Is lump sum enough? A post-panel conversation on the future of relocation

WERC's Director of Content Alexa Schlosser sits down with William Taylor, SVP of Business Development at Relocity, and Victoria Smith, Senior Global Mobility Manager at Rivian, right after their session at WERC Global ‘25.

Key Takeaways: The Future of Lump Sum Relocation

Why Lump Sums Remain Controversial

• The traditional relocation industry was built around managed moves, and RMC business models depend on that approach
• Lump sums disrupt established supply chains and revenue models, creating natural resistance
• The debate reflects a fundamental tension between traditional service models and modern employee preferences

The Case for Lump Sums

• Budget predictability: Finance teams know exactly what relocation will cost
• Employee empowerment: 75-80% of eligible Rivian employees chose lump sum when given the option, and most would do so again
• Maximized ROI: Employees who see the costs make smarter spending decisions; traditional benefits often go undervalued because employees don't see the price tag
• Modern workforce expectations: Today's employees are used to self-service—booking their own travel, tracking shipments, managing their own logistics

The Hybrid Reality

• Only 2-3% of companies run 100% lump sum programs
• 83-85% of companies surveyed use a hybrid approach
• Even tech-forward companies like Rivian maintain managed move options for senior leaders and international assignments
• Giving employees the choice between cash and managed services respects their autonomy

What Good Lump Sum Programs Look Like

• Offer choice rather than mandating one approach
• Layer in targeted support benefits (rental assistance, destination services, short-term housing) that aren't overly expensive but improve experience
• Survey employees on satisfaction, not just whether the amount was "enough," but how they felt about the experience
• Trust that adults can make good decisions for their own families

Looking Ahead

• Gen Z and Gen Alpha will accelerate the shift toward self-service and app-based solutions
• Economic conditions will influence trends: downturns push companies toward lump sums; tight labor markets may favor richer packages
• Technology will continue enabling better self-service experiences
• The term "lump sum" itself may need rebranding, it carries negative connotations despite delivering positive outcomes

Bottom Line

Lump sum isn't about abandoning employees. It's about trusting them. The data shows employees feel more empowered when they control their relocation spending, and companies get better ROI when every dollar goes toward what the employee actually values. The future isn't lump sum vs. managed moves; it's smart hybrid programs that offer flexibility while maintaining duty of care.

Full Interview Transcript:

Alexa Schlosser: We're here at WERC Global in Salt Lake City, fresh off the lump sum panel from about an hour ago—the highly contested topic of lump sums. I have here with me two out of the three panelists today: William Taylor from Relocity and Victoria Smith from Rivian, who manages the global mobility program. Unfortunately, Trisha from Adobe had other obligations, so feel free to throw her under the bus.

Victoria Smith: She just nominated me to speak on her behalf.

Alexa: Just to get us started, the session made clear that there's really no one-size-fits-all approach to relocation. Yet the debate clearly struck a nerve—it strikes a nerve whenever it's brought up anywhere. Why does this conversation about lump sums continue to be such a hotly contested and polarizing one?

William Taylor: I think this is an industry that grew up on traditional moves, managed moves, real estate components. Many pieces of the supply chain were built to support those more traditional type of programs. If you think about how the RMCs operate, this is how their business model was built. And then along came this program called lump sums, cash benefits, and it delivers more flexibility, more personalization, more predictability of spend. Finance likes it because they know exactly what we're going to budget for next year. If we're going to do this many lump sums, we know exactly what they're going to cost. Ease of administration, all those factors.

That's just created a difficult paradigm for the folks who've been in our space for many years, for the RMCs. We have this push and pull where people just need to get over that hurdle to realize that lump sum is not a one-size-fits-all, but as we heard during the session—and Victoria can speak to this—it's more about figuring out who are the populations that would benefit. How do you mix this in and offer some flexibility and some cash-out options to give people that personalized approach? I think the RMCs are starting to figure out how to create that, though there's a missing piece that's more supply chain related.

Victoria: I agree. The world has changed. People are so much more global. Relocating isn't as big a deal as it used to be. It's still disruptive to your family, absolutely, but people are so much more global. So many people that we bring in have relocated before—it's not their first time. And there's so much information just out there. It's not like it was 25 years ago when you were kind of going to unknown locations. People are so used to managing everything themselves these days. They're booking their own tickets, tracking their shipments on their phone. They have that agency to want to do things for themselves. Access to information is essentially free.

William: Back in the day, I traveled in Southeast Asia. I lived in Vietnam in the late '90s and it was all about the Lonely Planet guide. I carried these massive books around. My wife and I moved there for a few years—we didn't have a relocation management company, we didn't have a real package.

Victoria: I did the same when we moved to Argentina. We didn't have an RMC. But we had resources and we figured it out, and now the accessibility of those types of resources is just so prevalent. It's not to say that there's not a place for managed moves—there absolutely is—but I think we will continue to see lump sums play an important role in mobility programs.

Alexa: During the session you asked the audience a lot of polls using Slido. Did anything surprise you from the results, or was it all sort of what you expected to see?

Victoria: I think there's a general perception that people use cash but that it can't deliver a good experience. What we've certainly found in our population is that a good experience doesn't always have to be a white-glove service. People like to make their own decisions. They like to be empowered to make the choices and to do things their own way.

We find that self-service isn't a dirty word. It doesn't mean that we're not supporting and looking after our population—we do have a level of duty of care to them—but we're also not imposing on them. This is how you have to relocate, you must have a car to ship, you must need accommodation. They can make those choices for themselves.

Alexa: You both mentioned "we hire adults" several times. I think everyone in the room hires adults and we should expect that they make the right decisions and take accountability. You and Trisha both talked about more of a hybrid model where it's not like "we give you cash, you have to go on your own now." It's not just throwing people to the wolves. For senior leaders, you still do some managed services.

Victoria: Absolutely. And even further down into the organization, for that middle layer, we just let them choose. Do you want cash and some technology and manage this yourself, or do you want to be more handheld and have things organized for you? We let them make that decision. There's no pressure one way or the other—it's just whatever works for you. Whilst I've been in mobility for a long time, I don't know what is right for your family and your particular situation right now. You know that. You make that decision. I don't want to make it for you just because I run the program.

William: You captured the way we have often framed relocation in this industry. I think this is partially why Relocity has been so successful since we were created nine years ago. We came along and said there's a better way to personalize this experience—let's give the power to the transferee.

We've had this mindset in mobility of "we know what's best, we've done it for 30, 40, 70 years, this is what you need." Yet that is just not the world we live in. We have a full aisle in the grocery store dedicated to potato chips because people enjoy 400 different flavors. If people can choose their chips, they can probably choose the right benefits as it relates to their relo. I know, very different worlds—chips versus relo—although I'm here to be the first one to bring them all together.

Alexa: Victoria, you and Trisha both talked about the culture of your organizations. Rivian is obviously a tech company, Adobe as well, so the culture and demographic might lend itself better to a lump sum option. What about maybe some of the perspectives that weren't on the panel today, like a more traditional company? Are they still going toward lump sum, or is it agnostic of the type of company?

Victoria: In tech companies, it's much more driven through the whole culture of the organization to experiment, try different things. That's a freedom and an expectation that we have of our people—to problem solve and solutionize. We're not here to be your parents and take care of all of your issues for you.

But at the end of the day, people who are relocating are just people who are relocating. We consider ourselves a tech company, but we're also an automotive manufacturer, so we have many populations within our organization. We want them to be able to make the right decisions, which isn't so much about what job you do. We're really looking through our mobility programs to continue the adventurous spirit that is Rivian, and we're very blatant about that.

William: If you think about the poll that asked about the nature of your program—is it whole lump sum, hybrid, a mix—we saw that 83-85% were hybrid lump sum with some form of management, yet it was only 2-3% that were 100% lump sums. Looking across the room during the session, we had manufacturing, biotech, pharma, high-tech—folks from all different flavors of companies addressing that question. It's clear that lump sum is here to stay. There are different evolutions of it, different platforms coming up to support it and provide that experience. I'm excited to see where it all goes.

Alexa: Something important that came out of the discussion was the data you leaned on for Rivian specifically. Obviously it's cost-effective for Rivian to offer lump sum, but the data also showed that 75-80% of eligible employees chose that option. And when you followed up, a percentage would have done so again. I think the audience was kind of shocked by that. Why do you think they were so shocked?

Victoria: I was shocked when I first saw the data because it was higher than I was expecting. We really weren't sure when we gave cash whether people would be—I wasn't so much surprised by people choosing cash over a managed move. But how did they feel afterwards? I think that's the most important question in the survey.

At the end of the day, we just continue to hear the feedback that people like to feel empowered to make their own choices. They like the flexibility that it brings.

Another really important thing for us about cash lump sums is that yes, there is a cost element, and that's important. What companies aren't looking to reduce relocation spend? But to us, it's not just about the absolute dollars. It was really about how do we maximize the return on investment for every relocation dollar we're spending.

It really became apparent very quickly that people don't always value some of the benefits they were being provided. They don't have visibility to the cost of their shipment or their temporary housing. Had they known—and when they do have visibility—sometimes they come back and say, "Had I known, I would have made different choices." Giving people cash really did change the spending behavior. We now know, because people are deciding what to do with it, they're getting maximum value for whatever that means for them.

Alexa: Who am I to disagree as to whether it would have been more valuable if you'd shipped goods rather than buying new ones?

Victoria: Exactly. That for us was just a real way of getting return on investment.

Alexa: You mentioned that Rivian doesn't track the spending. How do you maintain confidence that the program is still delivering value? You're offering an amount but not asking them to tell you what they spent it on. How do you know that amount is going to maintain what it should for your business and for the employee?

Victoria: We survey the employees and we get feedback. If we ask "was it enough?" I expect to hear no—people always need more. "Was it too much?" We don't get a lot of that feedback. But I think we would hear noise, and a lot more noise. Yes, sometimes we get people coming back and saying they ended up spending more—I don't know whether that's because of some of the choices they made. But on the whole, we don't get a ton of noise and feedback of people saying "this isn't it" or "I'm not going to relocate if that is the package." That's just not the experience that we've had.

Alexa: If it's working for the business and it's working for them, why does it matter what exactly they spent on moving their bed to wherever they're going?

Victoria: Yes. Or buying a new bed. Or doing whatever.

Alexa: I've got one more question. What is one misconception about lump sums or managed moves you'd most like to see the industry move past today? Are we still going to be having this conversation in two years, five years, ten years? Is lump sum just going to become the norm? Is it still going to be this hybrid approach?

William: Look, I think we'll still have this debate for a few more years—maybe five, ten, maybe more, maybe forever. But the industry will come to accept the fact that a lump sum is not a negative experience. You can still provide a great experience because you're addressing the need for flexibility, personalization, you're hiring adults, they take responsibility, and there's so many tools out there for them to figure it out. When you bring in some of the great technology that's evolving in the world of mobility, you can really start to create this really modern consumer experience.

There's no denying a managed move is a great experience, particularly when you don't know what the costs are. But we are all stewards for our company, and as much as I love the work that our friends in household goods and temp housing do, there is definitely a reason why those types of services have a certain cost associated with them.

I just think we are going to continue to see an evolution of different hybrid programs where these flexible cash-out options become really prevalent. We will see more and more employees—particularly as the workforce becomes heavy on Gen Z and then Gen Alpha—who are pretty comfortable doing things in an app and getting things done on their own. They're really resourceful; that's the world they've grown up in. Not to say they won't get to a point in their life where they will value that really high-touch white-glove service—we'll pick you up at the airport, we'll help you buy or sell a home. They will. Or maybe not. I just think it's going to be a mix of a lot of different flavors in the years ahead with no right or wrong.

Alexa: You made a joke at the beginning of the session about how "lump sum" is just a bad word. Maybe there's a branding problem.

William: We've got a lot of branding problems in this industry.

Alexa: That's a question we should have asked—what should it be called?

William: We could have a word cloud. Maybe a few years from now we're having the same discussion but calling it something else. I mean, it's a cash benefit. I don't know what else we'd call it. I don't even know where the evolution of the term "lump sum" came from—I tried to look it up but couldn't find a clear answer. At least ChatGPT failed on that one. But yeah, we need to rebrand that and make it sound a little more attractive.

Victoria: I'm with you. Our cash lump sums have been very effective for our populations and for what we're doing. But nothing stays static. We absolutely do managed moves. Do I see a world in which we would stop doing those? No.

I think we did make the point that it is somewhat different moving into the US or whatever location companies are headquartered in versus sending people out to perhaps some more challenging locations to move to. You absolutely need the whole spectrum.

I do see that as the economy changes—typically when there's an economic downturn, there's more movement towards lump sums. In times of prosperity and very tight labor markets when you're all competing for the same talent, that may be where a richer relocation package may make the difference. I'm not a huge proponent of that. I like people to join for the job rather than the relo package. But there can be a time where those things can be differentiators.

None of this is static in my opinion. Certainly on the program that we have, I think we want to be able to service a broad spectrum of employees and also meet the needs and the business reality of what we have to spend.

Alexa: Any final thoughts, William?

William: We hit it. It's an ever-evolving industry and the policies and programs will continue to change. It's been really interesting and fun learning from Rivian and Adobe and hearing their experience. You guys both had some different approaches and different theories—net versus gross payroll—and that was okay. Every company is going to look at this in the context of what's most important to their company and their populations.

What will be fun to see—and we talked a little bit about this as the session ended—is how do we start to layer in some benefits that may not be too costly but can still make a little bit of an impact? Whether it's rental support or a DSP or maybe five days in a hotel, whatever it might be that's not incredibly expensive but starts to really move the needle a little further on the employee experience.

Victoria: It's a great point.

Alexa: Well, thank you both for joining me here today and for doing the panel at WERC Global. I hope you had a great time. I certainly did.

William: Thanks, Alexa.

Victoria: Thank you.