At the Center of the Move By John Voket
When it comes to discussing the best reasons why a family would want to relocate to his neck of the woods in the greater Orlando, Florida area, Jose Carbia can go on for hours. But as the employment manager for Scholastic Book Fairs in neighboring Saint Mary, who also oversees more than two-dozen, executive-level relocations every year, when Carbia gets questions about places like Kennesaw, Georgia or Bloomingdale, Illinois, he’s sometimes at a loss for words.
That’s why for the past year-and-a-half, when Scholastic Book Fairs’ executives and other employees are preparing for relocation to one of the many company sites across the country, Carbia and Scholastic Book Fairs relies exclusively on Global Mobility Solutions, formerly FAS Relocation Network.
“We have 67 locations across the country and my office handles about 25 relocations every year,” says Carbia. “These are most frequently either new hires or existing management personnel, and just about all of them are moving along with families.”
According to Carbia, GMS has become the central point of contact for the transferee.
“GMS co-ordinates the van lines and the transfer of household goods for the transferee, along with just about everything else they need,” he says. “That’s good for me because the employer really shouldn’t be directly involved in the day-to-day, hands-on aspects of the relocation.”
Since 1987, GMS has been assisting corporate relocation coordinators like Carbia, and the employees he’s charged with moving, answer questions about house hunting, connecting them with a diverse network of Realtors to help sell and purchase their homes—with referrals to mortgage brokers if they need one—information on apartments and just about everything else the relocation candidate may need to know about the area he or she is moving into.
“Before I started using GMS, the employees would refer questions to me about things like school systems and the local cost of living in the towns where they were headed,” Carbia explains. “Now I know a lot about the greater Orlando area, but Dallas, Kennasaw, Bloomingdale or any of the other locations where we have operations, I’m afraid I know close to nothing about.”
With virtually every relocation, Scholastic Book Fairs tells GMS what the transferee is entitled to in his or her relocation package, and according to Carbia, the representatives from GMS help Scholastic Book Fairs control those costs. In regards to Scholastic Book Fairs’ typical relocation scenarios, Carbia believes that the most frequent challenge is getting the timeline of events in sync.
“Sometimes our transferee finds a new home before they sell their old one, for example. But when they deal with a relocation coach from GMS, that person really helps ease our employee’s concerns because they work with transferees all the time. GMS’ level of experience is usually really comforting to our people,” says Carbia.
Carbia cites a particular situation recently where an executive move involved a very complex Buyer Value Option on the employee’s real estate transaction. The GMS representative was able to help execute the buyer/seller agreement for the transferee.
“GMS was very helpful. They handled both transactions, negotiated the deals and worked really hard to make sure the transaction happened successfully while achieving the best financial advantages for all involved,” he explains.
This is why Scholastic Book Fairs has kept coming back to GMS.
“Overall, GMS has been very attentive to our needs, assuring the transferee is very satisfied,” says Carbia. “I firmly believe my decision to work with GMS has been one of the best I’ve made in my capacity here at Scholastic Book Fairs.” |
