Finding a staff that is bilingual in the ways of the world is no longer a privilege in today's global economy. There is a need for competition. It is no surprise that almost 80% of medium-sized and big businesses now send professionals outside the country鈥攁nd 45% expect to expand the number of employees they work with.
However, foreign tasks do not come cheap. Expatriates average two to three times the expense of a corresponding location in their own countries. A fully loaded expatriate plan, with insurance and cost-of-living improvements, will cost anything from $300,000 to $1 million per year, making it the single greatest spend most businesses make on any single employee, aside from the CEO.
However, the majority of businesses receive poor returns on their expat assets. For the last decade, we've looked at the management of expatriates at around 750 firms in the United States, Europe, and Japan. We polled all expatriates and the executives who dispatched them overseas to assess their impressions. We have investigated what happened when expatriates went home. Was their time there both personally and professionally worthwhile?
The findings of our study were disturbing in general. We discovered that between 10% to 20% of all U.S. managers sent abroad came home early due to workplace frustration or problems transitioning to a new country. Nearly one-third of those who lasted the whole time did not live up to their bosses' standards. Perhaps more concerning, one-fourth of those who completed an assignment left their business within one year of repatriation, mostly to join a rival. That's double the percentage of managers who didn't go overseas.
Why should so many businesses get it so wrong if getting the best out of the expats is so important? The primary explanation for this seems to be that many executives believe that the laws of good business are universal. To put it another way, they don't think they ought to 鈥� or can 鈥� make extra sacrifices for their expats.
Take, for example, the expat assignment procedure. Executives are aware that negotiating techniques and campaign strategies differ depending on society. The majority of people, however, do not think the disparity is large enough to justify the cost of services that pick or prepare applicants for foreign assignments.
Further, once expats are in place, executives back home usually are not inclined to coddle their well-paid representatives. When people are issued first-class tickets on a luxury liner, they鈥檙e not supposed to complain about being at sea.
Finally, people at the home office find it difficult to imagine that returning expats need help readjusting after just a few years away.
They don鈥檛 see why people who鈥檝e been given an extended period to explore the Left Bank or the Forbidden City should get a hero鈥檚 welcome. As a result of such thinking, the only time companies pay special attention to their expats is when something goes spectacularly wrong. And by then, it鈥檚 too little, too late.
Companies who successfully handle their expats come in all shapes often sizes, and from a variety of sectors. Nonetheless, we've discovered that they all obey three general guidelines:-
They concentrate on awareness building and global leadership growth while working on foreign assignments. Many businesses send employees to other countries to compensate them, keep them out of the way, or meet a pressing business need. People are assigned to foreign posts in organizations that handle the international assignment process well for two reasons: to create and transfer expertise, or to improve their global leadership skills, or to do both.
T
hey delegate overseas positions to individuals with professional capabilities that are equal to or better than their cross-cultural ability. Companies that treat expats well don't expect that people who have done well at home can do so in another country.
They conduct a deliberate repatriation process at the conclusion of expatriate assignments. The majority of executives in charge of expat workers see their return home as a non-issue. The reality is that for two-thirds of expats, repatriation is a period of huge career and personal turmoil. Companies who understand this benefit their returning employees by offering job advice and allowing them to bring their foreign expertise to good use.
