Relocation Business Partner

Business HR and Talent Acquisition

The HR Connected site is HR colleagues’ resource for full policies, policy summaries, and matrices.  Please access the HR-specific resources on HR Connected.

Finance and Payroll Colleagues

Abbott Talent Deployment (ATD) also offers resources to help you read a cost estimate, affiliate payroll reports, request access to our payroll system and assist with compensation accumulation.  Please click on the myHR portal to find these additional internal resources.

For each relocation, consider the following:

The Balance Sheet

Abbott follows the Home Country Balance Sheet approach for compensating employees on expat assignment. The goal of this approach is to provide the employee with the tools to retain the same residual income for savings that they would have had at home.

Four Uses of Pay

  • Goods and Services
    • What are they?
      Food, Alcohol, Tobacco, Personal Care, Furnishings, Clothing, Medical, Recreation, and Transportation
    • How do we know if they cost more? Consultant employs “pricers” who record prices of a specific list of items 2 times per year. If the Index is above 100, a cost-of-living allowance (COLA) is paid. An index above 100 means prices are higher in the host country.
  • Housing
    • Employee determines disposition of housing at home (sell, rent, sublet, store furniture, etc.). Housing and utilities allowance is paid to cover assignment housing costs.
  • Taxes
    • Abbott pays actual tax costs in the home and host countries and will pay for tax provider to prepare all tax returns and respond to any inquiries from tax authorities. Employee pays Abbott the equivalent of the tax they would have paid at home. This is called “hypothetical tax”. The calculation for truing this up is called “tax equalization”.
  • Savings
    • Saving power should remain the same. The goal is no net gain or loss beyond any promotional increase. This does not mean that each individual item is matched or reimbursed one to one.

CONTACTS

Email Abbott Talent Development

Resources

HR Connected (must be logged into Abbott network)
myHR

documents

Understanding the Cost of Living Allowance
Budgeting for an Expat 101

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