Global Mobility: How to Create the Environment for Expatriate Success

Assignment failure is talked about a lot in global mobility circles and yet statistics show that only quite a small percentage of assignments end in failure. The Brookfield Global Relocation Survey 2013 found 5% of assignments ended in failure, although geography does have an impact with failure rates for China or India cited as 27% and 14% respectively.

Focusing on the prevention of failure seems to be a negative way to approach relocation support. Why not turn the discussion on its head and investigate what makes for success when relocating executives around the world? What do companies do that impresses and inspires their international employees? What generates trust and high levels of engagement and work performance?

Imagine the scenario, John (45) relocated to New York, promoted to his dream job in company HQ.  His family were thrilled to be in the States and although his wife, Jane had given up her career in the UK she was confident that after settling the children into school she would find a job. Things had however not been so straight forward. The initial few months had been stressful, long commutes that had not been anticipated, lots of international travel and long work hours, settling in difficulties for the children, and endless bureaucratic and administrative challenges. The company saw this as an “easy” relocation and no support beyond the removal company and school search assistance had been given. After two months John and Jane were feeling exhausted. Jane and the family saw little of John and when they did he was short-tempered and shattered. He felt he was constantly having to “prove his worth” with little reciprocal recognition of the upheaval that had been involved in their relocating for the company. Jane, had wanted to work but was now wondering how she would manage to hold down a full time job and look after the children. Childcare was not cheap and the cost of living was much higher than they had originally anticipated. Jane was also feeling lonely, it was tough to meet new people. Parents at school all worked and had amazingly hectic schedules. She was trying not to, but kept looking back wistfully at their old life in the UK. John was also wondering whether this had been the right career move and was growing increasingly frustrated that the company appeared to have no appreciation of the challenges they were facing. If he heard one more person tell him he was a “lucky guy” he thought he would scream….

Given John’s level of stress and the family’s level of distress, the impact on everyday work performance is easy to imagine, building resentment towards a company that appears not to care about their welfare.

Who does an expatriate employee like John talk to? In our experience, expatriate employees won’t talk to their companies about these issues as they assume that they will be judged negatively as a result.  Problems are hidden, no help is provided and the consequences are potentially disastrous

Take by contrast the story of a well-supported assignment transition. Envision a world where the challenges of adapting and transitioning for the employee and the family are part of the open communication from organization to employee. Imagine that the employee and family are encouraged to work through the challenges openly, to discuss and share their opinions and to ask openly for help.

So, what model should be followed in order to create this model of success?

How about raising awareness and focus on the psychological contract? There is no doubt that the transactional contract gets a lot of attention by both parties but there is growing evidence that the psychological contract is of fundamental importance to assignment success;

“Based on our research we can safely say that the psychological contract is the biggest differentiator for organisation’s wanting to obtain a satisfactory expatiate return on investment”  ~ Yvonne McNulty, Kerr Inkson; Managing Expatriates, A Return on Investment Approach.

A psychological contract is the unwritten and often unspoken subjective agreement between an employer and an employee. It represents an exchange agreement between the organisation’s expectations regarding performance, outcomes and actions of the employee and the employee’s expectations in terms of support, communication and equity.

It is not hard to imagine how the psychological contract is impacted when thinking about expatriate assignments. The organization has high expectations of the employee and the employee often has high expectations about the nature of the support from the employer.

An understanding of the challenges involved in the relocation process is often a fundamental expectation of the employee, frustrations arise when communications and processes do not demonstrate that level of understanding. Herein lies the opportunity for the organization.  In an increasingly competitive talent market the organization can meet expectations implicit in the psychological contract to gain a competitive advantage in the “war for talent”.

Met expectations lead to an increase in trust, loyalty and commitment; employees will go the extra mile, and will be more likely to agree to future assignments. Unmet expectations by contrast lead to disengagement, frustration, resentment and even anger, never a good place for an employee to be.

How can global mobility professionals manage the expectations of expatriate employees in relation to the psychological contract? Yvonne McNulty and Kerr Inkson suggest that there are three things employers can do to meet these expectations:

• Get things right from the outset in terms of the relocation support provided. The Expat Study found that more than 50% of participant’s rated the relocation support as fair to non-existent. We know from our work with client’s that support in the early days of an assignment can make so much difference to the stress levels, attitude and approach of the employee and their family to the relocation. Support with bureaucratic and administrative issues can save the employee so much time, time that is really so much better spent focused on the new job role.

• Build flexibility into the global mobility support programme. Not every assignee is created equal. Stringent rule bound policy runs the risk of over-supplying to those who do not need certain levels of support and missing the crucial ones that do.

• Remember to support the family. Take time to understand what the partner is expecting in terms of support. Enable them to communicate with the relocation support team. When you relocate an employee you often relocate a family. The psychological contract from the employee’s perspective encompasses the provision and support for the family, an extremely emotive issue for them. Get this right and you are likely to have a huge advocate for your organization and a willing asset in the relocation process.

Feeling unsupported at this challenging time leads to internal doubt about the relational aspect of the agreement with the organisation. Not a good place from which to be starting a challenging international assignment. Which brings us to our final point. It is important for global mobility to define the assignment properly in terms of role’s, goals and possible future career direction. There can be nothing more upsetting for an expat partner than the upheaval of an international relocation only to find that the job that sounded so promising was just a façade for a job downgrade with no future prospect.