What type of special training is recommended for employees as they prepare for international assignments?

Preparing expatriates for foreign assignments is a crucial undertaking for either expansion processes or short-term business travel. The challenge here is to ensure that the employees chosen to go work abroad do so successfully. Much of that effort will be produced by them, but even more important is for the wider company to provide support.

When moving and managing assets - in this case, your talented employees - you want to make sure that all that time and effort isn’t for nothing. You want to make sure the move is compliant and that workflows shared by your team and the expatriate employee are streamlined. 

So what do you need to focus on? Here are eight tips for preparing expatriates for foreign assignments in a successful mobility project. 

1. Pre-Move Training

Preparation for expatriation is of utmost importance. This training needs to be well-researched, taking into consideration the potential challenges that employees and mobility teams might face. For example, identify:

• Your potential challenges: For example, a specific country could require a specific tax set up for expatriates or business travelers. You’ll have to research the requirements that apply to your expatriation.

• Strategies that help you deal with these issues: Some global organizations work with Professional Employer Organizations (PEO) in order to maintain compliance and work in line with cultural requirements. This is one potential solution that you might find appealing.

• Areas for cultural training: Cultural expectations can be radically different in one country compared to another - while this may seem like the last thing to focus on, it’s worth spending time looking into cultural differences, just so no accidental faux pas are made.

• The overarching goals of the assignment: An expatriation depends on all stakeholders having visibility and an understanding of the reasons for it. 

• Local language training: Even if the host country has a good rate of use for your language, it’s worth helping your employee get to grips with the basics.

2. Sourcing Immigration Support

Immigration and the requirements therein are obviously crucial. Border controls, regulatory environments and immigration law are therefore all things to contend with. Now, these can be daunting and confusing, but it’s imperative to fully prepare for them, as they’re some of the first barriers to overcoming when expatriating an employee for foreign assignments. 

You need to make sure that you’re expatriation is in line with national and international immigration policy for both your home and host country. Similarly, visas and short-term or permanent residency applications need to be sent off for. Without these, alongside a considered approach towards global immigration, your overseas assignment won’t be able to continue. 

3. Ensure Continued Communication

Without communication, there’s no expansion. Home and host teams need to be on top of carrying out frequent communications, so that data is acted upon and problems can be solved collaboratively.

Assignees need to be proactive in this and so too do home teams. Communication allows organizations to leverage what’s being learned and respond actively to specific events. On top of that, communication needs to be structured so the learnings and updates shared are easily tracked. Monthly meetings and weekly check-ins are good places to start. 

4. Provide Support On The Ground

Alongside frequent communication, on-ground support also needs to be offered. This is a job for HR teams, who can help expats and their families (if applicable) adapt to their new surroundings. This kind of support covers:

Taxation is one thing to be aware of, as getting the process wrong can result in legal ramifications. Again, this is something a PEO can help support, as they can act as local Employers of Record, managing and deducting taxation at source - making sure your expatriate assignment is compliant in terms of taxation. 

5. Undertake Project Alignment Meetings

Once the critical information regarding the expatriate employee’s assignment, residency, taxation and other requirements has been exchanged with the relevant stakeholders and/or authorities, it’s time for a project alignment meeting.

This meeting should be held between the employee, a host manager or host team and home team. In it, you should identify the potential causes of friction for the assignment and work to strategize mitigation techniques. Similarly, go over mutual expectations held by the home and host team so that visibility and transparency are also captured. 

Overall, you’ll want to firmly pin down issues that may affect:

6. Invest in Knowledge Management

Any assignment knowledge generated needs to be properly disseminated to the relevant parties, quickly and efficiently. These lessons are not only worthwhile for future expatriates, but for the wider company itself and how it approaches global marketplaces. 

When we ensure that learning is absorbed and spread across the whole enterprise, we help to reduce mistakes and delays in the future.

7. Provide Home and Host Sponsorship

As we’ve briefly discussed, having home and host teams managing the expatriate are important, but let’s cover that more in-depth. 

Communication via email isn’t the best way to manage a remote employee. To make sure the expat doesn’t feel cut off from home office processes, create teams or ‘sponsors’ that oversee the experience and work of the employee. 

Whether they be points of contact or mentors, these individuals (or wider teams) help to anchor an expat employee to the work in the home country, keeping them updated on any new developments. Both sides help to co-manage and resolve problems when they arise.

Sponsor individuals within the home country are best suited if they too have had experiences with expatriation, because a lot of this management is about empathy - not just looking for hitting the next performance goal. Expatriation is a difficult process, especially if the host country is a radically different place.

8. Take Into Account Domestic Duties

Another tip for preparing expatriates for overseas assignments is to make sure their family is supported.

Some expatriate employees have children and spouses, which sometimes do make an overseas assignment a lot more complex. These difficulties are usually hard to spot, as many employees will be reluctant to share them with employees, due to the size of the project and the personal nature of these difficulties.

It can be the case that the people most likely to be able to help are the last to know, so this is another thing that good communication can help with. From the home country team’s point-of-view, they need to inquire regularly about how the domestic side of the project is going. 

It needs to be made clear that any issues in regards to this need to be made known, but also that no judgment will arise from those issues being aired. Expatriation is a tough process for a family and businesses need to be supportive. This kind of transparency will dramatically help the overseas assignment. 

To discover more about overseas assignments and expansion, we’ve created a fantastic foundational guide that will help you when strategizing your next moves, be they domestic or international. 

The Guide to Global Expansion

There’s a lot of different info out there on the web about taking your business abroad - or even just sending an employee overseas. To help cut through the noise, our detailed guide will help your business’ journey to expansion.

Inside, you’ll discover more on expansion methods, the crucial considerations and further information on PEO. Just click the link below to get your copy.

It is estimated the number of expats working around the world could increase to almost 90 million by 2021. For international human resource managers (IHRMs) this represents both an opportunity and threat. Growing employee mobility allows businesses to expand into new markets where the required skills are not available locally. However, expatriate management is challenging for IHRM’s. The process of selecting, preparing and implementing a successful expatriate placement programme may face difficulties.

Expat failure is estimated to be between 20% and 40% depending on industry and location. The cost of expat failure for US businesses alone, is in the region of $2 billion. It is easy to see why developing the right expatriate management strategy is crucial. 

We have established  the benefits of pre departure training for employees taking up an expatriate role. If you are tasked with developing a pre-departure training program it can be difficult to know where to begin. There are several components that should be included to provide expat candidates with the best opportunity for success:

Cross cultural understanding is key to expatriate success. David Livermore, an expert on cultural intelligence, conducted research on expats over ten years. It showed cultural intelligence is more beneficial than even language fluency when it comes to a successful assignment. Pre-departure training programme should be tailored to the location the expat candidate is moving to. At a minimum cross cultural training should aim to:

• Identify the cultural similarities and differences in a destination
• Demonstrate ways of identifying and adjusting plans to align with the new culture
• Provide tailored overview of appropriate verbal and nonverbal behaviour by situation  

This sensitivity training is also useful in minimising culture shock amongst expats, particularly those on their first assignment.

This is going to be a significant part of pre-departure training and should cover topics as diverse as:

• Politics of the country
• Tax and insurance
• Medical treatment
• Finding a place to live
• Buying a car and rules of the road
• Childcare and education (if applicable)
• Doing business
• Nuances about culture and history

This is in no way an exhaustive list. The information required will vary depending on the needs of your candidates.

The expat and host manager should have a series of project alignment meetings in the run up to and during the assignment. They can discuss the company’s goals and cultural differences that might impact the success of the international assignment. These meetings usually cover topics like:

• Timelines
• Milestones
• Reporting
• Expectations

Another key component of pre-assignment training is outlining the support the expat will receive while abroad. These requirements will vary by location and role but may include:

• Logistical assistance with moving
• Support for spouse and children
• Assistance with admin in their new home
• Mentoring
• Connecting with other expats
• Staying connected with home

Establishing a pre-departure training programme containing some of these elements should prepare those about to travel abroad for what lies ahead.