In February, the CEO of a large consumer brands company asked me if EA’s services were available in Chicago.
His own family had experienced our high touch, customized relocation services when they moved to Cleveland several years prior.
“It was the best introduction to a new community we had ever experienced in all our corporate moves”, he said.
His company was undergoing a re-org and he wanted to connect me with his CHRO so we could put together a plan to offer EA’s services to incentivize key leaders to relocate to their Chicago headquarters.
They needed everyone’s yes/no decision regarding this potential relocation by early April, so this needed to happen fast.
I hesitated.
For 45 years, EA has provided services in Cleve/Akron/Canton and nowhere else.
Despite calls from clients every month for years asking if I knew an EA-like service in X city, we had never extended our reach beyond NE Ohio and our loyal client base in our hometown.
But I always knew that every city could benefit from EA’s services.
Our Job Manual outlines the step by step process to insure consistency and efficiency using our decades of experience.
We had invested the time and resources to customize the Microsoft out-of-the box IT to make it unique to our needs in our niche in the industry.
We had the business model down pat, but could we find and train Guides to deliver the EA style and service in another city in less than 30 days?
Knowing this would be an all hands on deck effort, I turned to my team and they did not let me down.
Kristen Joyce, who has relocated many times herself including two international moves, stepped up to the plate and took on the leadership role to guide this entire project.
With help from almost a dozen colleagues she moved at lightning speed to find and train Guides in Chicago.
This past weekend, less than a month from the original phone call, we provided the first EA Days in Chicago for this company’s first two employees to fly in for their Discover Chicago experiences.
I am so proud of my team I could bust!
And now we have the outline for what it takes to expand to new markets.
We could not have done this without our new owners, Relocation Horizons, taking this leap of faith with us.
Or the company’s CEO and CHRO who knew this was a new venture for us, but said let’s do it!
Thrilled that a long time dream came true this month….stay tuned for additional cities to come!
For 45 years Executive Arrangements has been the trusted partner of employers who believe that the candidate experience is critical to their talent attraction and retention efforts. EA’s highly customized area orientations, which show candidate’s and their families how their lifestyle can transfer to a new city are often the difference between a recruit or employee saying yes to a job offer/promotion that requires them to move to a new town. If your HR team could benefit from our 80% success rate in closing the deal and insuring retention once the family has moved, call us! 216.231.9311.