ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512220004
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAMILLE WRIGHT MILLER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
RONNIE Burns and David Yagnesak have been in their new home in Southwest Roanoke just three weeks. They unpacked 191 boxes of possessions, rediscovering holiday decorations just in time for a visit from her parents.
Burns, an electronics specialist, and Yagnesak, an engineer and project leader at General Electric Co.'s Drive Systems plant in Salem moved to the valley from Massachusetts, and lived about two months in a motel and then an apartment before settling into their house.
Across town, Barry and Kaye Henderson are preparing to pack up, decorations and all, for a move to Harrisonburg. Barry Henderson, a Roanoke Valley native and senior vice president at Crestar Bank, next month becomes president of Crestar's Valley Group, a region stretching from Winchester to Lexington.
Despite the belief that most families move during the summer - after the school year ends - much corporate relocation occurs at year's end and the start of the new year.
Indeed, the Hendersons aren't waiting until next September to enroll their three children, ages 8 to 16, in Harrisonburg schools.
"Moving during the school year will help them meet new friends early instead of later," Henderson said.
And because the family has been involved in church, civic and community organizations in Roanoke, it expects an easy transition to Harrisonburg.
"When people know you've been involved, you're asked quickly to do those same type of activities" in a new community.
But for many relocating executives and their families, moving for even the best of reasons is disruptive and stressful. But even in the best of circumstances, moving is disruptive and stressful.
Lou Perrott, a principal with Peak Performance Consultation in Roanoke, said companies that used to relocate managers every two or three years are rethinking that practice.
"Experience proved frequent moves to be counterproductive, disrupting family lives and resulting in troubled managers," he said.
Perrott said a big part of coping with the stress of moving is recognizing it.
"This is more than a job change," he said. "There are multiple changes happening simultaneously. They're leaving families, job sites and duties, taking on new responsibilities, experiencing a change in financial stability, loss of familiar environment, and dealing with their family's responses to the change. It's a lot to deal with at once."
And companies now understand that if employees "don't adjust, they have problems in their marriages and jobs," said Linda Cumins, an associate broker and relocation specialist with MKB Realtors of Roanoke. "Companies will spend $40,000 to $50,000 to help make an employee's move successful."
A major part of both the stress and resolving it is finding a place to live.
Many of these movers will spend weeks in a hotel, months in a furnished apartment, and - when finally in their houses - time sorting out emotional and physical losses, Cumins said.
Burns and Yagnesak followed the typical pattern, according to Cumins, for "relocated executives to move to a hotel, then a corporate apartment, and then buy a house."
Diane Porter, director of marketing at the Roanoke Airport Marriott hotel, says that executives stay there a month on average. They "get to know our staff. They want to feel connected, feel a sense of home." Porter stresses the importance of "customer service, going that extra mile. That's the type of hospitality we need to extend to welcome people to the Roanoke area."
While hotel living can offer some perks - 24-hour room service, suite accommodations with two televisions and a small refrigerator - living in small quarters has its downside.
Burns and Yagnesak, her fiancee, found living in a hotel "very stressful, she said. "We had a cat and had to get up early every day and leave before maid service. We didn't know our way around the city, but we had to stay gone." Because the hotel had a no-pets rule, Burns drove around Roanoke with Mittens while their room was being cleaned.
Burns answered an ad for corporate apartments in a South Roanoke complex owned by Linda and Ken Cumins before buying their home. Moving to larger quarters was a great relief, Burns noted, since "in a hotel, you tend to get on each other's nerves."
Linda Cumins said they developed the apartments after seeing many of her clients tire of hotel living or trying to negotiate short-term leases at traditional apartment complexes.
Their one-bedroom units carry three-month leases and are always at or near full occupancy, she said. They are furnished and stocked with usual household needs, including linens, dishes, pots and pans, even a clock radio.
Executives who move with their families, and need larger apartments, attempt to negotiate short-term leases at other complexes, often finding the best they can arrange is a six-month contract.
Relocation specialists train to "deal with transferees and how to meet their needs," said Linda Cumins. They're aware of both problems and answers.
She recalled helping one couple hunt for a house while also helping them visit and evaluate nursing homes. The wife's parents had died in a plane crash, so she'd accepted responsibility for her 90-year-old grandmother who needed to be relocated as well.
And Ken Cumins, also with MKB Realtors, took three teen-age boys to each area high school while their father went to work. Cumins said he "took the boys to the schools, introduced them to the guidance counselors, and let them meet teachers they'd have. Their decision on which school was the most comfortable determined where the family would live."
Cumins described much of what he does as counseling. "Relocaters have special needs," he said.
And they also assist with routine matters.
Yagnesak, who has moved nine times in nine years, says he and Burns turned to Linda Cumins to "find names of electricians and plumbers, what day is trash day, how to get a Virginia license and plates."
Real estate agents, who earn their commissions by selling houses, said they take on the extra responsibilities largely because no one else does. Even companies with staff members to help plan and execute moves for their employees assume a limited role.
Linda Craft, human resources assistant at Crestar Bank's Richmond headquarters, helps the company's employees by contacting moving companies, arranging for 30 to 90 days of temporary housing - usually in a corporate apartment, and paying for house-hunting trips.
"Most are relieved to find out we'll handle the move," she said of Crestar employees.
Mary C. Karey, human resource relationship manager at First Union National Bank of Virginia, says her relocation office was excellent in its role involving her own move in June to Roanoke from Charlotte, N.C.
They "did a good job of handling the move and payroll changes; however, there are additional factors which they don't handle. The relocation office is important, but it only gets you here; it doesn't help you become settled and part of the community."
For example, while her furniture was in storage, most pieces made of wood were damaged. A big loss was a dining room table she and her husband, Joseph, had spent months locating but used only 11 months before moving.
When it was unpacked, the Kareys found it damaged beyond repair. The table, along with other losses, means, Karey says, "that we still don't have everything in place" at their new home in Roanoke.
Yagnesak also knows, from considerable experience and the remains of pottery he'd created, that "things get broken. You just have to be prepared for it. If you're emotionally attached, take it yourself or baby-sit while packing" is being done.
Furniture losses are only part of the long trip from there to here. For executives and their families, the move is rarely as simple as just going from Point A to Point B.
From a transfer company's viewpoint, many moving families are under tight deadlines.
Ravenelle Brammer, marketing director for Lawrence Transportation Systems Inc. of Roanoke, said "people are moving quickly now," saying they have to be there in three to four weeks.
Some companies allow time for house-hunting trips, but often it happens quickly. As a result, Brammer said, many families store furniture and "using the time to get to know the area" before buying a house.
No matter how the physical move goes, stress accompanies changing communities.Then there's the stress of being new in town.
The Holmes Rahe Scale, a tool developed by doctors to estimate stress generated by changes, suggests that scoring above 300 points by experiencing certain events within a year's time makes one vulnerable to major illness. And the typical mover racks up 309 points within a matter of weeks. Add another 12 points if these changes come at Christmas.
Karey felt the challenges almost immediately. "You don't know where to go to the dry cleaners, get your hair cut." And, "you're in a new job and trying to find out who your boss is and who your co-workers are." Compounding that, "you don't have the support network of your friends."
It's also challenging to make new friends. Cumins says that "having children forces you to join the PTA, attend Little League events, and get involved." Perrott notes, though, "that when children are entrenched, especially adolescents, moving often leads to tension and conflict in the family."
Either way, it's difficult.
Reducing stress increases job success. The biggest stress reducer for Yagnesak was having "a really good relationship with my manager. I have enough flexible time to get away from work to deal with things. Ronnie is organizing things at home, but my manager offered flexibility."
LENGTH: Long : 178 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ERIC BRADY/Staff Ronnie Burns and her fiance, Daveby CNBYagnesak, were relieved to move into their own home. They found
living in a hotel "very stressful" because of their cat, Mittens,
which they had to keep secret beacuse of the hotel's no-pets policy.
2. ROGER HART/Staff. Linda and Ken Cumins' one-bedroom units on
Carolina Avenue carry three-month leases and are always at or near
full occupancy. They are furnished and stocked with usual household
needs, including linens, dishes, pots and pans, even a clock radio.
color.