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We have a great organization! We really do, and I am proud to be a combination ambassador and cheerleader for it. That is why one of the objectives I articulated at the beginning of this wonderful opportunity to serve you as Worldwide ERC® president was this: to energize and excite our membership about the community we are so lucky to be a part of and the resources we have available through ERC® (Well, to be completely honest, I said I wanted to get our membership “jazzed up” about Worldwide ERC®!).

Our industry is one that is quietly competent, yet we have a powerful impact on the way companies are able to conduct business. Our work grows more critical with every new business frontier that is mastered. And whether we are addressing moves within and into the United States; cross-border moves in the Asia-Pacific region; Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) assignment issues; or challenges elsewhere in the world, we continue to enhance and streamline workforce mobility practices and raise the profile of global workforce mobility professionals and Worldwide ERC®.

The U.S. domestic and global footprint of Worldwide ERC® continues to grow wider and deeper, and our organization has raised the level of professionalism through a steady channel of education, networking, and advocacy. We also have instituted programs that standardize and recognize our knowledge, or partner us with thought leaders and global decision-makers.

To bring even more clarity and focus to the work that we do in keeping the world’s workforce mobile, and to celebrate our history of achievement and progress, I am pleased to announce that the Worldwide ERC® board of directors has taken steps to formalize an industry day of recognition—the “Workforce Mobility Recognition Day” (WMRD). The introduction of the WMRD will occur during our Global Workforce Symposium in Denver, CO, and the date of the inaugural WMRD will be October 26, 2007!

On this day, we will recognize global workforce mobility professionals and the level of expertise and knowledge required to manage and support assignments, announce the public acknowledgement we have received from corporations who congratulate Worldwide ERC® and our industry’s work, and highlight this initiative as a global event.

I hope you are as excited as I am about establishing this annual day to focus on the outstanding work that is done in every segment of our industry. And while I cannot possibly recount all the reasons that led to this day for our industry, following are some of the ventures that have brought us to this moment.

Worldwide ERC® Global Presence

With our headquarters in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, and the establishment of our Brussels, Belgium, and Shanghai, China, offices, we now have a presence in key geographic areas. We are fortunate to have support from human resource (HR) departments and workforce mobility thought leaders for our programs that include our National Relocation Conference, Global Summits in Asia-Pacific and EMEA, the Global Workforce Symposium in the fall, and our Learning Zone webinars, as well as other partnered meetings and a series of benchmarking sessions conducted by Worldwide ERC® in different geographic locations.

The Worldwide ERC® Foundation

The Foundation for Workforce Mobility was established in 2004 to provide an institution to study, educate, and report on issues of interest to business leaders who must maintain a mobile workforce to thrive in today’s world markets, and serves as the charitable outreach arm of Worldwide ERC®. Thanks to the generosity and support of Worldwide ERC® members, the Foundation for Workforce Mobility has contributed nearly $150,000 to worthy organizations around the world.

In addition to its charitable work, the Foundation has grown our valued relationship with Thunderbird School of Global Management (which includes training seminars, conference presentations, and articles) in two other major areas: research and scholarship. Our partnership with Thunderbird, which has done so much to develop global business leaders in the educational arena, dovetails with our industry’s need to educate and network global human capital professionals. We recently released groundbreaking research through our co-branded report “Global Mindset Defined: Expat Success Strategy,” identifying the characteristics of those with a global mindset who are best suited to work outside their culture.

Another collaboration between the Worldwide ERC® Foundation and the Thunderbird School of Global Management is the introduction of our annual scholarship program to be administered by Thunderbird on the Foundation’s behalf. One Foundation scholarship per year in the amount of $10,000 will be given to a student at Thunderbird School of Global Management to further the study of effective global business and leadership.

And it is fitting that as we introduce the first WMRD, we also will announce the first Foundation Scholarship Award at the Global Workforce Symposium in Denver.

The Worldwide ERC® Coalition

The Worldwide ERC® Coalition—Center for Governmental Issues has taken the lead in addressing industry standards and best practices. Worldwide ERC® members who are faced with U.S. legislative and regulatory issues turn to the Coalition for the knowledge, expertise, and relationships to effectively prepare for and meet the challenges of managing risk. One of our major challenges was favorably resolved in 2005, when we heard from the Internal Revenue Service on a ruling long sought by the relocation industry on the tax treatment of relocation home purchase programs.

The Coalition has brought our members many such advances in advocacy in the tax and legal arena, and a stronger understanding of its role in monitoring, clarifying, and distilling tax and legal issues for the industry. And in recent months, we have made great progress as we work to expand this area with data to address more international issues.

Professional Designations

Our Certified Relocation Professional® (CRP®) program, established in 1990 to formally recognize Worldwide ERC® members who have mastered extensive knowledge on the principles and practices of relocation, brought the industry a revolutionary certification program. It blazed trails for more standardization in our industry language and best business protocol, and offered a better understanding of relocation policy. I am pleased to note that as I write, there are 4,685 S/CRP® designees (4,516 CRPs and 169 SCRPs) in our membership.

Our Global Mobility Specialist™ (GMS™) designation, only recently introduced, opened up a world of learning for professionals around the globe—in fact, we are represented in regions from A to V (Australia to Vietnam, to be exact!). We have nearly 1,800 GMS™ designees in 39 countries who have taken this specialized training in the field of workforce mobility and are committed to ongoing education that advances their global capabilities and expertise.

What is truly amazing about this designation, for us as an industry, is that it crosses borders so readily. There is a strong appetite for knowledge about universal global issues out there, and we are serving that need with a program that “translates” into a wonderfully varied range of companies and cultures.

Peggy Smith, SCRP, GMS, is global relocation program manager for Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, and 2007 president of Worldwide ERC®. She can be reached at +1 425 703 6250 or peggy.smith@microsoft.com.