With the negative employment rate in many areas, and a lack of skilled resources more and more companies both big and small are being forced to incorporate relocation into their employee management and staffing processes.
Companies and vendors are responding to this change in the market and are now competing for your business.
What does this mean for you?
Service and lots of it!!
You will find there are more companies out there willing to do more and work harder for you and your employees for less in an effort to remain competitive.
Homefair.com is one of these companies and in turn for you turning to them for relocation information; you gain free access to a wide range of suppliers, tools, information and checklists.
So if you are looking to remove the headaches of your relocation assistance program or source a resource that will help you initiate this benefit, join us as we explore Homefair.com and learn some of the many ways your company can utilize and maximize the use of this free online resource.
Homefair.com is part of a suite of online tools created by Homestore.com. The newest site in the Homestore lineup, Homefair was designed to provide real estate and home based information to the public.
The site focuses specifically on trying to address the concerns and information needs of individuals moving to a new home or relocating to a new community.
Homefair.com contains articles, information, checklists, a marketplace, and most importantly tools and reports.
The most prominent features of the site are:
In addition to these tools and reports, Homefair.com also offers a service especially geared to companies called, "The Moving Concierge." The Moving Concierge is a personalized service Homefair.com offers to companies and their employees. Use of the site is free and for the most part so is The Moving Concierge service.
How is this product useful for HR Professionals?
Homefair.com would be a great add-on benefit for employees/potential employees and their families to have access to. Even if you never plan on providing the information yourself, offering a reference to the site in an offer letter or etc. would be an extremely nice touch.
Homefair.com can assist you by allowing you to gain useful information quickly on things like:
There are three different options in terms of usage you can explore:
Cobrand - You could co-brand the Homefair.com site to look like your corporate site, and have a copy of the tools and resources you feel would be most appreciated posted to your own intranet/internet.
Account with Moving Concierge - Setup an account with the service side of Homefair.com, and reference employees to refer to the site and if deemed appropriate you can have representatives from the MovingConcierge, personally assist selected employees with their relocation needs, while you sit back and wait for MovingConcierge to provide you with updates.
Reference - Do nothing in terms of formalizing your use of Homefair.com and just refer the site to individuals for reference.
Demo:
When you enter the site, you may be overwhelmed by the number of choices and the presence of the words Homestore.com, don´t worry while there is a retail side to the site, the tools and content are there and are worth the barrage of ads and vendors. Also despite the prevalence of the words Homestore.com you are indeed on Homefair.com.
The entry screen is overwhelming...so I will make it easy. There are two ways of approaching the same information and tools, the direct route and the scenic approach.
The direct route can be found off the left side navigation bar, under the green heading browse categories. By clicking on any of the tools listed under here you will be directly taken to the tool in question i.e. The Salary Calculator (really a cost of living comparison.)
If you prefer the scenic route, the same tools can be accessed by going through the central frame area by clicking on the appropriate category.
The key features of the site besides the articles, checklists and helpful hints are
the school reports, city reports, relocation crime lab stats, research calculators, salary calculator, community calculator, moving calculator, relocation wizard, military relocation wizard and the MovingConcierge.
Other time saving tools exist on the site like home and apartment listings, mortgage calculators etc., but I felt the above tools provided the most valuable content from an HR point of view.
To assist in your understanding of the tools and what they do, I have broken them down for you below.
Services:
MovingConcierge: The MovingConcierge is a service provided in combination by Homefair.com and the FAS Relocation Network. In essence this service, provides companies with a variety of relocation assistance options that you can provide for your employees to access. Any company can register for this service regardless of whether they presently provide any relocation services to employees or not.
There is no registration cost for employers or employees. In essence, what the MovingConcierge does is provide you with a relocation coach who assists you with a multitude of tasks from moving services to 401K and pension rollover assistance. Some additional services like Homesale Assistance programs do involve a fee, but you don´t have to utilize or commit to those services if you don´t feel you need them.
The team at MovingConcierge can work within a budget and are comfortable with working with lump sum plans. Most importantly, MovingConcierge can report back to you or your colleagues on the activity of your account, number of employees utilizing said program, their feedback, whether the monetary funds you provide meet or exceed current average requirements etc.
To access this tool, you can request additional information off the relocation area or you can contact the MovingConcierge at info[at]movingconcierge.com
Reports:
City Reports: This tool gives you a side-by-side comparison of two cities'' cost of living, climate, demographics, and other vital information from a database that is updated quarterly by Homefair.com.
Once you select your two cities, and your country of origin you are all set. Presently you can only select from Canada or the United States for Country of Origin.
Some example fields contained in the report include, demographics, climate, cost of living, tax rates, average household prices, median incomes etc.
School Reports: Step 1 - Select a state from drop down list. Step 2- Select a city or county from the second screen that appears. Step 3 - Voila!
Once you have selected your city or county options and press go you are presented with a table with some general data, that includes data like average student to teacher ratio, average high school and elementary class size, whether there are computers in elementary classrooms and avg. school size.
In this table, you are not only able to view the area you selected but the data of surrounding areas or counties as well so you can compare.
For instance, when I selected Avon, CT, I was also able to view data from Berlin, Bloomfield and several other Connecticut areas.
If you need more detailed information, you can request a more detailed report at the top of the page or you can select a county or city listed on the table and hyperlink to more in depth data from there.
By clicking on the table, you can view a School District Map, as well as learn the names and addresses of individual public schools in the area. The principal´s name is also attached to each school. By clicking on any of the addresses in the table, you can instantly see where on the map the school would be located.
If you choose to go the more detailed report option rather than using the table you need to fill out a registration form. Once you have provided your contact information you can select up to 3 districts or cities for comparison.
Once you click go - the report is automatically generated, detailing everything from SAT scores to main brag features of each school...i.e. in Bloomfield, CT every classroom has an internet connection!
Relocation Crime Lab: Scary but true...you can even access up to date crime stats on this site by city or county. The data is broken down by type of crime and also against the national average.
Research Calculators:
Salary Calculator: The Salary Calculator is really a cost of living comparison, aimed at helping individuals realize how much of a salary increase or decrease they could accept to live in another area and still maintain their standard of living.
Again you enter your starting country, and city and your destination country and city along with your present income. The calculator will generate a figure based on this data you would need to make in order to secure your standard of living in the proposed area.
Community Calculator: The community calculator allows you to enter your present zip code, state and city and based on this data it will recommend communities to you that are similar demographically that you may be comfortable relocating to.
Moving Calculator: Scary...this instrument allows you to select your city and state of origin and destination, outline the number of bedrooms and other rooms you plan on relocating with you and the number of family members involved in the move, more than 3 or less than 3.
Based on this information an estimated price is supposed to be generated. I found this tool only responded well when I entered the number of miles, as no matter what city I chose an error message indicating incorrect spelling was always generated. Â TOUCHY!!
Anyways, once the number of miles is entered the totals appear to move a family of 3 or more, coming from a 3-bedroom home with playroom, living room, dining room etc. would cost between 9,000-11,000 U.S.
Relocation Wizard: The Relocation Wizard takes information again related to destination, expected moving date and family make-up and based on this generates a moving timeline for you to refer to. The moving timeline comes in a print friendly table format and clearly outlines tasks, optimum completion dates and a check box area for you to monitor your progress.
Some of the information is pretty salesy and geared to products in the store, but the table could still be helpful and if nothing else would help your employees begin to plot out their own required tasks.
Military Relocation Wizard: Very similar to Relocation Wizard but geared to military context.
The Vitals:
Support- Use of the site, for the most part does not necessitate any formal support, however standard email and help areas are found on the site for reference. With The Moving Concierge, you are provided with a hotline number and a dedicated relocation coach when an account is setup.
System Requirements - Web Access
Security Measures- Use of the regular site tools requires no security, however there are security measures in place for those who choose to take advantage of cobranding or The Moving Concierge.
Cost-There is no cost to accessing the site or setting up an account with "The Moving Concierge." There are build and license fees associated with cobranding the site. Build fees can range from 5,000 and up and licenses from $2400.00 to $12,000.00 per year.
Overall Evaluation:
It is hard to knock a free resource, but here goes, if you can deal with the advertising overload, the individual rather than corporate focus and the touchy moving calculator tool, the information contained in the site is worth it. Â And if you can´t deal with the advertising and individual aim...you can always cobrand the site and content to your own look and feel for a price.
On the positive side Homefair.com has a wide variety of articles and information pieces that would be applicable to individuals relocating at all points of their life from the single years, couples, to families. The tools on the Homefair website are excellent time savers, allowing you to not only access general stats on everything from community details, to cost of living indexes. Employees can save time by getting moving estimates from multiple companies instantaneously, arranging for hook-up of amenities like cable, power etc.
The articles are fun and straightforward and the checklists are helpful and informative! "Did you know, you should obtain a history of your pet´s medical care 6 weeks before your move? - I didn´t!"
But by far the showstopper on Homefair.com is the MovingConcierge.
Where else can you go and obtain a personalized and dedicated relocation coach for your employees to utilize at no setup cost to you or your employees and in most cases no operating or task fees?
The service will also help you administer your relocation dollars by helping you create lump sum and/or personal budget estimates. MovingConcierge also monitors the payments you have provided and how they were you utilized by your users.
In essence, other than the divvying out of relocation dollars, by referring to the website and the use of the MovingConcierge, you can essentially have in your own handbag of benefits the beginnings of a responsive Relocation Assistance program at no cost to you or your employees and best yet...no effort or time expenditures are required on the part of your staff to setup, run or maintain any features of the program.
I challenge you to beat that!
I was incredibly impressed by the amount of content on the Homefair.com site, the willingness of the staff to work with you to meet your needs and the flexibility of the programs they have initiated. The content is regularly updated and their research is ongoing. Best of all with all the tools, reports and calculators, you gain instant access to information once you fill in the required information...no long waits or sales calls trying to get you to buy the information. The information provided is also very thorough and refers you to outside sources to complete your inquiries, for example with the school reports you are provided with contact names, phone numbers and addresses of the schools you may be interested in.
With companies competing for resources, it makes sense for companies to do everything possible to stand-out, and as shown by Homefair.com it doesn´t take a whole lot of money or effort to accomplish this.
Regardless of whether you assist employees in relocation presently or not, this is a site worth referring to not only for yourself but your employees as well.
About the Company:
Homefair.com is one of a number of sites managed and created by Homestore.com.
With just over 65 employees and their content being distributed on over 4,000 sites, Homefair has a lot to brag about for a company that has only been in existence for 6 years.
Content for the site comes primarily from Homefair´s own internal directory called the Center for Mobility Resources with the exception of the MovingConcierge, which is supported by the FAS Relocation Network.
Updates to the site occur quarterly with the exception of school data, which is updated twice yearly.
There are many ways you can get involved in Homefair.com and benefit from their information and tools, for more information on how your company can become involved please contact:
johng[at]homefair.com or cwalker[at]fasrelo.com
Or visit their site at
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