Global Mobility Disaster Recovery: How to Support Your International Population When The World's On Fire...

Managing International Relocations in Difficult Geopolitical Times.

Fighting Fires - having a plan in advance can help you prepare for the worst

In a world that feels more unpredictable by the day, managing international relocations isn’t just about visas and shipping containers—it’s about resilience, foresight, and people. From political instability in the Middle East to global pandemics and sudden regulatory shifts, businesses with global teams face real operational and human challenges.

At Realm, we help ambitious businesses stay one step ahead. Whether you’re sending key talent to scale a new market or urgently repatriating an assignee from a region in crisis, we’re here to provide calm, compliant, expert support when it matters most.

Here’s how you can safeguard your mobility programme, and your people, when the world gets messy.

1. Look After Your International Assignees in Times of Difficulty

Your people are your greatest asset - and in tough times, how you support them is what sets your company apart. During the height of COVID-19, we saw companies scramble to bring their teams home as borders shut overnight. More recently, rising tensions in regions like Ukraine and the Middle East have triggered urgent evacuations and business continuity challenges.

Best practices for supporting assignees:

• Clear, timely communication: Ensure assignees receive regular updates on the local situation, visa changes, and company decisions.

• Mental health support: High-stress environments take a toll. Offer access to mental health services, cultural adjustment support, and local well-being resources.

• Safe accommodation and evacuation plans: Ensure housing and transport options are safe, secure, and ready to adapt in an emergency.

• Family-first approach: If an assignee has dependents, their needs must be built into every contingency.
  

2. How Global Mobility Partners Can Help

If your internal team is stretched—or simply hasn’t encountered a crisis before—a global mobility consultancy like Realm becomes more than just a service provider.

We help businesses by:

• Building resilience into your mobility programme before a crisis hits.

• Managing repatriations or emergency relocations, end to end.

• Advising on in-country risks and local compliance exposure.

• Providing dedicated support teams for both HR and assignees.

• Handling vendor coordination, from housing to tax to legal.
  

Think of us as your international fire blanket. We help you extinguish the flames and future-proof your programme.

3. Plan for Repatriation (Before You Need It!)

Too often, companies wait until it's too late to plan for a return home. But proactive repatriation planning should be baked into every international assignment.

What good repatriation contingency looks like:

• A clear Global Mobility Disaster Recovery policy outlining when and how an assignee will be brought home.

• Pre-identified transport and visa channels for rapid return.

• A “buddy” system in home and host countries to ease reintegration.

• Ongoing career planning to ensure returning assignees stay engaged and retained post-return.
  

At Realm, we help clients scenario-plan for high-risk regions, so you're not relying on guesswork when a problem arises.

4. Use Technology to Track, Protect, and React Fast

You can’t protect what you can’t see. In uncertain times, real-time visibility of your mobile workforce is critical - for compliance, for speed, and for safety.

We help clients integrate smart mobility technology that enables:

• Live location tracking of assignees, synced with immigration data.

• Automated alerts for geopolitical or environmental risks.

• Centralised dashboards for quick decision-making in a crisis.

• Compliance reporting across borders and business units.
  

Realm works with leading tech providers to help our clients implement and manage HR systems that can help them to manage disaster recovery effectively and work out in real time where theire people are who might need the help the most.

5. Practical Advice for Managing Your Programme in Tough Times

It helps to have a quick crisis-resilience checklist for global mobility:

• Build flexible mobility policies that allow for exceptions in emergencies.

• Know where your people are - and where they’re likely to be.

• Pre-screen destinations for stability and risk.

• Establish a cross-functional crisis response team (HR, legal, security, ops).

• Review and test repatriation and communication plans annually.

• Lean on external experts - don’t try to do it all in-house.

  
  

Remember: complexity is inevitable. But chaos is optional!

6. Disaster Recovery, Security & Additional Protections

We also help clients build bespoke disaster recovery frameworks for their international operations. That includes:

• Emergency travel plans and safe houses

• Local law enforcement and embassy coordination

• Insurance coverage reviews (medical evacuation, loss of property, liability)

• Security briefings and hostile environment training

• Audit trails for post-crisis reviews
  

Security isn’t just about the physical - it's about data, people, and trust.

How Realm Can Help When Things Go Sideways

Whether you’re facing a local protest, a global shutdown, or a rogue natural disaster, we can step in fast - with the calm confidence of a team that’s done this before.

We bring:

• Agile response capability, built on deep expertise and global networks.

• End-to-end support, from visa changes to family repatriation.

• Senior-level advice, when you're navigating board-level decisions.

• Empathy and clarity, when your people need it most.
  

And if you're a small or scaling business without in-house global mobility resources? We’ll act as your full-service partner, offering just the right mix of strategic guidance and help when you need it - especially when it comes to "out of the box" thinking.

TLDR: Build security & resilience in unpredictable times

If there’s one lesson from the past few years, it's this: Global mobility is not just an HR function it’s a resilience strategy for business continuity. The world is unpredictable, but your response doesn’t have to be.

At Realm, we help companies move with confidence, even in the most uncertain times.

Need help now - or want to prepare before the next crisis hits? Let’s talk.