Sooner or later, many of you will take a job that requires you to move yourself and your family. You will likely incur significant expenses in the process, and, if you are like most people, you will want your employer to pay for at least some of them. The following advice should help you handle this negotiation as effectively and collaboratively as possible.

#1: Focus on Your Interests

The whole point of negotiating for something is to address the real needs you have. Before you limit what you ask for, make sure you know what you want. As you do so, think broadly and do not limit yourself to financial expenses. Once you have thought about what help you need, you can prepare to negotiate for a package that suits your unique needs.

#2: Find Out What Assistance Is Typical

Your preparation for this negotiation should include the following:
Ask your new employer's HR department if the company has a written relocation policy, or if it offers standard benefits.
Find out who has recently moved at the company and ask them what relocation packages they got.
Ask your friends or other contacts in similar firms about their experiences or their companies' policies.
If you are using a recruiter, he or she should be able to provide guidance as well. Keep in mind that companies tend to vary in what they offer, and larger companies have more standardized policies. Therefore, compensation can differ by industry, by city and even by position in the company.

Assistance in selling your house.

#3: Develop Ideas that Benefit Both Sides

No matter what is standard, many companies are willing to negotiate packages that address the distinct needs of their new employees. Still, even though everything is negotiable, your employer is more likely to agree to your ideas if they benefit the company as well. So anticipate this reality, and provide the advantages for them when you share your ideas.

#4: Get It in Writing

Once you and the company agree on a compensation package for your relocation expenses, make sure you capture that agreement in writing. A formal contract is not necessary, just a simple signed letter explaining what assistance is being provided by what time.
A negotiation about relocation compensation is the same as any other negotiation. If you focus instead on effective preparation, collaborative negotiating and out-of-the-box thinking, you will do well.
For the millions of professionals willing to consider relocation from their present area to a new area to advance their careers and incomes, cost-of-living differences between the two areas become a vital factor in salary negotiations. Meanwhile, for employees seeking to attract urgently needed professional talent to their own area from other areas, cost-of-living differences between areas become an equally critical factor in making competitive salary offers. Indeed, a recent study by one of the nation's largest coast-to-coast moving companies show that 53 per cent of job candidates who reject employer relocation offers do so because of inability to reconcile cost-of-living differences with compensation levels.

Taxation

According to a 1995 report by the Washington, DC-based Tax Foundation research organization, the average American spends 34.4 per cent of his or her total income on taxes- more than he or she spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined. Americans' tax dollars are spent on such cost-of-living essentials as roads, police, schools, Social Security, national defense, Medicare, etc. And those tax costs differ just as radically between U.S. areas as do the costs of goods and services on which Americans spend the balance of their incomes. Consider local taxes, for example. New York City residents currently pay annual city government taxes more than five times as high as their in-state neighbors in Buffalo, NY and more than ten times as high as residents of the average city in Mississippi. Residents of Washington, DC, pay the nation's highest annual city per-capita taxes. Among the lowest: Chesterfield, MO. Moorhead, MN Apple Valley, CA.

Relocation Tips

Moving can mean utter chaos, especially if you're not organized. Here is a detailed checklist of items that you should consider as you prepare to move.

6 to 8 weeks before moving

• Initiate search for real estate agent in new location.
  
• Subscribe to newspaper in new city.
  
• Talk with home purchase company.
  
• Put house on market or notify landlord.
• Initiate spouse employment search is applicable.
  
• Contact mover.
  
• Determine what can be discarded.
  
• Consider having a garage sale.
  
• Decide whether you or mover will pack.
  
• Begin collecting packing materials if you will do your own packing.
  
• Show mover everything that is to be moved.
  
• Determine if your insurance covers effects during move.
  
• Explain reasons for the move to children.