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Avoiding Expatriate Failure

Posted on April 21, 2024April 20, 2024 by Angie Weinberger

We discussed how family challenges and marital issues significantly impact the outcome of international assignments. We also saw that many companies list the Expat Spouse’s unhappiness as the primary cause of “Expatriate Failure,” highlighting the importance of the Expat Spouse and Partner career support programs. We will discuss more extensively the kind of support you can give Dual-Career Expat Couples and why that matters. I have always advocated for Global Mobility Managers to involve Expat Spouses proactively. Sometimes I sound like a broken record, though. I reiterate what I’ve been repeating for years.

The days of the passive “trailing spouse,” when they were marginally involved in any decision to move abroad, are gone. Most expats (mobile employees) actively involve their partners in the discussion before accepting an assignment, so why shouldn’t you?

https://www.netexpat.com/relocatingpartnersurvey

Employers cite various reasons for supporting Dual-Career Expat Couples via policy and practice. The primary reason is to increase staff mobility. Some employers also do it to reduce the costs of assignment refusal or early return and promote family-friendly policies. Others want to support diversity or gender initiatives.

https://kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2021/10/global-assignment-policies-and-practices-survey-report.html

What you can do to help Expats and Expat Spouses is to ease the external stressors to their relationship caused by the international assignment. Most importantly, take the Expat Spouse seriously!

Here are seven provisions you can take up in your guidelines.

1 – Review all your Global Mobility Guidelines

With an Expat Spouse and Partner Support Guideline in place, you will more easily become a more attractive employer. We recommend that you rewrite all your guidelines for inclusive approaches and with particular provisions for the Expat Spouse or Partner and the children. You could also consider the extended expatriate family, such as parents and in-laws, brothers and sisters of the expat couple, as in many relationship-oriented cultures, your expats will have responsibility for the extended family, too.

2 – Involve the Expat Spouse and Partner in the Pre-Assignment Phase

During this phase, many questions are probably going on in the Expat Spouse’s head, and feelings of euphoria and anxiety often alternate. They might wonder how the move will impact their children and whether they can find employment in the new country. It is part of your role as Global Mobility Manager to offer early career assessment for the Expat Spouse and information on international schooling options. Additionally, since Expat Spouses are often in charge of the logistics behind the move, you must be able to connect them with relocation services and immigration providers ahead of the move.

3 – Help with the Work Permit

Nowadays, Expat Spouses are allowed to work on a dependent work permit in most of the top host locations, accounting for 80% of today’s global mobility (2018 Relocating Partner Survey). This considerable achievement is the fruit of the Permits Foundation, which fights for the rights of relocating partners to be able to work on their dependent permits. However, some countries present exceptions and subtleties linked to marital status. Non-married partners from opposite sexes, as well as same-sex couples, face more challenges accessing work permits. Securing a work permit is almost impossible in countries that do not allow Expat Spouses to work. You, therefore, must help Expat Spouses navigate the world of bureaucracy specific to each assignment.

4 – Research Work Opportunities for Expat Spouses and Partners

Career stagnation is a significant stressor in any relationship. Therefore, as one way to avoid putting the success of assignments in jeopardy, your employer could provide work opportunities to the Expat Spouse if they work in a similar field or area. I’m also checking with other companies to see if they are available for the Expat Spouse, primarily when working in a related field. In this initial exploratory phase, verifying that the Expat Spouse’s degree aligns with what recruiters expect to see in the host country is essential: qualifications obtained in one country are not necessarily recognized in another.

5 – Provide Transition Coaching for the Expat Spouse and Partners

Your company should take over the cost within the Global Mobility guidelines. Modern and inclusive employers offer Expat Spouse Career programs to assist Expat Spouses. Most Swiss-based companies provide up to 7’000 CHF in services. This is a lot of money! Transition coaching for expats and expat spouses is becoming more prominent in companies worldwide. As a Global Mobility Manager, you probably know that supporting expats and expat spouses through each adjustment stage they experience leads to a higher satisfaction rate with the assignment and the service of Global Mobility in general. The sad part is that Expat Couples often don’t claim support as they haven’t seen the Global Mobility policy and have not been involved in the decision-making process.

6 – Offer Host Language Course

The most common form of assistance already in place to address spouse career concerns is language training, provided by almost two-thirds of employers (Permits Foundation). Companies generally pay for a 60-hour course if there is a business need.

7 – Pay for Support for Children and Teenagers

Not only ex-pats and expat spouses but their children need support during the assignment. After all, children are the most critical asset in the expatriation process. One of the tools you can offer them is intercultural training, especially if the children are in local schools. Giving training to Expat Children has a lot of value, and you will see that once you make the children happy, you will have a higher ROI, higher retention rate, and a better satisfaction rate in your KPIs.