Writer, author and expat expert Robin Pascoe sent me an report a little while ago written by Yvonne McNulty, international human resources management expert and PhD candidate at Monash University in Australia. The report, “Measuring Expatriate Return on Investment in Global Firms” , was written as part of Yvonne’s doctoral research on management and measurement of international assignees. Yvonne is well known in the expatriate community for her 2005 report summarizing her research on accompanying spouse issues on international assignments entitled The Trailing Spouse Survey.
Although I encourage you to read this recent report on expat ROI in its entirety, I wanted to point out a few points that I think every expat on assignment and global organization employing expats should be aware of:
• The report points to the importance of including both financial and non-financial outcomes in the evaluation of an expatriate’s assignment in order to more accurately evaluate an expatriate’s performance and the strategic impact it has on the company. With today’s global crisis in an increasingly global marketplace, understanding the value an expatriate contributes to a company is extremely important in assessing how best to utilize often already overstrained resources. From an expat’s point of view, being able to articulate the value you brought to a company while working abroad is crucial in leveraging the experience to your advantage.
• The report also shows that career development support provided to expatriates on assignment by international companies is often an “adhoc and reactionary process”. This is more likely to lead to expats looking for new opportunities outside of their current employer and decreased engagement in their current work. In fact, more that a third of the expatriates in the study were trying to leverage their increased marketabilty (due to their undertaking an international assignment) by seeking external job opportunities during their assignment. And nearly a third were being pursued by international headhunters and recruiters.
• Career management support was cited as the most important variable likely to contribute to retention (expatriate staying with the company) and turnover (an expatriate leaving the company).
It is my hope that companies who are employing expatriates are able to read this report, recognize the consequences of spotty career management support, and look for new ways to provide their employees overseas with this support as a core part of their larger mobility and employee retention programs.
If you are an expatriate, do you have a career management plan in place that is being supported by your HR department? Do you know how your current post is positioning you for your next assignment? Are you aware of, or taking advantage of, all the career support your company provides? If there is not sufficient support, what are you doing to take responsibility for your own career?
YOUR EXPAT SUCCESS TIP:
If you are an expat on assignment, whatever your situation, I invite you to take the necessary action to 1) get informed about all available career support, 2) take advantage of what support there is, 3) build a longer term career plan with HR that includes clear steps to your next assignment, and 4) take matters into your own hands if your employer is not giving you the support you need.
If you are considering an expatriate assignment, be sure to work with HR to insure that this assignment is part of a bigger picture for both the company (so you see how you fit into the company’s longer term plan) and your own career goals (you know how this assignment will position you for your next job of choice).
Remember that career management is not only something that happens when you are ready for a change-take action daily to insure smooth transitions!
Megan Fitzgerald
Expat & International Careers
Career By Choice
web: careerbychoice.com
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