Case study: Swire Group
Online subscription and client service support
Swire Group is a conglomerate with a wide range of commercial activities and interests spanning five continents. Swire's principal areas of operation are in the Asia Pacific region, and centre on the Greater China area.
Servicing over 100 expatriates, Swire’s HR team needed an accessible and flexible source of data and information to allow them to provide consistent packages for their expatriates within the guidelines of their international HR policy.
They opted to take an online subscription to ECA, which provides comprehensive data, information and tools on a country to country basis. With resources including cost of living data and calculators, tax calculations, remuneration benchmarking and location allowance recommendations, Swire’s team regularly access ECA’s website to get the information they need.
“The great thing about using ECA for our allowances is that they are informed and impartial. If staff query the allowances we provide we are confident telling them that we are using proven data from an independent source, which they accept,” says Judith Hoare, Administration Manager of Swire Group.
Swire’s HR also make good use of the free client service available to subscribers to ECA services. ECA offers 24 hour advice from four offices based around the world, and Swire enjoy a particularly strong working relationship with the Hong Kong office who provide region-specific international HR expertise and policy advice in addition to guidance on data usage.
"We are using proven data from an independent source."
Judith Hoare, Administration Manager, Swire Group
Contributing regularly to ECA’s surveys means that they also receive free and extra benchmarking and policy reports which allow them to monitor and improve their IHR policy.
“Our online subscription to ECA, along with the exceptional support that we enjoy, perfectly suits the way we work,” adds Judith. “Particularly useful to us is ECA’s local knowledge and understanding of the regional best practice and additional benefits, such as benchmarking opportunities plus the easy access to professional and approachable service teams, mean that we really benefit from a total package.”