The Corporate World’s Response to COVID-19 Pandemic, its Omicron Variant, Digital Nomad Visas & More

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies. If you notice an error, feel free to email [email protected].

CHAPTERS 

[00:04:41]: How companies are responding to COVID-19 

[00:07:48]: Complexity and arbitrariness of travel rules 

[00:09:30]: Vaccine requirements and the future of border control 

[00:13:24]: Electronic travel authorizations and digital visa innovation 

[00:15:44]: Business travel compliance and employer obligations 

[00:22:03]: Remote work

[00:27:23]: Digital nomad visas—who's adopting them and why

TRANSCRIPT 

[00:00:01.520] 

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Moving Beyond Pandemic, the podcast from the Migration Policy Institute that looks at how COVID-19 is reshaping all aspects of human movement, from tourism and business travel to labor migration and mobility. I'm Meghan Benton, MPI's Director for International Research. Thanks for joining me. Today we're going to look at the business response to the pandemic, and specifically the ways that COVID protocols, new innovations and trends in working practices wrought by the pandemic are affecting the decisions that companies make about the mobility of their workforce. The pandemic has placed a chilling effect on mobility of all kinds. It's made business travel more costly and risky, and it's made bringing in migrant workers more difficult and complex. And it's exposed limitations in legislative and regulatory frameworks for handling the changing world of work, including the shift towards remote work. I spoke to two brilliant observers of these trends, both of whom used to work in government and now support companies with their mobility decisions. Ian Robinson is a partner at Fragomen, the immigration law firm, and he previously worked on economic migration at the UK Home Office. Brendan Ryan is the CEO of Nomadic, which provides digital solutions for corporate travel.

[00:01:13.250] 

He previously was the Managing Director of Global Operations and the Regional Managing Partner for the Americas, also at Fragomen. And he's held a number of roles in the Australian government. So you'll see that they can both see the world of business travel and migration from the perspective of governments and business. We chatted about the trends and policy environment shaping business mobility decisions, whether the rise of the Omicron variant might scupper plans to restart travel, and whether digital nomad visas, which allow people to live and work remotely, often in traditional tourist destinations, are a fad or permanent shift. Thanks so much both of you for joining us. So it's been a busy few days for announcements about COVID and travel, but I wanted to set aside the Omicron variant for the time being and just ask you both the question, is the world opening back up right now?

[00:02:03.540] 

Sure, I think we can address the events of the end of November with the Omicron variant separately. But the reality is governments are keen to reopen and all governments are moving towards that in some form. You know, the notable exception is China, but that is really to do with broader political issues that I can touch on. But certainly the trend is that governments are wanting to reopen, reestablish those business travel links, tourism and interaction. And with the event of Omicron, you know, I think there has been a pause in that reopening. But depending on the outcomes of the testing against the effectiveness of vaccinations, I think that the program will pick up again and that it will be back on track for a stronger opening of Travel and Borders come January.

[00:03:01.960] 

And Ian, it's one thing to be kind of open on paper and moving in that direction, and it's quite another for companies to think that this is the sort of the, the landscape where they can actually make long-term decisions about travel or about migration and mobility. How are companies responding? Are they still being quite cautious right now?

[00:03:20.950] 

The, the caution is definitely there. Nobody wants to rush, rush into anything that could lead to, lead to their employees getting sick, aside from anything else. But I am seeing, I've seen over the course of the last year an increase in the number of moves for assignments and permanent work. So simply because the economy is growing again, businesses are in a position where they can begin to grow again. And they don't want to lose momentum by not having the skills that they need where they need them. And we've definitely seen that, We've seen that all around Europe, all around the world as workforces are being bolstered with overseas talent. But also on the, on the business side, as distinct from work, the message that we are hearing that the broad thrust of it from employers is that in the new year people will start moving again. They're gearing up for a significant return to travel in the new year because they, they need to be near their, their clients. It's, I know from personal experience, it's one thing speaking to a person once a week on Zoom, it's so much more beneficial to be able to be in the same room with them, to understand what they need and how you can help them really.

[00:04:26.450] 

So I'd expect both to continue to grow most sharply in terms of business travel, short term travel in the new year.

[00:04:33.410] 

And Brendan, you know, you mentioned the Omicron variant and how that probably wouldn't completely disrupt the direction of travel, but in what way could it take out that sort of business planning element of things, the kind of predictability that businesses need in order to return to normal?

[00:04:48.610] 

Well, the obvious is of course, is what governments do in terms of border closures. But you know, depending on the testing and you know, I think that over the course of December we're going to see much more clarity around that. I think that assuming that borders resume their reopening strategy, and I think that the delay will be through December into January, which means that it really doesn't impact the businesses planning for that resumption in travel in the new year. Unless there's something catastrophic that comes out of Omicron, I think that's going to be the case. What it will do though, is it will reinforce for governments that they are on the right track for what their long, their medium to longer term plans are around travel. You know, border closures are an emergency measure, but there are plans with governments to introduce significant changes to business travel and requirements that were in the works already and that the events of late November with Omicron are simply reinforcing the need for those new sort of requirements and that new thinking around short term cross-border travel.

[00:06:05.500] 

Yeah, well, I was just going to say, I think what we'll also notice is a trend towards. Governments were very, very cautious 18 months ago when everything, everything began, so to speak. And they, they will continue to be vigilant. I would hope that. I would hope so at least. But you're already seeing a greater degree of pragmatism in the way that they're thinking about borders and in the way that they're thinking about COVID So for the UK, for instance, quite aside from borders, you only have to look at the fact that we now have restrictions ready for Omicron at the border, masks on trains and so on, but not in cafes, not in bars, limited in shops. And it feels like the economy is getting a greater say in how policy takes shape. And border policy is all about the economy.

[00:06:50.720] 

I mean, one of the things we've talked a little bit about, predictability and the direction of travel, but one thing that really strikes me is just the level of complexity of the current rules in place, as well as how often and quickly they change. I mean, so it is interesting how maybe the UK aside, the trend has been to sort of layer on more and more rules. And so instead of kind of lifting a travel restriction, it's creating an exception for vaccinated travelers, for instance, you know, in addition to all the other exceptions. Do you think it's easy enough to kind of discern how decisions will be made, or is there a lot of sort of arbitrary decision making still going

[00:07:27.510] 

on from the government perspective?

[00:07:29.830] 

Yeah.

[00:07:30.190] 

I mean, does this place a lot of power in the hands of bureaucrats who are trying to kind of make decisions about what constitutes an exception, or do we have more sort of arbitrariness in who will or will not be let in? And does that undermine the way that businesses can kind of predict whether or not they'll be able to get the workforce moving around or be able to bring in work as a migrant.

[00:07:50.880] 

Yeah. So let me address short-term travel and Ian can talk about the migrant element. This is exactly what I was sort of talking about when I talked about the plans that are already afoot with governments and how these are going to be a medium and long term change in the way travel occurs. So first off, what you will see is more rigidity on the part of governments around travel. You know, they definitely all want to reopen their border to legitimate business travel. There's no doubt every country wants to do that and they are keen to open up their economies again to that sort of cross border travel and international trade. But they are empowered bureaucrats, exactly to your point, are far more empowered to be able to set down certain rules around who that's going to be. And so if you do have a philosophical objection to getting a vaccination, while you may be able to argue that in the domestic environment, when it comes to international travel, it's simply going to be a non negotiable. You're either vaccinated or you don't travel. The question will be around, well, what sort of evidence do you need of that?

[00:09:06.100] 

Is it going to be that testing prior to travel remains in place in the medium term? And I think the answer that is yes, in the medium term, in the long term, production of vaccination certificates, et cetera, is probably going to remain in place and certainly the framework for it with governments is going to remain in place and they can turn that tap on or off as they want much more than they used to be able to in the past. And the business community has less influence in their ability to argue against sort of restrictions and on travel and the like because they just got to say if you meet these criteria, if you're vaccinated, you can prove you're vaccinated and you've got a negative test, then travel, that's fine. But if you're not meeting those criteria, you're not going to be able to travel and that's non-negotiable and that's a seismic shift in the way they've approached things in the past.

[00:10:04.940] 

Yeah. So if you think that they are, they're the rules to get out the gate. Have you had a test? Are you clear? Have you been vaccinated? And then the decision will be once you're through the gate, whether you stand in the queue or in the next, in the next queue. And here, here it's about prioritizing groups of people. And I can almost picture a four box grid and on the X Axis you would have the economic importance of the country the person or the people are coming from on the Y, on the Y axis you would have the economic value of the traveler themselves. You're going to find that a very economically active businessman from a, from the U.S. Will find that the journey into whichever country they're going to will be a hell of a lot smoother than somebody who is less economically strong from a, from a poorer country, frankly. And that's how immigration works generally. And this, this is border control as opposed to immigration, but the same officials making both sets of rules, or at least they're inputting into it. Richer countries having an easier ride and so do richer people right around the world.

[00:11:09.360] 

And how does it work from the perspective of an individual migrant making a decision about where to move to, whether they can be bothered to go through, you know, a lot of different and additional bureaucratic hurdles perhaps compared to how things were prior to the pandemic.

[00:11:22.960] 

So for an individual migrant, I suppose essentially what you're having to do is take a look at what's on offer, where you can go, what it will mean. And for most people, if they're moving independently, it means spending a hell of a lot of time on Google working out what the rules will be when you're, when you're arriving. If you're being moved by a corporate, I would hope that they, the people who are supporting that corporate are doing that work for them insofar as possible, automating it as well to make it as easy as possible. But we're in this world now where you've got half of the people who are desperate to get out of the one bedroom flat that they've been working in for the last 18 months. The other half are nervous that if they, if they go, they will be trapped, their family will be trapped. We know that people on expat assignments are more likely to suffer from loneliness than they, than they have been in the past. And it's changing behaviors because on the one hand you're rewarding one group of people with moves, on the other, you're trying to encourage people to move where they may not otherwise want to.

[00:12:23.320] 

You know, when it comes to, to migrants. So long-term moves again, things like vaccination status and evidencing, that is just part of the travel process. I think the big consideration for people will be the experience of the global pandemic is the risk of separation from friends and family, which is without a doubt being exacerbated. You know, that's always a concern with a long-term move. I've done a number of them myself. And, you know, you're away from family, but you could always just jump on a plane. And I think that there's not the certainty of being able to do that as much going forward. And that's what's going to weigh on people's minds. But from a regulatory requirement, you know, it's already tough to get those sort of work permits and migrant visas. This is just another element of it. It's far more impactful on short term travel.

[00:13:18.800] 

And I mean, it's interesting that also quite a lot of innovation has been made during the course of the pandemic to streamline systems and to digitize things. Can you talk a little bit about some of the new innovations and changes and whether you think that they make a difference and whether they might stick beyond the next phase of the pandemic?

[00:13:35.960] 

Let's say sure, I think that absolutely the pandemic has served to accelerate the trend that was already in place. And it gives it more teeth, it gives the government more justification for introducing these. So, you know, those trends include things like the government's phasing out the concept of visa waiver programs. You know, in the past with visa waiver so travel from the U.S. to the U.K. For example, or the U.S. to the EU, you actually didn't need a visa to board the flight and travel to those jurisdictions. You're still subject to airport checks and permission to enter the country. But the concept in the past was to simply waive the visa requirement to allow you to board. Going forward, the trend is to phase that out and replace it with a simplified electronic travel authority of some form. So an electronic visa, the U.S. Esta, the upcoming EU ETIAS visa. And the Home Secretary has announced that the UK within two years will be introducing its own ETA or electronic travel authority. Now what that does is it goes back to the universal visa requirement that everyone must get a visa before they travel to a country.

[00:15:01.780] 

And that gives governments a much greater level of control over who enters and the ability to turn that tap off and keep the problem of turning the tap off in the home country rather than at the border crossing, so at the, at the airport, by either canceling visas if there's a major health emergency or other issue, or simply restricting people's ability to get on the plane. So that's the most profound change that was already in the works pre pandemic, but the pandemic has absolutely accelerated that. And I think a lot more governments are looking at it as an option.

[00:15:43.740] 

Do governments see it as a potential tool to manage health concerns as well? Because, I mean, I think I've been a little struck by how these innovations are happening quite separately to considerations around health records. For instance, I mean, you can't combine your application for an electronic travel authorization with your vaccine checks, for instance, to enter Canada. Is some of that integrated thinking happening?

[00:16:08.930] 

Yes, absolutely, that that's happening. And part of what they're doing is integrating into the airline booking systems so that you can produce evidence of vaccination basically when you're booking your travel. You know, the governments that we're talking to are definitely looking at that as a more streamlined approach. And, and so you will see a greater degree of coordination between health officials in a country and immigration or border control officials because they will create it as one package. I think one of the other things, though, that you may see, and I'm yet to see any major announcements about this yet, but in the past, governments have tended to give long validity to these electronic visas. So, you know, a year in the case of China, not an electronic visa, but, but, you know, their business visas are valid for 10 years. I think that what you will see is shorter validity but an easier process to apply for them. But that will mean that if someone doesn't have a valid visa and they want to close the border, it's very simple for them to do so, or not necessarily close the border, but restrict the border and sort of be more watchful.

[00:17:25.830] 

They'll simply stop or slow down those visas that are, you know, online and accessible.

[00:17:32.370] 

And Ian, what about from an immigration perspective, what, what are you most excited about in the area of innovation?

[00:17:37.650] 

Well, actually, it's just on the, on business travel. Governments are spending an awful lot of time, good, good time well spent developing electronic travel authorizations and so on, looking at how they connect immigration and borders with health departments, et cetera. What they aren't ready for, but they ought to be ready for is a greater degree of focus on business travel policy. And the reason for that is that you've had, you've had a year where nobody, nobody traveled. Then you've had the last year as things have begun to open up and next year as they open up far, far more and travel really increases. But in that year, many companies have said, hang on a minute, this is a problem for us. We now realize that we need to have some idea of what our people are doing when they go away on business. Even if it's just a few days or a week. We need to know what they're doing for business travel rule compliance, also for posted worker compliance in Europe. And then likewise, we need to know that they will be able to do what they want to do simply because of quarantines and so on.

[00:18:44.720] 

So employees have spent a lot more time focusing on this. What they've also done where they can is automate the process. And they've used tools to get auto assessments on business travel, on posted workers, et cetera. And there are systems in place now that weren't there before to ensure that people are complying with local business travel rules when they're nipping for meetings and perhaps to do a bit of work for a week or two, I don't know, going from France to the U.S. or Australia into Italy or wherever it may be. What that's exposing is the fact that business travel policies around the world haven't changed for years, haven't really caught up or kept pace with the modern world and aren't really good enough. You need to be able to do a bit of work if you're traveling for a week and the meetings are on the Monday and the Friday, and you need clarity as to whether or not logging on in those three days in between is allowed. And it's beginning to unsettle clients. The lobbying in a concerted way hasn't happened yet, but the eyebrows are beginning to raise. And what I expect that we will see is, as we go on, more and more questions being asked at a national and supranational level about whether or not countries have the right policies.

[00:19:58.840] 

Leave aside ETAs, leave aside the technology and the experience that the border. Why on earth, if we're sending someone to work in France for two days, do they need a work permit? Surely we should have-a work permit that will take weeks or months to secure. Surely we should have more sophisticated policy.

[00:20:16.250] 

I'd add a little bit to what Ian said, and that is that one of the other things that we could see from governments, and I'm not sure this is going to happen, but I suspect it will, is that some governments, having realized that the business community really has not had a sufficient or adequate handle on where their people are at any time, you may see in some legislative form more obligation placed on the employer to know exactly where their travelers are at any particular point in time. And the governments are sitting there saying we shouldn't have to monitor this. It really is an obligation. If someone is traveling on business for their employer, the employer should know that, they should know where they are. So if we need to say to people, you've got to depart the country or whatever it is, whatever they want, they can simply put that obligation on the employer rather than having to, you know, work their own way through travel, histories of individuals, etc. So I think that's going to be something in the future. Now that has privacy implications if you're monitoring exactly the whereabouts of your people.

[00:21:29.110] 

But there are ways of addressing that. You know, that's just smart thinking around how you monitor. You just need to know if someone's in the national borders. That's where governments, I think, are going to sort of start to push employers to take more responsibility and perhaps more

[00:21:45.310] 

generally, what do you think about what's going to happen in remote work? I mean, have companies learned that this is actually something that really works well for them, that it can save them money, or is there a lot of desire to go back to normal as far as possible? And are we going to see more of this sort of rise of digital nomad visas and that approach?

[00:22:03.550] 

So I think Brendan will say that he thinks it's a fad. We agree to a point, but we, as with many things, we disagree to a point as well. I had a client roundtable last week with about 25 businesses, global businesses, from all around the world, all sectors, and it was about an hour and a half. And there are, there are a few things happening here. You have very employee-centric companies saying you can work from anywhere you want in the world and we will support it. Somebody senior says that and then somebody in HR says, hang on a minute though, what about tax and what about immigration? And then it gets paired back slightly, but the principle is there. Then you've got less companies who care about their employees, but less liberal in that respect who say, you can't do this but equally, there is a shortage of workers around the world, a shortage of skills. We're seeing an increase, a surge in demand. We are worried that our staff are having to move companies to move countries. We need to be more flexible here. The biggest two constraints will be, do we have an entity in the country where you want to work?

[00:23:03.340] 

Because if not, the rules of permanent establishment apply and do you have, or can we get you a visa to work in that particular country? From there, it will be a question as to how willing an employer is to facilitate it. Generally speaking, that will depend as a matter of policy, on how desperate they are to keep hold of their stuff and therefore how easy it is to replace people where they need to. And it's not to say that we are digital nomads, that we're seeing it with every company, but every company seems to be wrestling with the problem of work from work from anywhere. The next stage from that is how do you get the most out of it and how do you look after those people who are working from, from anywhere? Because I talked about earlier, among the concerns, loneliness is one. And I've got clients who are considering, for instance, giving family budgets so that your mom and dad can come and visit you and you're not just stuck in a country on an island somewhere, missing your friends and family. There's also questions of connection and how can you can make a virtual community in and around the location where your, your people are moving to.

[00:24:06.480] 

And that's as true for. I don't like the word expats, but it sort of works in this situation. It's as true for expats as it is for nomads. In the, in the less conventional sense. Then there's a point of diversity that the research I've seen has shown that nomads tend to be, I think 60 or 70% of nomads are women, 90, 91% are white. Of the research that I saw, lots of our clients will look at that and say, well, we can do better. That, that doesn't seem right. And also length of stay. So I would have, I would have assumed that this was quite a shift, short term-ish move, actually it's as common for a person to stay or intend to stay for over four years as it is for them to stay for up to a year. So we're still trying to work out whether they are nomads in the sense that they're moving or whether they are just people who are relocating to a new, a new climate and a new culture. The term is quite slightly faddish, arguably, but the trend is sticking and employers are having to adjust to it now.

[00:25:03.460] 

Brendan, do you agree with that?

[00:25:05.070] 

I surprisingly do to an extent. But I disagree on a couple, on the longevity of it, the sustainability of it. You have to keep in mind that this has been a sudden and seismic shift in the way people approach it. You know, the concept or governments have to think about the concept of global nomads because immigration systems always in the past have been about what are you doing in the country. You know, you're taking a position within the local entity. But the concept of digital nomad of course is, well, you can go and work your New York job sitting in Costa Rica or in Bermuda. And so that is a very different concept. And you will note that of the 22 countries that have introduced a visa that actually accommodates this, they're all sort of really tourist focused jurisdictions. And so their rationale for that is that these people that are going there are going to stay in a hotel or stay in a service department or take out a lease for a 12 month period, they're going to go to the restaurants and all of those tourist related infrastructure, they're going to contribute to that on a day-to-day basis.

[00:26:15.940] 

And so there is a benefit for the country, but there are few of the bigger economies that are less focused on tourism as a base that are really adopting this and immigration policy in those countries, most of Western Europe, the UK, Us, Canada, Australia, most of Asia aren't embracing yet the concept of global nomads because they are still thinking around the impact on the local market. And so therefore those companies that are contemplating introducing a policy of you can work from anywhere, have to be very careful because immigration law is not consistent with that approach. So Ian is right that, you know, you can sort of look at that more favorably in a country that allows it through a global nomad visa or where you can be sure you're not breaching immigration requirements by working in that jurisdiction on say, a business visa. And from a tax perspective, having an entity in the country certainly assists. Where I disagree with Ian is, you know how long term this is. I think it will always be a factor, but you know, the predictions of it being 30% of the workforce and the like, you know, I think that we may well see that in the next two years, but I think you'll see a sharp retraction within five.

[00:27:40.860] 

People are still going to need to pursue their career. Companies are going to catch up with the fact that if you're working in Costa Rica, you shouldn't be being paid New York wages. And so that balancing is going to make this sort of concept less attractive.

[00:27:55.250] 

Yeah, that's fair. And we're already seeing a bit of that, actually. Just one other point. It will be interesting to see how other countries respond to the success in Estonia. So one of the winners of Brexit appears to be Estonia because of the number of skilled British people who have chosen to go and move out there. And it'll be interesting to see if other countries look at that and think, actually we would want a slice of that pie.

[00:28:17.790] 

Thank you. That's fascinating. Lots to watch in 2022 and beyond. Thank you both of you for your time. This has been a really great discussion.

[00:28:25.550] 

Thank you.

[00:28:26.270] 

Yeah, thank you.

[00:28:28.750] 

I was struck by Brendan's comments about how the integration between health requirements and visa processes could give governments more control over who crosses their borders and use this as an opportunity to turn the tap on and off in response to external events, events including public health emergencies. The pandemic has also ushered in a better user experience with more streamlined digital processes, but there'll be more inequalities in this landscape as stricter vaccination and testing requirements become the norm. From a business perspective, it's interesting to hear Ian's take on how rigid immigration law and tax and regulatory systems can be most obviously for the shift to remote work, but also for basic things like business trips where people can easily fall afoul of the rules. Clearly, companies are thinking hard about these shifts, including the social aspect and how to mitigate loneliness in people who work from anywhere, which I was surprised to hear. So we might hear greater momentum for changes in this area, especially as we see how lasting working practices become. I hope you'll tune in for future episodes where we'll tackle different sides of this issue of how to open up after pandemic.

[00:29:32.050] 

If you want to hear more, please subscribe to this podcast, Moving Beyond Pandemic, wherever you find your podcasts, or you can access it through our website migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. I'd like to thank my colleagues Lisa Dixon, Michelle Mittelstadt and Yoseph Hamid for producing this podcast. The music you heard on today's episode was Juno in the Space Maze by Loopop. I'm Meghan Benton and I'll see you next time.