/articles/1471/finding-an-apartment-to-rent-in-paris-expat-property (Megan McGuire 15 Feb 2015)

10 tips for successfully managing inventories

Almost half of tenants in England and Wales do not attend a "check-out" at the end of their tenancy, according to figures published by The Deposit Protection Service (The DPS).

During checkouts, landlords or their representatives record the condition of the property in comparison to when the tenants arrived, and that forms the basis of any claim for deductions against the deposit. Celsium always recommends that the tenant, or a representative of the tenant, attends both the check-in and check-out.

The DPS recommends that tenants attend; however, 48% of respondents to The DPS’ recent survey of 8,035 tenants said they had not attended, and almost half (46%) of tenants who did not attend said that they had either not been invited or were not informed of the date or time.

Julian Foster, Managing Director of The DPS, said, "Check-outs are one of the most important stages of any tenancy. By viewing the property and discussing its condition together, tenants and landlords can resolve problems quickly and help prevent longer disputes, for instance, over the return of the deposit. It’s vital that landlords enable tenants to attend – and that tenants go along when invited.”

The DPS has also issued its top ten tips for landlords to help ensure that checkouts are successful, but these are useful from a tenant's perspective - forewarned is forearmed!

1. If you can’t agree deposit deductions with the tenant, you enter The TDS' Alternative Dispute Resolution process, where an adjudicator will use evidence like the inventory to compare the property condition at the beginning and end of the tenancy.

2. The adjudicator will need to judge how reliable the inventory is. Those considered to be the best evidence will usually:

   • have been prepared by a third party such as a professional inventory clerk

   • contain dated photos

   • have been signed by the tenant

3. Don’t forget – the adjudicator won’t visit the property, so the inventory needs to give as clear a picture as possible. The inventory shouldn’t just be a list of items. It should include the condition of:

   • the property

   • the décor

   • fixtures and fittings

   • any furnishings or other items  

4. An inventory should be completed for each new tenancy. It should also be done every time there’s a change of tenant at the property, even if it’s a multiple tenancy and not all the tenants are leaving. If a new inventory can’t be created, adjudicators will consider updated or annotated versions of the original.

5. Check-out evidence should be completed as soon as possible after the tenant returns the keys. If the tenant has left the property without attending a check-out inspection, the check-out evidence should be compiled as soon as possible. The tenant doesn’t have to attend the check-out inspection, but they should be encouraged as it will be easier for both parties to agree the results.

6. Inventories can be the deciding factor in a dispute (and can even prevent them occurring) so it’s really important they’re clear and detailed.

7. There’s no set layout to inventories but information should be clear and methodical. The check-in report will need to be as comprehensive as possible, but the check-out report can just note any changes to the condition of the property and contents.

8. An explanation of the condition of an item should be descriptive. Words like "fair" and "OK" can be interpreted in many different ways, and might not help the case. It’s important to state if an item is brand new.

9. Make sure labelling is consistent across the reports. For example, changing the label of bedrooms from "front, middle and back" in the check-in report to "bedrooms 1, 2 and 3" at check-out can make it difficult for the adjudicator to be sure they are comparing the same rooms.

10. Photos must be good quality, and clearly show the alleged damage or defect. If the inventory has been photocopied, photographs can be unclear and the adjudicator may not be able to make out any damage. Electronic versions of the photos are much easier for adjudicators to judge.

If you would like any further information about tenancy-related issues, please contact Stuart Beaty at stuart@celsiummobility.com.

Courtesy of The DPS.

"Are there any women here?"

You may have seen the fabulously funny, if not slightly controversial, film, The Life of Brian, by Monty Python. If you haven’t, I suggest you watch it as soon as you can, as this is the pinnacle of the Pythons’ intelligent yet twisted humour.

Anyway, for those of you that have seen it, you will no doubt recall the stoning scene, where Brian and his mother are attending a public stoning. Brian’s mother is sporting a fake beard to give her the appearance of a man and when Brian asks her why women aren’t allowed to go to the stoning, the reply is that, “It's written. That's why.”

It turns out that those attending the stoning are indeed all women wearing fake beards, but the game is almost given away when of them shouts out but forgetting to put on her “man voice”.

“Are there any women here today?” questions John Cleese.

Let’s rewind 45 years or so from today when my dear mum embarked on her career; she did something phenomenal – her decision to join the WRAF (Women’s Royal Air Force) helped pave the way for thousands of women to not only join the service, but to break into a heavily male-dominated sector. She turned up at RAF Leeming guard room to report for duty to be greeted by, “We don’t have women here.” So she was sent home in London for two weeks whilst they installed female-appropriate facilities.

It’s still a problem today, though thankfully nowhere near as great as it once was. The battle of the sexes and the idea that women just aren’t quite up to the job has always been with us and the opinion (generally from a chauvinistic male population) has always been that men are better than women. This is a preposterously vague and equally ridiculous a statement to make. It’s like pointing out that unicorns are better than sheep. Better at what, exactly? I was looking for three bags full of wool, not a distorted and puerile sense of reality.

Reality. So what is the reality? Well, the argument seems to be that women are better listeners, are more empathetic and engage more quickly and more deeply with their audience. In a recent Gallup study in the US, female managers exceed male managers at meeting employees' essential workplace requirements. And female managers themselves are more engaged at work than are their male counterparts, which would help explain this phenomenon. There is currently an enormous amount of debate about employee engagement on social media, but it is reasonable to say that if an employee demonstrates energy, enthusiasm and absorption at work then they are probably much more engaged and therefore doing a better job than somebody who does not display those traits.

Relationship and trust building is a key part to any business and the way in which men and women build these is very different. Men tend to build relationships by playing football, going to rugby matches, doing activities together, whereas women build relationships by conversing with each other. I bet you will have seen the familiar scenario unfold at business meetings where the men really don’t have a great deal to say to each other and one or two of them are staring into space, twiddling a pen, or checking their mobile device. The same goes for social gatherings where the male is only there because his partner wanted to go as a couple. If he had his own way he would be back at home avoiding all this idle chit chat.  Contrary to this, the women are chatting away as if they have known each other for years. Relationships are built almost instantly, but for the men, the guard is up. Consider the advantage women would have in the context of a sales meeting or a networking situation. In the world of business, every organisation has to play to its strengths, but one thing is for sure – as our sales team grows it will consist almost entirely of highly capable women.

Just to end, Celsium is proud to announce that its leadership team is 50% female – striking a perfect balance for all business needs.

4 reasons to outsource

Celsium provides end-to-end relocation management services to organisations whilst applying our core values of Respect, Integrity and Empathy to the people we come into contact with, the communities in which we operate and the environment around us.  We aim to provide services globally through an extensive network of accredited partners.  We strive to be cost-effective for our clients through our industry-original business structure.  We aim to provide superlative quality services by our highly motivated and talented employees. 

When setting up Celsium, we decided that we wanted to be the best at what we did, which is a tiny bit of a cliché, admittedly, but that was, and remains, the genuine aim of the company. However, saying you are going to be better than the competition requires a lot more effort than just making a statement to that effect, so we set a number of objectives to help us on the journey to meeting our mission. Of those objectives, the following stood out whilst we were fleshing out the company structure:

1. Partnering with local experts

2. Offering a broad range of flexible, bespoke services

3. Managing and minimising risk

4. Vigorously controlling costs

1. Partnering with local experts has enabled us to provide excellent services in almost every location imaginable. We aren’t going to claim we have Celsium employees on the ground in every region, or in Paris, Istanbul or Shanghai, because we don’t. The reason why we don’t is simple - because we don’t need to as there is no tangible added value. For somebody moving to Paris, it makes no difference whatsoever whether their relocation is managed from Aberdeen, Paris or Tokyo. As long as time zone differences are accounted for, it really doesn’t matter where in the world our Personal Coordinators are based – they are the ones managing the relocation, coordinating the various activities and ensuring the sequence of pre-planned events plays out as expected. Local support, e.g. current advice on the state of the rental market in Hong Kong, is outsourced to those that know it best – the local experts we have selected to support your employees. We could claim to be rental market experts in Hong Kong and attempt to provide suitable advice based on second hand information, but in all honesty, who really knows the Hong Kong market best; somebody in the UK running Google searches to find relevant information to pass on, or somebody in Hong Kong working within the rental sector?

2. We thought about our service offering in depth as we wanted to stand out from the crowd a little. Rather than just providing the bog standard set of services, we wished to support our clients with some additional services and also enhance standard services. Of course, supporting your clients with slightly different services requires knowledge in those areas and we didn’t feel we were in a position to recruit and manage employees to provide those services. Would you interview, recruit and manage an employee providing tax advice if you didn’t have knowledge of tax? So again, we decided that outsourcing was the most appropriate model here, and this has allowed us to provide our customers with the flexibility of a broad range of services from which to choose. It has also allowed us to provide an industry-leading Tenancy Management service, as every member of our tenancy team is ARLA* qualified and attends regular training updates.

   *The Association of Residential Letting Agents is a professional body for letting agents. ARLA was formed in 1981 as the professional and regulatory body for letting agents in the UK. ARLA raises standards within the letting and property management profession through qualifications and training, offering a range of specialist short courses and the Technical Award in Residential Letting and Property Management qualification. www.arla.co.uk

3. Minimising risk has become a hot topic of late, and rightly so. Gone are the days of it being viewed as merely a tick box exercise. With the rise and prominence of social media, organisations face increased reputational challenges as their laundry is publically aired. Following on from an actual risk assessment, one of the ways in which an organisation can minimise risk is to ensure it is compliant, i.e. with legislation, good industry practice and described processes and procedures. Managing this in a business can be a laborious task if the work is carried out by directly employed staff, but if areas of work are outsourced, it is fair to say that those to whom the work has been outsourced will be more expert in that field than your organisation and can better manage the processes and risks on your behalf. Celsium has placed its trust in a number of outsourced partners who are highly knowledgeable and compliant experts in their own field, and in order to maintain high standards and high levels of trust, we carry out periodic compliance assessments under the ethos of continual improvement and due diligence. Had we opted to perform these services in-house, our staffing costs would have been significantly higher and we would have had the additional burden of providing specialist training and additional audit activities, but as it stands we are able to pass these cost savings to our clients.

Following on from the point above, what do you have to consider when employing a specialist team member? Well, it’s quite a list when you sit down and think about it. Here’s a little list of activities that will use an organisation’s valuable resources:

• Creating a job description

• Advertising the position

• Interviewing several candidates, some more than once

• Updating candidates on the outcome of their interview(s)

• Issuing a job offer

• Dealing with new starter paperwork

• Setting up the new employee on company systems and payroll

• Creating an induction and training plan

• Providing in-house training

• Providing specialist external training

• Conducting periodic training reviews

• Issuing permanent position after satisfactory probationary period completion

• Conducting internal audit of processes the employee is following

• Creating post-audit improvement plan

• Implementing improvement plan

• Providing ongoing training

You get the idea – and that’s just a short list off the top of my head. And remember, you can only provide quality in-house training if sufficient knowledge exists within the company and you have sufficient written resources (hard copy, soft copy or online) to which the employee can refer.

The other option is to outsource the position to a specialist organisation with solid experience of working in that sector. E.g. we could have recruited a team of tenancy managers to handle our lease negotiations and manage all of our corporate tenancies, but we would have had to follow the steps above at considerable (ongoing) expense. Lettings legislation in the UK is ever changing so refresher training courses are paramount to providing a top class tenancy management service. You can see the costs mounting up and of course, these costs are passed to the client in one way or another. By outsourcing this work, Celsium is able to reduce the costs of its overheads and pass these cost savings to our clients. In today’s market of bottom line scrutiny, cost control is paramount and any saving we can make for our clients is passed on.

Naturally, we look at cost control across the board, not just at the relocation services we provide to our clients. Our business model allows us to control and minimise costs (and risk) in every single department, including IT, Finance, HR, Sales & Marketing and Operations, a benefit that is ultimately enjoyed by the client.

Celsium is responsible for the coordination and management of all outsourced partners to deliver our services. The Personal Coordinator’s role is to understand the relocation policy, processes and our systems and manage all relocations and arising situations, tracking and following up on all due tasks via our relocation management software. Celsium bears ultimate responsibility for the overall management of each relocation so we select and manage our outsourced partners to deliver a service with the same level of respect, integrity and empathy that we deliver to our clients.

There will be opponents to outsourcing as for every fan there is a critic, but Celsium sees the enormous benefits of outsourcing, particularly for specialist, regulated functions. Ultimately, we want to provide the best services for our clients at the most effective cost, and outsourcing helps us to achieve these goals without compromise.