Hardship
Not all assignment locations are the same. A hardship allowance allows you to recognize living conditions and to acknowledge the challenges your employees face in designated locations. AIRINC’s hardship evaluations leverage an objective method to assess which locations warrant a hardship allowance and to determine how much hardship allowance to pay an employee.
Your Hardship Options
It is important for you to offer a hardship allowance that is aligned to your mobility program goals and is competitive for your industry. AIRINC’s hardship allowance methodology leverages a two-step process that allows you to either select our standard recommendation or to tailor the allowance to your needs.
- Each location is evaluated for a total possible score of 0-100 points. These points are translated into a percentage using a hardship allowance scale. Higher points translate into a higher percent recommendation to apply to the employee’s salary.
- You can choose the standard AIRINC scale starting at 0% and increasing to 30% maximum in 5% increments. Or you can choose a configured scale with different maximums or increments
Your Hardship Support
Conditions in locations can change suddenly, slowly over time, or remain relatively stable. Staying on top of changing conditions allows you to effectively support your hardship program. You are supported by dedicated hardship experts who proactively inform you when our allowances change. Our experts are also on hand to help you explain allowances, discuss competitive hardship allowance practices, and to learn more about our assessments.
How You Access Hardship Allowances
Whether you need data for one location or hundreds, AIRINC delivers the hardship allowance information you need to support your program. For each location you receive a hardship evaluation and recommended hardship percentage. This provides you with an ultimate recommendation as well as the details behind our evaluation. The hardship evaluation details our assessment of 100 total points for the following categories:
Ordering and Allowance Delivery
- Ordering: You can order hardship allowances as needed or subscribe to a set of data on an annual basis.
- Allowance Delivery: Detailed hardship evaluations can be accessed on-line through our portal AIRLINC. Recommended hardship percentages can also be integrated through API connections or the format required by your technology system.
How we calculate Hardship Allowances
Our dedicated hardship research team continuously researches location conditions across the globe. Our sources include:
- AIRINC on-site research
- Interviews with expatriate personnel
- AIRINC in-house research of published sources including United States State Department Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Bureau of Labor Statistics, iJet, The Center for Disease Control, The World Health Organization, International SOS, INTERPOL, BBC, CNN, and Reuters
Your Hardship Partner
With its objective and flexible approach to hardship, AIRINC delivers recommendations based on a globally consistent method, tailored to your global mobility program. When you choose AIRINC as your hardship provider, you get more than just the data—you gain access to a dedicated team of experts to help support your program, your way.
