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Global Mobility of Corporate Employees: Expatriation and Business Travel INDUSTRY REPORT Natalia Tretyakevich, PhD Candidate and Mireia Las Heras, Professor, IESE Business School.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................. 3

FLEX-PATRIATION ............................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Data description .................................................................................................................................................. 4 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................................................ 8

1. Job domain: Professional challenges and positive impacts of expatriation ...................................... 8 2. Family impacts: difficulties and positive outcomes ................................................................................. 13 3. Expatriation and personal well-being: adjustment difficulties and positive outcomes ........... 19 Summary: Strongest positive/negative experiences ................................................................................... 25 Specific issues connected with expatriation .................................................................................................... 27 General satisfaction with expatriation ............................................................................................................... 33 Company support and practical implications ................................................................................................. 35

Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................................ 39

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ABSTRACT

The main goal of the current research is to unfold positive and negative effects of different types

of global assignments on the work of the travelling individuals, their family life and personal

well-being. Due to the structure of the collected data the two principal mobility forms analyzed

in this regards are expatriation and business travel. Two following chapters provides insights into

the impacts of the above mentioned forms of mobility on various life domains of the travelers

underlining their similarities and focusing on the differences.

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FLEX-PATRIATION

Introduction

In the global interconnected world of today expatriation represents an indispensable form of

mobility, which is widely made use of by multiple companies. Especially this is valid for

multinational corporations (MNCs), which use international assignments for various purposes.

The most frequently mentioned goals of expatriation are providing skills at developing markets

which are difficult to be found there; contributing to the organizational development through

exercising control and coordination at the markets of expatriation and creating learning

opportunities among the company’s employees providing them with the global perspective that

will benefit the firm in the future (Hocking, Brown, & Harzing, 2004). In general, expatriation is

defined in the literature as international relocation for work purposes for the period of time

typically around 3 years during which the employee is usually accompanied by the family

(Collings, Scullion & Morley, 2007).

Present research uncovers the topic of expatriation investigating its positive and negative impacts

with regard to different life domains. In particular, its major objective is to explore employees’

satisfaction with expatriation considering the adjustment difficulties and the added value of the

expatriate experience connected not just with the job outcomes and professional development but

providing a thorough analysis of the expatriation influence on the family life and personal well-

being. The phenomenon is to be specifically investigated for different demographic groups,

which might assign different weight to various work and family-related factors. Practical

implications examining the role of the organization in accommodating the needs of its

expatriates are to be provided at the end of the paper.

Thus, the current chapter presents the detailed analysis of the data received from expatriates

participating in the study. According to the research framework, the results are presented in

relation to the impacts produced by expatriation on different life domains. Thus, we start with the

introduction of the data collection method and general data description where socio-demographic

characteristics and expatriation details are being explored. Later on, adjustment issues and

positive outcomes of assignments for professional development, family and personal life are

analyzed in depth and specific focus is made on curiosities identified during the data analysis.

Thus, we pay attention to the gender issues connected with expatriation, as well as connections

between satisfaction with the assignment abroad and further inclinations to participate in various

forms of mobility. Finally, general satisfaction of the global employees is discussed and as a

result recommendations are provided for the companies and HR departments dealing with mobile

personnel.

Data description

The data for the current research was collected via interviews with the employees of large

multinational companies who have gone through expatriation experience. Thus, male and female

expats who either have already returned to their home country after international assignment or

are currently close to the end of their expatriate experience are represented among the study

sample.

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The in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face or via phone/skype,

according to the preferences expressed by the interviewees. The duration of the interview was

between 45 min and 1 hr 30 min, typically 1 hour long. The language of communication was

English. The participants were informed that their personalities remain anonymous, companies

data was not going to be revealed and the information was to be used for research purposes.

Purposeful sampling was used for the study. The participants for the research were recruited in

two waves – the first ones through HR managers of two multinational companies and the second,

through the participants of the MBA course at IESE Business School. To reach a representative

number of female interviewees with international career trajectory the snowball sampling

technique was applied, since initially due to a limited number of female participants with suitable

profiles gender balance was not exactly kept. This situation, however, was corrected in the

course of the second wave of the interviews.

The interviews were structured in the following way: first, introductory questions were asked

with the purpose of better familiarizing with the assignment of the expatriates and getting general

information about its length, destination and purpose. All the main questions were later on split

into three parts, each one referring to professional life, family domain (where applicable) and

personal well-being. Table 1 provides clear structure of the interviews.

Table 1. The structure of interviews

Introduction Assignment description: destination, length, purpose

Work

Positive impacts of assignment on the job

Negative impacts of assignment on the job

Skills acquired thanks to assignment (personal and professional)

Consequences of assignment for career

Company support: positive sides

Company support: missing side

WLB policy of company for personnel on assignment

Female expats: female-male ratio and reasons

Family Positive impacts on the family

Negative impacts

Spouse support

Impact on communication with extended family

Family adjustment

Personal well-

being Positive impacts

Negative impacts

Social life during assignment

Leisure life while on assignment

Personal adjustment

Prior international experience (personal and professional) and its role in

adjustment

Conclusion Overall satisfaction with the assignment

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Most pleasant/stressful in the assignment

Future considerations: readiness to repeat similar assignment or substitute it

with other forms of mobility

Within each domain the focus was made on the major difficulties of adjustment or negative

impacts of assignment and the strongest added value received from expatriation or positive sides

of the relocation. In addition, every domain had specific curiosities explored. Thus, for instance,

within the group of questions about the job outcomes particular attention was paid to the issues

connected with the female expatriation, company support, repatriation process, etc., while social

adjustment and leisure life related questions have been examined when talking about personal

well-being of expatriates. Finally, the interview was completed with the general evaluation of the

satisfaction with expatriation and assessment of future plans and further inclinations to

participate in international assignments of long duration later in time.

As a result, 34 interviews with expatriates have been conducted, 16 out of which with female

employees. Thus, the sample was balanced in terms of gender representation. The expatriates

who participated in the study belonged to various age groups, the youngest being 26 years old at

the time of pursuing international assignment and the upper age border being set at 56 years old.

The mean of the age was 38 years old, which in line with the literature findings stating that

expatriation assignments are typical for the employees on the upswing of their career

development typically between 30 and 45 years old. Rarely the individuals at the entry level as

well as those who have got to the peak of their career are inclined to move abroad for

expatriation.

Only 18% or 6 interviewees did not have families at the time of their assignment, 5 of which

were female employees. Out of 28 individuals who were married 22 had between one and three

children. Interestingly more than a quarter of them had kid(s) born during expatriation.

Most of the expatriates were Spanish by nationality with some exceptions of the participants of

French, British, Polish, Peruvian, Argentinian and Brazilian nationalities. Consequently, the

returned expats majorly resided in Spain, while those who were still on international assignment

had a very wide spread of the countries of living. The explored relocations of expatriates have

been conducted to such countries as Switzerland, Germany, France, USA, UK, Belgium, Spain,

Italy, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Sweden, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Nigeria. Female expatriates

rather chose developed countries for their global assignments, while the geographic distribution

of the destinations of male expatriation was wider, among the rest including the countries of

Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Predominantly employees were expatriated to the capitals or large cities where their companies’

headquarters or big offices were located. However, there were some exceptions to the rule: some

individuals were moved to small towns with the goal of business development. The country and

type of the destination clearly played its role in the adjustment processes and satisfaction with

the assignment and will be discussed later. The majority of expatriates worked in such fields as

sales, marketing, finance, HR of large multinational companies. The main socio-demographic

characteristics of the sample are presented in the Table 2.

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Table 2. Socio-demographic profile of the study participants.

Nr. %

Gender male 18 53%

female 16 47%

Age 26-35 15 44%

36-45 14 41%

46-56 5 15%

Married Y 28 82%

N 6 18%

With kids Y 22 65%

N 12 35%

Nationality Spanish 26 76%

Other European 5 15%

Other worldwide 3 9%

Country of

residence Spain 16 47%

Other European 12 35%

Other worldwide 6 18%

Functional area finance 10 29%

marketing 10 29%

sales 5 15%

HR 2 6%

other 7 21%

Total 34 100%

Speaking about the expatriate assignments, it is important to mention that numerous interviews

have been conducted with the individuals who had multiple expatriations in the course of their

careers. Thus, one third have been on 2 expatriate assignments with one person being currently

in the process of his third relocation. 8 out of 33 were expatriated for the first time and have not

yet returned to their home base. Typically the time of expatriate assignment was around 3 years

(with the mean of 3,1 for the first assignment and 3,25 for the second one), which is in line with

the policies of many MNCs that often foresee standardized time periods for relocations around 3

years long; however, among the sample the length of the assignment ranged between 1 and 6

years. On average, women expatriates undertook their assignments for longer time periods – 3,4

years against 2,9 years for men. The expatriation missions considered in the current report were

conducted after 2008 being quite recent.

Talking about the main purpose of expatriation for the employees, here a clear majority of

expatriates indicated an international assignment as a possibility for professional growth and

career development. Sometimes the position offered for the period of expatriation foresaw

immediate promotion; otherwise, expatriates were hoping to obtain better chances of career

growth upon repatriation, as assignments helped them widen their functional and geographic

scope and develop professionally on a higher level. When an offer of an appealing position in

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appealing destination was added on top of favorable family situation, then there were basically

no doubts whether to accept the assignment.

From the side of organizations expatriation was frequently used as an instrument of widening

business at new locations or bringing best practices to the new markets; therefore, the normal

practice was to send promising employees to other countries to run new projects, open factories,

build up teams, spread the companies policies, etc. Sometimes there was a need to have Spanish

representation in other locations, too.

Apart from this, the second important reason to expatriate employees was to develop the

company’s workforce. Often, international assignments represent a compulsory part of

international career at multiple MNCs and employees are expected to get global exposure at

some point of their career being notified about this during recruitment. Thus, expatriation was a

condition for hiring for certain jobs, and various rotations were foresees between branches and

headquarters and different markets.

Last, in few cases expatriation evolved from a short-term assignment when a project got

prolonged and the employee was offered to continue the work being relocated with his family for

a few years instead of continuing commuting.

Data analysis

1. Job domain: Professional challenges and positive impacts of expatriation

1.1. Positive sides of expatriation First, let’s analyze the effects, both positive and negative, of expatriation on the professional life

of the company’s employees. In this regards expatriation, which started gaining its popularity

just a couple decades ago, proved to be successful in multiple situations due to the positive

effects on work represented in the majority of cases by the added value for the global employees

from the upward learning curve and new experiences gained and expertise developed in the

course of international assignment. Overall male and female expats were indicating similar

positive outcomes of expatriation; there were no major gender differences in this regard.

The interviewees often mentioned expatriation as a very positive experience job-wise, which was

proved by the overall satisfaction score provided in the general assessment. All the expatriates

participating in the study managed to acquire deep knowledge of the industry and the place and

new skills obtained often at the right market in the favorable time, represented not simply by

technical skills but also soft ones. Managing big teams, growing as a leader, mastering

management skills – all these contributed to development of new responsibilities and helped

expatriates become better specialists in their field or develop new functions, providing them with

the new instruments and global business approach.

“I have had an extensive experience performing different roles and it is unbelievable how

much I have learnt in those 3 years comparing to the previous 3 years of work at the

home market. The most important for me was to learn and to develop and this was

successfully achieved. Now that I am back in Spain I can clearly see that there are so

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many things that I collected from France, best practices let's say, that are highly

appreciated here.”

Different professional and personal skills were reported by the interviewees to be acquired in the

course of expatriation. Sometimes, it was difficult to distinguish between them as they all served

in job and private life, too. Apart from huge business acumen and professional development in

the functional area and outside of it, the most frequently mentioned skills developed during

expatriation were flexibility, adaptability, open-mindedness, accepting diversity, adjusting to

new ways of working and living instead of speaking to the old values and being ready for a

change any moment. These were mastered when working away from home while dealing with

new, often volatile situations.

The data revealed critical importance of long-term assignments abroad for adopting new ways of

thinking and becoming more open-minded and auto sufficient, understanding work and life

patterns in other markets, learning how to deal with the colleagues, partners and customers of

other nationalities and specific cultural groups and how to deal with the new problems and

challenges or with the old ones but in the different environment, basically how to do the things

differently and sometimes more efficiently. Work in another market expanded their knowledge,

expats adopted another know how, even if working at the same company, as there were so many

differences, which was realized when getting out of normal environment. Professional

experience in the HQ often gave perspectives and relationships that were difficult to develop in

the brunch office.

“Expatriation had great impact on some many levels… The first obvious level would be

to say that I learnt a lot more about a very important part of the business and the way it is

carried out. It's completely different than the way we see from the markets, speed-wise

and orientation-wise. It was very enriching for me. And on another level you get to see it

all first hand - working at HQ you get to know the company at its core, know how the

steering committee works, how hierarchy works, it's so different from the affiliates that

are so small, usually from 10 to 130 people perhaps, while at HQ there are more than

1000 people. It's much more complex. Really interesting.”

Often new markets were well-suited for specific role development, with healthy competition and

business focused people; however, not seldom new job responsibilities provided unexpected

challenges requiring flexible approach and introduction of innovations. Possibility to impact the

scene and see how the things are implemented in a short period of time was considered as a

strong motivational factor by expatriates. Around half of the research participants reported

improved understanding of business as such thanks to getting to know a clear picture of the

dualism of the HQ and local markets’ functions and responsibilities. Moreover, their area of

influence expanded considerably.

“Coming from the local office where I dealt only with Spain and Portugal, now I have

102 countries under my responsibilities, with all the implications. The job itself is a lot

more interesting than the one I had. Job-wise it's a really good move.”

As mentioned, in the main offices they got to live the values of the company in a much more

intense way than they did in the affiliates. Interestingly, though acknowledging all the positive

outcomes of work in headquarters, some opinions were expressed regarding positive influence of

expatriation on appreciation of advantages of the home market.

Undoubtedly living abroad for a prolonged time period had its influence on the communication

skills of the global employees that were enriched and certainly put at full speed at the

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requirement of the new assignments resulting in development of new relations with people,

engagement with the new colleagues with different cultural background. Ability to listen to

others, people management, coaching and leading new teams in the novel setting and different

country were often required by the new positions too and resulted in developing tolerance,

patience and ability to deal with emotions.

In addition, learning or mastering foreign language was certainly very positive. Thus, a third of

the interviewees mentioned improvement of their command of English thanks to “working and

living and thinking in English” and learning other foreign languages, such as German or French,

during their stay at a new market to be an important added value.

Certainly, the expats’ visibility within the company considerably improved thanks to global

assignments: their network was widened; there was a unique possibility to get in touch with the

colleagues in the same role but at different markets. Expatriation helped a lot to get to know a lot

of people from the organization. At the end it was very positive also because later on these

connections were very valuable for efficient work.

In addition, getting exposed to stakeholders of higher level than at the home market and to the

top management from headquarters and specific markets’ offices provided a great experience of

dealing with hierarchy and sometimes fostered career development. Along with new knowledge

and experiences it often provided benefits for the future opening the doors to important career

opportunities. Therefore, the network acquired in the process of expatriation was frequently

regarded as one of the most valuable outcomes of the assignment, as the relationship built in HQ

and other offices were considered to be key to further career development.

“You start becoming someone, job rotations are usually for people who are in career.

They don't even normally know you exist until somebody is sent abroad - at that moment

you start having a lot of visibility, you are very exposed. Professionally speaking it

helped me a lot to start opening discussions about my career”.

Sometimes the relationship between expatriation and further career growth was not direct,

meaning that expats did not immediately get promotion, however, despite that, participation in

the international assignment was often mentioned as an added value for the CV, which at some

point of career helped them get promotion.

In terms of networking, the relationships with new officemates were clearly considered as a

benefit. Often expatriates mentioned good ambience among the colleagues, especially when a

group of people was relocated together for project work. However, essential to mention that not

just professional engagement but friendly relationships with people from different backgrounds

appeared and became stronger in the new environments thanks to presence of expat community

in many cases, unless going to a very small place or to a developing country.

Financial benefits represented another important motivation factor for expatriates as no matter in

which country they work their remuneration is normally at quite a high level compensating for

inconvenience caused by moving away from home.

Expatriation contributed to growing independence of employees and boosted their confidence

and trust in themselves as during international assignments they managed to do things that they

were never hoping to achieve. One interviewee mentioned that she acquired a new admiration for

herself after seeing what she was able to achieve on her own in the limited time. In general,

females mentioned this type of soft skills gained thanks to expatriation more often than their

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male colleagues. Thus, maturity, personal and professional growth, getting to know oneself

better were amongst the positive effects of expatriation on the personalities of the employees.

Soft skills acquired when living abroad were of no lesser importance for the expatriates than

technical knowledge and functional expertise.

1.2. Work adjustment and professional challenges of expatriation

In spite of the long list of expatriation benefits and positive experiences connected with it, the

interviewees referred to several professional challenges requiring adjustment from their side.

Frequently repatriation was mentioned by expats as the most serious difficulty of global

assignments. Quarter of respondents encountered certain problems when getting back to the

home market after expatriation was over. In some situations the assignment abroad or non-

availability of positions at home office in the right time provoked deviation from the planned

career path and prolonged climbing up the career ladder. In others, it took longer than expected

to get further promotion, which might have extended the timing of the stay abroad. Thus, the

research confirmed that not always the chances to get the job at the right level upon return were

close to 100% and gained benefits might be too theoretical without finding their application in

practice. Male expatriates were preoccupied about the repatriation issue more often than females

represented in the sample. Nevertheless, almost all the interviewees mentioned higher potential

of professional growth in the future and better career prospects arising due to undertaking global

assignment, though the benefits might be delayed.

High risk, big uncertainty, difficulty to secure bottom line were among the top challenges named

by expatriates which became more pronounced in the markets with tough geopolitical situation,

economic crisis, low business mood and other local difficulties. Even currency deviations might

have caused additional risks for expats, depending on the conditions of their contracts. For

instance, Russia was mentioned as a complicated place for work and its economic crisis

impacted the expatriates there too. Again, the difficulty to reach objectives was more frequently

reported by men, which might have been connected with their specific job responsibilities as

they were regularly required to lead big teams or launch specific projects.

It’s true that global employees thanks to networking opportunities increase their visibility

abroad. At the same time, however, upon leaving home markets expatriates’ visibility there

diminished considerably; they might be at a high risk of being forgotten due to losing direct

contact with former bosses, colleagues and sponsors from the home base.

“In case of expatriation you can easily lose contact with your sponsor or mentor in the

company who should watch you and help you to develop. When you move, there is not so

much contact with the mentor, and then when that person also moves, whoever succeeds

him or her, doesn't have that connection with you. So, loosing track of your development

may be a challenge.”

Therefore, taking into account unfavorable local country conditions hampering reaching the

professional goals of the assignments and loosing contact with the home base, the objectives of

expatriation might not be fulfilled immediately. In its turn, this might lead to disappointment

with expatriation as such and even expatriation failure.

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Another problem encountered was tough adjustment to the new job and place, new position, new

boss. Expats are basically pushed out of their comfort zone and familiar working atmosphere

being forced to start everything from scratch. Often they changed everything but the company

name – they work at a new location, in another language, in a new functional area and with

different work responsibilities, having new boss, colleagues and new work routine. Moreover,

new country often requires adaptation to its specificities connected with running business in a

slightly different manner. You need to understand local rules, adjust to new way of work, which

might be completely different from the one at a former office. This problem was more often

mentioned by female expatriates; therefore, their professional adjustment took longer.

“It's a different working culture, even though it's the same company but there are

obviously differences. In the case of Americans, I think there is a little bit of a difference

in the way…for instance, Europeans tend to be more open. There is a little bit of

navigation you need to learn in terms of culture. From work perspective - getting used to

different styles of work is needed. Just a silly example - one thing that was hard for me

was cultural way of working of Americans - having 15 meetings a week that don't let you

work. You have a feeling that you're not working as much as needed, I really had hard

time in understanding that thing and finding the value out of it.”

If the new position of expat required them to deal not just with the colleagues at the new office

but included responsibilities of wider functional and geographic scope, then culture played even

more crucial role.

“In my current job the cultural difference is critical. Sometimes it's a challenge. Different

cultures, different currencies, different everything. These things I didn't really pay much

attention to when I was in the local office. Now - it's my day to day. On Saturdays some

countries work, Muslims, this kind of things. And also the way you conduct business

with other parts of the world. It's a challenge; I don't think it's negative. But at the

beginning it was like - ok what is this...”

Due to all these issues, professional stress constantly accompanied the expatriates at the initial

stages of their assignment and is increased even more by a lot of working hours, elevated

workload, high pressure and sometimes excessive expectations caused by necessity to prove

locals that you can be better despite being in unfamiliar environment and speaking different

language. Besides, local politics in the new office, especially in HQ was frequently mentioned as

a watch out – it was important to learn the hierarchy at the new location in order to deal with

seniority. Work in the centre had another disadvantages - easiness of being lost among large

groups of employees, therefore, decreased visibility, as a result.

Cultural differences with the local team did not contribute to smooth and easy socializing either,

adaptation to the new way of work and working culture made people management even more

challenging. Some expats described the situations when the local office was not very willing to

accept the newcomers and it made adaptation process much more painful in professional and

personal terms.

Another point mentioned by the interviewees was abundant business travel, which is often an

accompanying feature of expat assignment. It was viewed from two different perspectives by the

company’s employees. One group of expatriates regarded it as an added value of the new job that

provided the possibility of seeing new places and adopting a broader view of the business.

However, a number of individuals mentioned business travel as a negative feature of the new

employment, which occupied too much time and decreased their WLB requiring their frequent

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absence from the family that sometimes had not yet got adjusted to the new place and needed an

additional support.

Similarly, new languages were mentioned in a contradictory way: working and living in a new

language was a strong positive point for improving the command and mastering fluency, but it

was also named as an obstacle to efficient fulfillment of the job responsibilities during the

adaptation period. Moreover, despite representing a common preoccupation for all expats, low

command of foreign language was more frequently mentioned with the negative connotation by

women. Especially strong negative opinions were expressed by those expats living in the

countries with completely unknown local language, the command of which was not required for

the job – it produced difficulties with socializing aside of work and adaptation to the new

environment. However, at the end, the necessity to learn a new language was considered rather

positive.

Table 3. Professional adjustment difficulties of expatriates.

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tough adaptation in the beginning due to being thrown out of the comfort area, starting

everything from scratch

2 short notice of expatriation and no time given for adaptation

3 adjusting to different working culture and local differences, understanding local rules

4 developing completely new role and change the way of work

5 challenging relationship with new colleagues and bosses, gaining their respect

6 high workload and long working hours

7 language as a barrier

8 high uncertainty, multiple risks local country geopolitical and economic difficulties

9 high expectations generate pressure

10 not always results are achieved fast, sometimes the goal is not fulfilled at all

11 uncertainty about further career

12 risk of being forgotten at home market, lower visibility there

13 professional stress and anxiety

14 dealing with politics in the centre

15 sometimes being switched to HQ might reduce your visibility

16 high amount of business trips negatively influence WLB

17 not much of friendliness of the ambience for dual-career

So, not every facet of expatriation in terms of work always went smooth – there were some

downsides underlined by some expats more frequently than the others. This certainly depended a

lot on individual work arrangements and personal qualities too. But overall, some things global

employees clearly liked more than the others but for work at the end it was rather positive.

2. Family impacts: difficulties and positive outcomes

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2.1. Positive impacts of expatriation on the family life While short-term assignments abroad and regular business travel usually do not foresee that the

traveler is accompanied by the family, the situation with expatriation is different. The vastest

majority of the interviewed expatriates were relocated for a long-term assignment abroad with

their spouses and children. Family relocation was fully supported by the company, which helped

with the logistics and provides an additional allowance. However, both positive and negative

consequences of expatriation could be mentioned with regard to the family domain.

On the one hand, long-term assignments abroad were judged as extremely beneficial for the kids,

without exceptions. Thanks to them the employees’ children got a chance to study in

international schools, learn foreign language(s) and grow up in the international surrounding.

This undoubtedly provided the younger generation with a good starting platform for life granting

them multiple benefits. They learnt how to embrace diversity, they made friends from all over

the world, explored multiple countries; it contributed to faster maturity and increased their

emotional intelligence. Sometimes better prospects for children were named as the main

motivation for parents when deciding whether to undertake the assignment. Moreover, some

couples found expatriation period to be very suitable for giving birth to kids; this was happening

due to availability of free time for the wife who often stayed at home, additional financial

support by the company and developed medical services at a new place.

“Language barrier in our case is moving from weakness to strength. My kid is 3 years old

and speaks 4 languages fluently. From kids prospective - it is just a huge opportunity - to

learn about different cultures, to understand that not everyone is exactly the same, that

people r different, that there are different languages, people live in different places

around the world, there r time differences. It sets them up for being much more flexible

and emotionally intelligent in the future, if parents are managing it well.”

“Now I look back and it's been great for them. I think when we were in Spain they lived

in a small controlled environment going to the same school from 2 year old. Now my

little one was the only white person in the class. We didn't have a place and we were in

the Indian neighborhood. So, he was the only white child, he couldn't speak English. For

him it was shocking but I think it was very positive in the long run. Kids are exposed to

completely different cultures, languages; it is opening their minds a lot. Now you look at

their friends and it's like a bag of m&m's - all the colors... And also educational system -

the English education works well for them.”

Apart from the positive influences on kids, expatriation demonstrated benefits for the family as a

unit and the relationship between the partners, which tend to become closer than ever when

moving to a completely new environment. There exist multiple evidences to the fact that family

unit was strengthening, spouses got to know each other better and from different perspectives

becoming attached to each other more than ever, the core of family got stronger. Expatriation

was sometimes regarded like living together an adventure; it was an extraordinary experience,

which made the family bond.

“In terms of couple it was a bit stressful in the beginning - since there is so much logistics

to figure out - that creates some tension but on the other hand what we found - and we

talked about this is we really have to lean on and rely on each other a lot and it kind of

builds this circle which is very strong and it kind of bonds you together very much.”

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The level of living of the whole family unit was often higher at the expatriation destination due

to economic benefits and special conditions provided to the global employees; thanks to the

international assignment the families got access to wider range of services, they got an

opportunity to travel, children went to good schools. These might not always have been possible

if staying at the home base all along the career.

Family development as a unit happened also due to contacts with other people, making friends

with other countries’ nationals, building new relations and better understanding how the world

works. Often these connections with people from other countries were preserved all life long. All

together families got to know different culture, adopted new ways of thinking living in a

completely new landscape, and learnt how to manage efficiently their daily life in the new

setting. Not only it created special connections between the family members but also contributed

to their development on a whole different level. They acquired new skills in the course of living

abroad: for instance, one interviewee mentioned that her husband who followed her on the

international assignment learnt to cook.

“Main positive impact...I think it's creating an amazing experience that we live together.

It's an adventure, a real adventure, and I'd say adventures r not so common these days.

Actually I wouldn't say many people would shy away from them. Like all experiences,

adventures excitement makes family bond I think, while going through this, and it does

so as well cause you have tough times. Everyone faces challenges, and the kids as well.

Going through them together probably strengthens the bonds.”

Sometimes positive aspects for the wife development were named too. In spite of the wife

leaving her job at home in the majority of cases, in certain situations she managed to get

employment at the new place, in addition to learning new languages and developing other

interests. Mostly life was comfortable for spouses, as the interviewees from the sample were

moved either to countries with high standard of living or to developing countries where financial

benefits compensated small inconveniences.

Analyzing the positive effects reported by expatriates of different genders, we saw that overall

female employees were largely focused on their kids and for them benefits of expatriation

received by their children were of major importance. Men were mentioning this point as well,

however, more frequently building up good relationship with a wife, bonding and strengthening

family unit was considered by them at first place, followed by cultural development and growth

of international awareness of all the members of the family.

2.2. Family adjustment and challenges to overcome

On the other hand, not just positive effects have been reported by expatriates in relation to their

family life. An interesting opinion was expressed stating that in such situations everything –

positive and negative – goes to extreme. Thus, in spite of expatriation opening new doors for

children, kids logistics was mentioned among the biggest challenges. Schools, nannies,

pediatricians, etc. – everything required more effort and was hard to manage, especially in the

situations of dual-career couples. It was not always easy to facilitate adaptation process of the

children, make them accept the change painlessly, in particular during the first year of life in the

new surrounding. These moments were more frequently testified by females expatriates,

especially, if we talk about daily issues connected with daycare and health routine for children.

16

“From parents perspective expatriation with kids get much more complicated, starting

from logistics. It gets very very complex. Like from getting pediatrician, vaccinations,

daycare solutions, food solution in the US kids don’t get foods in schools, having

someone take care of kids during their vacations around the year. And obviously the

language barrier… It is a challenge at the beginning. But that's from the parents'

prospective.”

Absence of unconditional support of extended family, which stayed at home, did not help either.

Moreover, expatriates were forced to leave their parents and relatives at home not being able to

support them as much as needed and due to that feeling themselves guilty and far from their

routes. Nowadays new technologies made it easy to keep in touch, therefore, communication

often simply changed from physical to digital; however, moving to a completely different time

zone might prevent families from regular contacts. Close communication with the family was

disrupted also due to bad flight connections. For daily life it was unpleasant but not a tragedy,

however, the problems arose when physical contact was required. Sometimes health issues of

parents or other family problems required personal presence at home and caused an additional

amount of travel, though in some cases, when expatriation destination was too far from home

base, it was hardly possible. Also it was noted that the expat lifestyle provoked additional

selfishness in relation to family and friends who were left at home as participation in their lives

was much lower and, therefore, it was much easier to stay away from their problems. So, it was

valid for both sides – lack of family support and lack of assistance to the family provided by

expatriates too – and was mentioned among the most difficult moments connected with

relocation abroad.

“Personally it was much more challenging to live in the environment in which you don’t

have any social support in a sense. Whatever happens to my family and myself is all on

the shoulders of me and my husband. We've always been completely independent and

autonomous which is probably a challenge.”

To some expats – they were the minority though - the decrease in communication with family

and friends did not cause any inconvenience. This was typical for the situations when individuals

were always living far from families or were used to constant moves being raised in an

international atmosphere. If expats did not have the custom to regularly speak with their family

members, moving away was not an issue at all and even positively influenced communication

sometimes improving relations between family members. Yet, these cases were very rare.

The feeling of loneliness and isolation has been frequently reported by the interviewees. In some

countries it was very hard to build the new circle of communication due to cultural differences,

closeness of local people or absence of expatriate community. Language could be a barrier too

contributing to isolation, especially when moving to a small place where expatriates were not

very common and the infrastructure for them is not particularly developed. Therefore, social life

might have been problematic.

“I think we felt completely alone, isolated. You live in London with 10 million people

and many are in the same situation, but you have to deal with all the problems on your

own and that could be a little logistic challenge of the everyday life, it was a killer - from

finding the school to finding the house. So, all the little things that nobody told us about

and we had to figure out on our own.”

Due to these challenges expatriates’ families sometimes found themselves in the situations that

were difficult to manage facing multiple challenges. In the toughest moments the atmosphere

17

might have become tense, especially in the beginning of the new life, as all the members of the

family were out of their comfort zone. Everyone had to learn how to deal with unexpected and to

find balance in the new life, and the expat too – finding WLB was extremely important, at the

very beginning of the new assignment in particular.

Spouses of expatriates did not always manage to find their comfort zone at the new place. It was

rather difficult to find a new job due to language, local issues, burocracy and problems with the

documents, in spite of some support measures practiced by the companies of expatriates. Though

presently the situation is changing little by little, still in the most cases expatriates are male

employees and their spouses are the ones who follow. Men recognized that expatriation had a big

influence on their spouses who lost their job and the source of income and independence and

experienced stress due to professional isolation and loss of career, having to fully dedicate

themselves to their families. Moreover, they were thrown out of their circle of communication

and were missing the support of family and friends.

“The key element is a wife as expatriation influences her a lot. For the expatriate - for me

- at the end the day-to-day activity has not changed - you get up, go to work, get back and

stay at home - most time is spent at your job as before. For wife everything changes, no

friends, nothing to do, she probably quit job, she has basically to remake her wife - which

I think is a huge impact. She is the one who suffers, she has to remake her life completely

being without friends and job; it's difficult for her to have social life, she is missing a lot

of things.”

Interestingly, female expats were mentioning the situations when their trailing husbands did not

have jobs at the new destination as the most serious problem – this negatively influenced their

balanced family lives. However, for male expats the situation was different: with few exceptions,

they reported social isolation, non-familiarity with the local language, absence of family and

friends as the biggest challenges for their wives.

Important to mention that all but one male expats represented in our sample had families, while

one third of female expats were single. So, the decision to follow was mainly taken by wives

who often gave up their previous job very rarely having kept position guaranteed back at home

upon return. Sometimes spouses managed to find job at the new destination, temporary or part-

time employment, especially important it was for following males: if this mission was not

successful that usually served as a reason to earlier termination of the wife’s assignment and

early return home.

Table 4. Examples of family adjustment difficulties of expatriates.

1 Complicated logistics with children, kids adjustment difficulties

2

Lack of support of extended family, diminishing communication with them; no social

support; and inability to help the elderly parents, too

3

Spouse adaptation to new life, not having job, focusing just on the family; undertaking a

big effort without appropriate reward sometimes

4 Challenging relocation logistics, settling down at the new place

5 Isolation, difficulty with social circle, no friends around

6 Language as a barrier at the initial stage of expatriation

7 In tough moments family atmosphere might become tense

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8

Difficult to manage some periods of time without families (at the beginning/end of the

assignment for example)

9 No appropriate infrastructure for expatriates

10 WLB of the working expat is not always good which negatively influences family

11 uncertainty around repatriation influences family

The spouses of expats indeed faced some challenges, yet almost always they fully supported the

decision to relocate seeing the benefits of this move for the career and family, too. It could have

required certain negotiations, but the vastest majority of the interviewees managed to convince

their spouses. Nevertheless, generally expats who had families would not even consider

accepting such long-term international assignments if their spouses did not agree to follow; just 2

expatriates accepted long-term international assignments commuting home almost every

weekend. When at the beginning of the assignment and during its last months they were forced

to stay alone preparing the ground for the family relocation or closing the last working duties,

they found themselves particularly miserable and directed all their efforts to be reunited with

their families as soon as possible. Uncertainty around repatriation make the situation even more

complicated.

Obviously, work outcomes might suffer from these situations, which should be taken into

account by the companies when managing expatriation. In extreme situations expatriation might

be conducted on the basis of weekly commuting but these examples are more rare.

Overall, the role of family was found to be of extremely high importance for the expatriates,

which was additionally proved by the content analysis (word count or cloud analysis) – the

Figure 1 demonstrates the central position of this domain for the relocated employees being

mentioned with highest frequency.

Figure 1. Role of family for expatriates - Nvivo word map.

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Thus, work-family balance was one of the key success factor for expatriation assignment and

satisfaction of the relocated employees. Family occupied the central position in the consideration

of effects of expatriation, not only influencing satisfaction with expatriate assignment but also

playing role in the plans for future mobility. Family presence had double-faceted effect on the

satisfaction with expatriation and inclination to undertake such assignments in future: if the

spouse had positive experiences during expatriation (was working, did not suffer from the

absence of communication, enjoyed the new lifestyle, etc.) then expat tended to be more satisfied

and more inclined to pursue expatriation in the future. Another success factor was connected

with the stage of life of the kids: most often parents with younger children (below 10-12 years

old) and those with older and independent kids, for instance, studying at university, undertook

expatriation assignments. Undoubtedly, in the vastest majority of cases the decision to accept

such assignment was the family decision and family presence was found to have stabilizing

effect on the expatriates overall.

3. Expatriation and personal well-being: adjustment difficulties and positive outcomes

Expatriation affected not just work and family life domains; it produced inevitable – positive and

negative – impacts on personal well-being of the relocated employees. Especially these

influences were noticeable when expats do not have families, while for those individuals moving

with spouses and kids the effects on domains might have been mixed. The current chapter

represents an attempt to decompose these impacts.

3.1. Positive consequences Among the strongest positive individual effects expatriates mentioned a range of personal

qualities developed thanks to the assignments abroad, which were partially introduced in the first

chapter on professional development. Personally, it was very enriching for the global employees

20

to see different cultures and to develop new skills; many of them reported they learnt to be more

flexible, open-minded, to take perspective from what their life was in the home country and to

get better prepared for the whole new world. Especially frequently remarked were personal

growth, higher maturity, boosted self-confidence, becoming in general a more complete and

interesting person. Moreover, learning new languages and getting all new cultural insights was

considered as a big added value by expats. It was already mentioned in the chapter on

professional and family outcomes, as many skills are interconnected – it is sometimes

complicated to distinguish those ones developed thanks to work and the other arising due to new

lifestyle. Individual and family experiences of expats were frequently interconnected, as they

were lived together in out of work time.

“I think maturity, I found it very rewarding, I was very very happy, yes. On a personal

level it was very enriching. I feel it has changed me very much in the way to approach

people, to be more open, willing to be more flexible and more assertive with people. To

understand that there is so much more in the way people say that has to be understood

and separated from what the people are saying.”

“I think the positive impact is that it opens your mind; you get out of comfort circle that

you had before, it gives you broader view of people. It allows you to learn the new

language. It makes you much more international which I believe is quiet positive. First

moments for us were rather very happy and exciting than sad or missing home.”

“You get to know yourself better at the whole another level - what are you able to do,

how far you are willing to go. You think you know it but you actually don't know that

until you are facing the challenge, facing the experience. And then for me it was a lot of

fun.”

Psychologically expats reported becoming stronger and physically sometimes too, for example

when having a chance to practice more sports than before or live more in an outdoor lifestyle. It

depended a lot on the destination of expatriation. Thus, people relocated to Switzerland, for

instance, broadly mentioned that the lifestyle there was very much outdoor driven; this was

judged very positive by the expatriates who adapted their lives accordingly and made great use

of the natural landscape and opportunities to practice some kinds of sports, like hiking, skiing,

etc. Expatriates who moved to California, US, or to the coast of Australia frequently mentioned

existing cult of body and overall culture of the place contributing to frequent exercising and

healthy lifestyle; in places like this global employees quickly caught up with healthy routine and

got involved into multiple physical activities – gym, jogging, pilates, yoga, etc. But certainly, as

frequently mentioned, the exercising routine and desire to live healthily depended on the person

and not on the place.

“In Switzerland basically there's a much more outdoors driven culture. I became much

more active in terms of sport or hiking, skiing. You live right in the Alps. In Barcelona I

used to go to the beach. Yes, I miss probably the sea but I got kind of adapted to be more

active outdoors. Food-wise it was not a big difference. Basically in Switzerland you can

get anything you want.

In California, our life is also very outdoors driven - we are even more outdoors here than

we used to be. Days are huge. Body culture - everyone is fit here. It's a bit of an impact.

You feel like having a healthy lifestyle here if you didn’t have one before, that's a good

influence.”

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New atmosphere taught expats how to live in a different place, how to do the things more

efficiently, how to enjoy ‘slower’ life devoting more time to family and to themselves. People

learn to appreciate both – what they used to have at home and what they got at the new place;

often the best part of the foreign experience was taken home and replicated in the future.

Another important side of live was connected to getting to know the destination and its

surroundings. Multiple travel opportunities arose in front of expatriates and this was not failed to

be mentioned by many interviewees. It was one of the biggest parts of the whole experience for

the relocated employees, some of whom said that travel was very important for them

representing a serious point in favour of agreeing to undertake an assignment abroad.

“Travel was very important for us - that part I love. Really knowing new country - I think

it's very different when you live there versus when you are visiting as a tourist. We tried

hard to visit all the country and understand it. Such things like local holidays, some

authentic stuff. We think that’s right, so we were trying to make good use of our stay

abroad.”

They usually travelled not just all over the new region, new country, getting out of home every

single weekend, but also explored neighboring countries, too. Especially easy it was in Europe:

when being expatriated in Switzerland, for example, due to its good geographic location, they

had a great chance of getting to visit Hungary, Germany, France, Italy – all were very close and

easily accessible.

In general, expats tended to travel more during their assignments compared to their normal life at

home. They were considering themselves as permanent tourists in their new country of living.

Each weekend the family was discovering new places, making use good opportunity to embrace

the new culture. Sometimes they got to know the new place better than locals becoming real

experts and were able to provide others with good advice on the best places to visit. Obviously

these travel opportunities were also facilitated by good financial conditions provided for

international employees.

“It was a great opportunity to travel around, see new country. These things you don’t do

when you stay at the same place. When you are not moving you become a routine player.

We had great opportunity for travelling having an economic package that allowed us

doing this. It is a mix of both. You take advantage of being in a different country and

being closer even to the other countries around and having conditions allowing you to do

it.”

Another personality related point brought up in connection with travel was not just the chance to

see all the variety of new places but also to get deeply into the culture of visited destinations. It

provided a unique opportunity to understand the differences between unfamiliar places, which

were similar at first sight, to get to know different people and personalities, to understand what

they think and to take the most of these experiences.

“It's important for both of us, we've always wanted to get to know the place and its

culture rather than just sightseeing. Have you been to the Eiffel tower? - Yes, I’ve been.

Do you know why the Eiffel Tower was built, do you know what surrounds the Eiffel

tower, you know, why is it the way it is...getting to know also the cuisine of specific

country. Then the differences between cuisine from Bern, Vaud and Valais, for example,

which are very subtle, but if you life in Switzerland for less time than a month or a year,

you say – oh, that's all cheese...even if it's not the same thing. I think getting to the

substance makes the places interesting.”

22

There were interviewees, nevertheless, for whom travel was just a normal consequence of

expatriation, not particularly exciting, as it was not really important for them to travel around.

However, since there were plentiful opportunities, they were made use of. Those expats’ families

who had kids when living abroad did less trips than families with older children; they were rather

receiving guests at the new place of living. However, they were planning to catch up with

travelling as soon as their family situation allowed. Only once an interviewee named high

workload and tiredness due to extensive business trips as a reason for not having much interest in

private travel around the new country.

3.2. Personal adjustment difficulties and negative impacts of expatriation Along with positive outcomes, certain negative points or difficulties were normal for expatriates.

Among the downsides of global assignment there were reported initial challenges with the social

life that were negatively influenced by the language barrier, closeness of local population or

small circle of acquaintances. Normally, recently relocated expatriates were getting in touch with

other expatriates employees of their own company and other MNCs becoming members of expat

community. This was relatively easy as all the expats dealt with the same problems, it was not

complicated to find people who spoke the same language; they could help each other, spouses

got in contact with each other, too.

Another way of finding new acquaintances was through kids’ schools, wives and sport activities.

Expanding social circle was influenced by individual preferences as well – some individuals

were happy staying together with expatriate community, while for others integrating with locals

was crucial and they put a lot of pressure on finding friends at the new destination.

However, not always employees were sent to headquarters or central offices; sometimes those

were small towns where the infrastructure for expats was not well-developed; then absence of

people to communicate with was particularly hard. Different nationalities had their own

peculiarities too depending on which it was easier or harder to find contact with them. Moreover,

locals anyway had their own established lives and did not let foreigners into their communication

circles that easily. At the end, all these factors influenced social life of the global employees who

anyway had to adopt new strategies when it came to communication.

“And also your circle of friends... One thing that Brazilians and American and Russians -

those whom I met - I can say they are closer to us in their behaviors, they will exchange a

lot more, they are coming into your private life much more than Swiss. One thing that

happens when you live abroad is that you become much more selective. So it's very easy

to cut the ties with friends who you know are not adding anything to you.”

Missing home, family and friends was difficult to compensate but with time expats learnt how to

manage it. In addition to human factor, country conditions also should not be forgotten as they

could be less favorable than the ones at home: security issues, transportation system, cultural

factors provoked some inconvenience influencing the comfort of expatriates’ life in addition to

cold weather, different cuisine, absence of the sea, which were also mentioned with a negative

connotation. Especially in some destinations winters could have been particularly rough and if

the relocation was happening when there were just a few hours of daylight and all the life

outdoors was basically non-existent, that obviously produced negative effect on expats

prolonging their adaptation period.

23

Psychologically, relocated employees frequently suffered from loneliness, especially if their

family was not with them, homesickness often accompanies expatriates who at a certain stage, if

the assignments last too long, did not feel themselves fully at home but at the same time no

longer belonged to their native home country. Since the outcomes of expatriation were not

always clear, expats tended to reflect on what they were doing - whether what the decision they

took was right thing to do for themselves and for the whole family.

Stress was caused by adaptation and repatriation, uncertainty and high risk and was often

revealed through physical symptoms such as exhaustion, health deterioration. Several diseases

and health problems, like hypertension or even hair loss were reported by some of participants.

One interviewee even had to take the decision to come home earlier as the pressure of new work

was too high and caused severe health problems. Extensive amount of business travel reported

by some expats made the situation harder and elevated exhaustion and fatigue. Moreover,

individual balance depended not only on the personal and job adjustment but also on the

settlement of other family members – it was impossible for expats to start enjoying their new life

until the spouse and kids were happy.

“For me it was a big big change – it was something that I didn’t ask for. Even if I decided

to go ahead, I needed to accept that. It was not easy and generated some frustration,

maybe because of all these changes in terms of work and absence of emotional stability.

In the beginning it was hard cause I didn’t see my children settled, it didn’t permit me to

feel better. But it's also because of my personality - I am a perfectionist and being out of

my comfort in uncertain area generated frustration.”

Eating healthily might have been a challenge too, especially in the conditions of excess of work

it was more difficult to be in shape. Not always typical food products could have been found at

new destinations, however, that was a minor issue. Indeed, healthy lifestyle habits largely

depended on individual, however, high work pressure, non-familiarity with the new place and

lack of time could have influenced health negatively causing deficit of exercise and lower control

of diet. That was acknowledged by several interviewees, men mostly. Especially noticeable

changes were happening at the initial stage of expatriation, in the first year, when adjustment

process was at its full upswing.

“It's a bit more challenging now to get in shape. In Spain I was doing something every

day, you want to do this sport you call this guy, another activity - you call another guy. I

was all evenings doing some activities. Here not having this circle of people I had to

change. I had to switch the type of activity, more indoors; instead of mountain biking in

Spain here I am doing triathlon. It's a bit more difficult cause many times you are alone.”

“You abandon normal healthy routine due to excess of work. The first year I did no

jogging at all. Physically I was always exhausted, wife was saying that I was at home

always 'like a matrass' just lying. It was demanding, psychologically and physically. After

6 months it got easier, you manage to find balance.”

“It has a huge negative impact in this case. I think put on 25 kilos since I moved to the

UK, because, of course, I don't walk any more. I am sitting at my desk 60 hours a week. I

don't have help at home, while in Spain I had it, all the meals were taken care of and now

I have to do it myself. I work more, I move less, I spend less time with my family.

Sounds very negative but it's not that bad.”

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Cultural adjustment largely depended on the country of the assignment. Spaniards did not find

major difficulties in Latin American countries or European ones, such as France or Switzerland,

but Scandinavia seemed to be trickier. On the one hand, it was important to be in the place with

high standard of life, good security, good accessibility and multiple flight connections. But on

the other, in addition to new language, cultural moments made a difference too. However, while

pre-trip training provided by the companies could improve the situation with the cultural

adjustment, it had considerably less influence on psychological adjustment. That could be one of

the reasons why in the current study psychological adjustment difficulties caused by life changes

were mentioned more frequently.

Some factors were mentioned by different genders with various frequency and emphasize. Thus,

female expats suffered much more than their male counterparts from psychological

consequences of international relocations: their level of anxiety, stress, loneliness were much

higher, emotional instability was a frequent accompanying factor and adaptation period lasted

longer. Male expats, in their turn, reported bigger health problems and physical impacts: they

had some diseases, suffered from inability to maintain healthy diet and exercising routine and as

a consequence their physical shape changed for the worse. In terms of psychological impacts,

men felt more pressure from inability to support their elderly parents left at home.

Besides these effects, expatriates agreed on the different phases of the foreign assignment –

“first, you feel very excited, you start discovering the new country, then administration

challenges hit you and you cool down; at some point you feel so submerged to all the

complexities of the new life and new job but then the situation evens and the curve is going

upwards with the increasing adaptation to the new job and family adjustment to their new life.”

That is confirmed by the expatriation literature, where the first stage is called ‘honeymoon’ and

is inevitably followed by the cultural shock and adjustment stage (Black & Mendenhall, 1991).

Table 5. Personal adaptation difficulties of expatriates.

1 complications with building up social life, finding communication circle

2 bad weather at the new place, absence of beach

3 missing friends, homesickness

4 feeling of loneliness and isolation, belonging neither to new place nor home

5 stress of the initial adaptation, stressful work, tiredness and fatigues

6 deterioration of health, diseases

7 bad eating habit, not keeping diet

8 no possibility to exercise enough

9 the feeling of insecurity - questioning whether what you do is right

10 too much of business travel

11 cultural adaptation and language difference

Thus, the list of positive and negative effects of expatriation on each life domain is long and

depends on individual circumstances, though multiple communalities exist between different

types of assignment in various destinations. Clearly, every expat weighed pros and cons before

taking the decision and at the end almost all of them were to a certain extent satisfied with the

experiences.

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Summary: Strongest positive/negative experiences

When in conclusion the respondents were asked to choose out of all range of positive sides and

complicated moments of expatriation the following picture emerged. When talking about the

biggest added value of international assignments, the most frequently mentioned was incredible

experience of living in a new country, which gave the possibility to encounter completely new

culture not on superficial level but immerse into it deeply getting to be a part of it and adopt new

lifestyle. At the beginning, everything seemed new and wonderful. Seeing new beautiful places,

traveling around new regions, seeing incredible landscapes, meeting people, discovering new

languages – all these was personally enriching and opened up the mind of expats. Cultural

interaction was important and it facilitated better understanding of the processes happening in the

new country, being on a scene instead of just watching the news on TV. Especially valid it was

for farther countries located out of Europe or the developing ones.

Second, apart from getting a broader view of the world and personal development, professional

achievements were of no lesser importance. Expats were able to prove themselves and their

colleagues and bosses their professional capabilities coping with complicated tasks when being

outside their comfort zone, away from home. “I’ve discovered the whole another part of me” –

said one of the participants. This self-recognition and rewarding recognition of the team brought

a lot of professional satisfaction and boosted their belief in themselves, apart from forming a

good base for further professional growth and career development.

“The best - you prove yourself that you can move out of your comfort zone and you are

successful enough to win, to be happy and to adapt to the local conditions. Finally you

see you made it, you passed the challenge with good grades.”

Personal development here played important role too – considerable improvement of

communication skills, learning what is important and what not, growth as a person.

“The most pleasant was the personal side of the experience, because you are never the

same, it opens your mind completely, you see the things differently. You put value to the

things that you would have never valued before. It's like when you see your own garden

from your neighbours' apartment.

On a personal level it is very enriching. I feel it has changed me very much in the way to

approach people, it made me more open, willing to be more flexible and more assertive

with people. I understood that there is so much more in the way people say that has to be

understood and separated from what the people are saying.”

Finally, the third of study participants broadly expressed opinion regarding strongest positive

outcomes of expatriation was connected to family domain. Relocation with the family for a few

years in a completely different country where there was no social support, no friends or extended

family represented a challenge, but nevertheless it was a great family experience for many

expatriates. Spouses often became closer to each other bonding on a whole new level, family

atmosphere was very good. It brought immense pleasure to parents to see how their kids were

enjoying their new life and all the family was getting a broader view of the world. New

languages, new international social circle, new lifestyle – all this created unique family

experience which was lived very intensely together. Looking back many expats see expatriation

as a huge opportunity for their families, which was very well made use of.

26

“The best - I can't pick one moment, but I think it was the whole experience from a

family standpoint, because I think we have created a really good environment in the

family linked to expatriation and for me that’s the most valuable thing that I will

remember.

Pleasant was to see that your wife and kids get broader view of the world, in terms of

languages, in terms of accepting the diversity, this part of soft skills. Now they read

newspapers today and connect happenings with people they’ve got to know from

Venezuela, Ecuador, Dominican Republic. This creates cultural awareness of what you

wouldn't have realized otherwise. My wife for birthday received congrats from all over

the world. Amount of friends you made during this period, you think about them, feeling

happy or sad.”

On the other hand, the most negative sides of expatriation were related to the same life domains.

For some expats professional adaptation - adjustment to the new work conditions, finding their

place in the office, understanding how the things work there - was the toughest part. Often work

intensity was extremely high, with multiple deadlines, requiring spending many hours at work;

local regulations, rules and cultural differences did not make the adaptation process easier either.

This is something that has to be better watched out by the companies, by the new supervisors of

expats and controlled by HR departments.

“Stressful - at the very beginning, people assume you know but even if you move within

the same company, but changing countries, things can drastically change - processes,

reports, the ways of working. People assume that you know it and in fact you don’t

because you are in a different country where the resources, way to work, even the

acronyms are different. You somehow learn.

Each time you take an expat experience, you change not only country and language, but

also most probably business and company. What you know from the previous job in the

same company accounts for 20% of what you will need. And the rest is catch up. So you

need to really stretch yourself out in order to understand in the first 6 months who are the

key stakeholders, where do I get reports from, how this market assesses this or evaluates

that, and this is challenging.”

Another frustration of expatriation was connected to psychological moments - loneliness,

moments spent alone at the new destinations, waiting for their families to arrive for example, or

moving completely alone. Missing close and extended family members and friends and not being

able to see them on the regular basis created some tough moments – expats had to learn how to

be on their own, in the country where they are complete strangers.

When the spouses and children were joining, another issue was reported – family adjustment did

not always go smooth. Interviewees mentioned their inability to fully adapt to the new place and

lifestyle and start enjoying it to the full extent until their family members, spouses and children

found their new balance. Mothers were not happy when their kids were suffering from

adjustment to new schools, fathers spending days in the office were constantly thinking about

their families left at home alone. But, when every family member finalized cultural and personal

adaptation, the best part of expatriation started.

Finally, logistics required lots of efforts, catching up with the languages needed time too, getting

to know how the things work, such as medical system or banking – all these prolonged the

adaptation phase. In some countries security was a serious concern, which considerably

deteriorated overall impression from expatriation. Dual-career couples expressed more concerns,

27

as for them it was even more complicated to settle down and make sure their kids are fine, given

limited time at the disposal of both parents.

“Stressful was settling of the family, things like getting everyone in the right school. You

are in the office and you are always thinking about them - that takes a lot of your hard

drive space I'd say.”

The following table (Table 6) summarizes the most frequently reported groups of positive and

negative expatriation facets reported by the study participants.

Table 6. Overall most pleasant and most stressful expatriation experiences

Most pleasant Most stressful

1 getting acquainted with the new country, culture,

people, different way of life, seeing amazing

places, getting to know the place as an insider,

getting broader view of the world

adaptation to the new job, office, duties;

familiarization with the new work

procedures and rules; high work intensity

and long hours in the office

2

proving oneselves’ capabilities, self-recognition,

achieving success and being recognized for it,

finding balance outside comfort zone, personal

growth, boosting self-confidence

loneliness, being away from the family

and friends, no social support, being a

complete stranger in the new country

3

incredible family experiences, growing all

together, creating a great family atmosphere,

getting to be closer to each other, new level of

relationship

tricky family logistics, relocation, kids

adjustment; insufficient support of dual-

career couples

Thus, this evaluation serves as another prove to the fact the expatriation comprises not just

professional experiences, but also family and individual ones. Until the moment when the

relocated employee finds balance between these three domains the positive effects of

expatriation cannot be fully leveraged and maximized.

Specific issues connected with expatriation

Expatriation influence on career

In the context of “boundaryless career” (Parker & Inkon, 1999), the vastest majority of the

expats participating in the current study agreed that the overall impact of expatriation in

professional terms was positive; however, there were differences the cases with immediate and

tangible benefits being brought by participation in the foreign assignment and those connected

rather with the acquired experience and, thus, enriching CV. We should admit that the last

outcome was encountered more frequently.

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Both male and female expatriates acknowledged positive influence of expatriation on career

development as new international experience largely contributed to amplifying the scope of the

positions that employees could qualify for in the future, both geographically and responsibilities-

wise. The careers were facilitated especially for those with higher degree of flexibility – who did

not have barriers to be further relocated globally, for example. Even if in some cases employees

got back to the same positions at home, expatriation was crucial for opening the doors to much

better positions in the future, as well as with regard to long-term benefits and higher flexibility in

terms of further job opportunities. From that perspective, international assignment obviously

increased flexibility of further movements thanks to big exposure in different areas of the

company while staying abroad. These benefits were not always immediate but were,

nevertheless, seen as a great professional asset and benefit for family life, too. Expats were

hoping that “someday someone would recognize their achievements”. And indeed, those who

have completed expatriation a while ago, now when connecting the dots looking back, see clear

positive career consequences related to participation in international assignment. Yet, it might be

difficult to dissociate the job per se from expatriation, as professional growth is connected not

just to the variety of experiences but to successful performance while being abroad.

“Tangible benefits - the truth is - I don't know if it's related to crisis or restructuring phase

that we are in right now - but there are no tangible benefits at all that I've really gotten

after my experience. It's much more on potential and a lot of expectations that are just on

the table, because I was open to travel, because I was exposed, because there are many

people who have got to know me.”

“International experience is speeding up your opportunities, your career path. It's a

statistical opportunity - if you are not mobile you might have 3 opportunities, if you are -

10 times more. It depends on you. This is the question of opening doors, I think now I

have a chance not to choose but I have a better position to apply for much better positions

than staying at the local market I would have never had such a chance.”

A group of expatriates reported immediate promotion which was obtained either on expatriate

assignment and kept later on after its finalization or being offered better positions at home or at

other locations upon repatriation. Senior job, global scope, higher visibility, better salary – these

were named among the direct consequences of undertaking expatriate assignment. Some

employees were extremely satisfied with changing the functional area of their work, which

happened to be more fulfilling. In exceptional situations, expats were even localized at the place

of the international assignment and stayed there for extended time periods.

“I have got the job which is much more senior, I would have never got it without leaving

Spain. I gave up on some things to be able to get here - it's not that it was only offered to

me, I was willing to pack my suitcases and move far away, without being asked. But it

clearly accelerated my career and I am leveraging this and probably given the Spanish

context it did also accelerate my salary.”

As a negative impact of international assignments for further professional life there was

mentioned that not always bosses or colleagues at the home base treated returned expats in the

adequate way, as they were seen as spies from headquarters. Professional jealousy was a

negative side effect, however, it might have been not connected with expatriation directly but

rather with the received promotion.

As widely known from the literature on expatriation, one of the largest concerns of international

assignments is associated with return to the home base after the temporary expatriation is over.

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Repatriation was named by our interviewees among the negative sides too, however, the

individual situations were different, being surrounded by various degree of uncertainty and

ending up with various outcomes.

Past mobility experiences and further inclination to undertake international assignments

As shown before, multiple work and personal factors influence the success of expatriate

assignment. Another one not yet touched upon in the current report is connected to the previous

mobility experiences, as their availability and the types of the prior international assignments

undertaken are likely to produce an impact on the adjustment of the employees to the new

environment. Logically, greater experience is associated with faster adaptability and higher

added value of expatriation, being it extensive business travel or short-term assignments

undertaken in the course of professional life or private international exposure. These experiences

might be also considered by the employers during the selection process of the candidate for a

long-term international assignment.

Indeed, almost all expatriates interviewed have had diverse prior mobility experiences. Most of

them were involved into business travel, some undertook short-term assignments abroad, not to

mention previous studies and abroad. It was not unusual to encounter people who grew up in

international families or those who moved a lot in the childhood due to the work of their parents.

Only 5 persons did not have any international experience before the current expatriation, which

was rather exception out of the rules. Thus, seems there exists connection between previous

mobility experiences and further internalization of the career, which was also confirmed my

those expatriates who were not on their first assignment and were familiar with all positive and

negative sides of expatriation. People agreed that previous travel or participation in international

assignments prepared them better for the expatriation providing them with necessary adaptation

mechanisms, which helped to minimize the time of adjustment to the new working and living

environment; therefore, every consecutive assignment was normally easier than the previous one.

“Yeah, no question, it helps you first to learn what it is, living in a new country where

you don’t know anyone, it can be your survival kit, as this real understanding of cultural

differences, just having a different frame for looking at things - that's a shocker

sometimes.”

If to analyze further plans of expatriates, the clear majority of them were open for repetition of

this experience in the future. Some of them were very excited about this possibility and were

ready to go again literally any time, being still “up for a ride”. Several expats admitted that they

were already working on this looking for further possibilities to be relocated. However, most of

the study participants, despite having positive overall impression after international assignment

and being ready for another one, admitted that next time they’d be much more picky in terms of

conditions.

Moreover, the frequently mentioned factor was family: for undertaking another expatriation the

wife should support this move and relocate with the husband; it should be the right moments for

children as it was commonly acknowledged – once there are kids in the picture, everything

becomes much more complicated. Therefore, family convenience was often at the first place

among evaluation criteria.

30

“Yes. I am already working on the possibility of new expatriation. I am not planning to

go home, rather on the other side of the pond. But I've done it a lot, so I will not move my

finger until my family is all settled, I would not go through the same thing again, it has to

be more ordered and with more time. Now I also know the right questions to ask. It's

something nobody tells you, now I learnt what to ask.”

It has to be generally right time and right place, so the destination of assignment played a big

role in terms of ability to provide decent level of life and also providing novelty for some expats

interested in cultural diversity.

“This is the thing. Now for me the world has become my playground. I don’t have that

place where I feel this is my base and this is where I will fall back. Maybe yet we would

lean towards going back home at some point. But it's really a matter of making

everything work - dual-career and personal lifestyle. The real thing is that we will not go

anywhere in the world. We will be picky, we wouldn’t go to some countries. Safety is

number 1, with the family if there is a war, a terrorist activity, it's just a no-go, And

second, quality of life - for example, China was off the table for me. I had an offer but I

said no. Pollution is tremendous, the city never ends, the weather is awful, it's just nasty.

So, we wouldn’t want to go there. There should be balance between our type of lifestyle -

being outdoor and enjoy simple activities, or like here a lot of things for kids. I think in

our case we are not very interested in developing countries because we need good

infrastructure, reliability, I know some people like it, in our case we don't.”

Last but still important – offered work conditions should go in line with career plans overall.

Some individuals who haven’t obtained tangible benefits after previous expatriation being not

immediately promoted, clearly stated they would not undertake another assignment without

seeing evident professional growth as an outcome.

At the same time, some individuals did not possess an inclination to continue global career.

Thus, one fourth of expatriates preferred to make a break in international relocations, though not

excluding getting back on the scene in the future. This was mostly connected with changing

family situation, having priority to live at home or simply being at the stage of career, which no

longer required international movements. Few interviewees expressed desire to substitute long-

term expatriation with rather short assignment of under 1 year duration. Only 2 individuals

connected their absence of desire to pursue another expatriation with negative former

experiences.

The majority of female respondents, in spite of being satisfied with expatriation, showed weaker

predisposition to undertake another long-term assignment abroad in the nearest future, though

not excluding it later in time. Frequently after such assignments females tended to substitute

further expatriation with the shorter assignments or frequent business trips that represented a

better solution for the family life. Those who had families mentioned bad timing for children or

complications of the previous assignment, which did not encourage them to repeat the

experience. In any case, the opinion shared by everyone is that this is the family decision and no

women are ready to continue expatriation path without support of her husband. Single female

expatriates expressed serious concerns about negative influence of globe-trotting on the

possibility to start family life as such.

“So far, today I would have said no to another expatriation. Women usually never chose

to do it in the first year of children's life, very few... You are for so many hours in the

office. After yes but I would put more conditions on the table. After so many difficulties

that I have overcome. In the end that's what I felt - I had a terrible loss of quality of life.”

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Thus, we could witness that expats were usually those who have had previous mobility

experiences of different kinds. They were vastly satisfied with their assignments overall, and the

majority are ready to repeat expatriation at some point in the future, even if not immediately after

- that speaks in favor of positive impacts of expatriation compensating for the downsides.

Gender differences in expatriation

The sample of interviewed expatriates is balanced in terms of gender representation, which

allows exploring differences in terms of evaluation of international assignments by men and

women. Here we provide analysis of this issue from two different perspectives, first, by means of

exploration of the opinions expressed by the study participants with regard to evaluation of the

difficulties of long-term international assignments for women in comparison to men, as well as

numeric evaluation of the female expatriation in the companies. Second, we analyze separately

the opinions expressed by men and women separately in terms of overall positive and negative

moments of expatriation, which is underlined in every subchapter.

In terms of assessment of female expatriation and its comparison, the most frequently expressed

view specified lower involvement of women into this type of global mobility. The overall

opinion about this was in line with the previous literature findings and reflected the real situation

in many companies. Thus, due to expatriation causing notoriously more difficulties to women –

the argument shared by both genders – the representation of women on international assignments

was evaluated at the level of 70-30%% on average or 2 male expats for 1 female. Sometimes the

numbers named corresponded to even bigger gap (85-15%% or 90-10%% in some cases).

Which reasons provoked such situation, following the opinion of expatriates? Various motives

have been discussed. First, classic roles division in the society where man has been always

working and women’s primary role consisted in taking care of the family which was normal until

recently certainly played its role. Nowadays, the situation has considerably changed – many

women entered the workforce. However, in the setting where woman takes the decision to pursue

her career as an expatriate, her spouse normally continues working, too, as less men are willing

to give up their work completely. This causes a variety of problems connected with dual-career

couples already mentioned in the report previously. Thus, when the company-employer could

accommodate both employees relocating abroad or both spouses were able to find work at a new

place, even if it was a part-time job for the trailing spouse, the issue of his or her professional

development was not so sharp. However, these cases were rare and as commonly acknowledged,

companies normally did not anticipate that both would work, therefore, dual-career couples were

not supported well enough.

In the majority of cases when a man was relocated as an expatriate, his wife simply followed

without having a job, which was not often the case for the situation when woman was an expat.

Trailing husbands were less eager to stop working while trailing wives were found to more

eagerly delegate the career to their spouses. In some cases, when accompanying husbands were

not able to get employment at the new destination, the interviewed female expats had to

terminate their assignment abroad earlier not having reached the expected results anticipating

their return home.

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“I think we - women - are perfectly up to a challenge and can do it as well as any man but

it's kind of harder if you are married and have a family to move family if you are a

woman. It sounds really conservative for me but from my experience I've seen it like this.

It's harder to make your husband go with you. I wouldn’t know the ratio in my current

company, there are not so many expats but if to think of other companies I'd say around 2

to 1 perhaps.”

Alternative reason for lower representation of women among expats was connected with the

specificities of some industries or departments. For instance, petrol industry is male dominated

as well as IT departments of companies. Moreover, expatriation figures reflected the gender

composition of the upper management teams. So, since managerial positions are on average

more frequently occupied by men, they were the ones to be relocated for international

assignments more often. The fact that fewer women had intermediate or high positions made

harder for them to move as companies normally would not invest into expatriation of somebody

at the entry-level position. Such situation was reported to be encountered in numerous cases,

though there were exceptions to the rule, too.

On the other hand, another encountered opinion regarding male vs. female expatriates figures,

though not as frequently as the first one, stated that difficulties of expatriation were not really

connected to gender; instead it was rather a matter of having family and children. Now that

participation of men and women in the workforce and raising kids has become more equal, the

consequences of expatriation are also similar and the pressure is equally shared by both,

especially in the situation of dual-career couples. Some study participants did not see any

noticeable differences in the volume of expatriates of different genders; even if the situation was

not even some decades ago it is getting to be more balanced and now there are hardly any

disparities in this regard. It is important to note that this opinion was expressed by expatriates

who were moved to developed countries, such as Sweden, Switzerland, France, the US, where

the quality of life is at a high level and security issues almost do not exist. Sometimes, cultural

moments might have prevented spread of female expatriation, especially in such countries as

Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, some Latin American countries. Moreover, even if the gender balance

was kept, female expats were mostly single young girls while male expats normally had family.

In fact, descriptive statistics of our sample confirms this statement – only 1 expatriated man was

single while among women 5 out of 16 did not have families.

“The ration should be 50-50%% or close to it - this is my perception, I wouldn't say that

more men or women are having this type of assignment. Whether it's more apropriate for

male or female, I would say this is not a matter of genders, it's more a matter of the

family I'd say. If you are a couple without children I think, then this is manageable for a

while, whether you are male or female I think. If you have children then this is more

difficult because you have to be at home more. I mean in this case it's easier probably for

men when there are children. I would say that women are less inclined to take this type of

assignments.”

Important to mention, there were no big differences in opinions regarding the main gender

scenarios in expatriation and the difficulties provoking them among the interviewees of both

genders. Thus, opinions of male and female expats on this issue largely coincided. In both groups

of judgments – whether supporting gender balance among expats or stating that more males are

encountered among the global employees – study participants of various genders and profiles

were present.

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In conclusion, given the growing number of female in the workforce in general and among

expats in particular, a strong necessity to cater for their interests by employers was revealed in

the course of the data collection. In fact, nowadays some companies are paying attention to

gender balance and try to keep the numbers of male and female expatriates equal. More efforts

started to be directed towards resolving this problem recently and presently companies are trying

to better cater for the needs of female employees and dual-career couples, but still no special

policies exist to additionally support such cases. In spite of women increasing in numbers among

those who pursue global careers, the gender situation is still far from equality.

General satisfaction with expatriation

The final evaluation of the expatriate experience taking into account professional and private life

with all the pros and cons was very positive. Larger part of the respondents were extremely

happy with the expatriation experience rich in multiple ways, which brought into their lives

satisfying challenges from personal and professional perspectives and taught them a lot.

‘Brilliant experience’, ‘100% satisfied’, ‘wouldn’t change anything’, ‘absolutely happy with my

expat life’, ‘ready to repeat it tomorrow’ – these flattering evaluations were given to international

assignments, especially by those employees for whom it happened in the right time, at the

appealing place and with good conditions.

However, we shouldn’t forget that people tend to forget negative moments and focus on the

strongest positive sides, given that some of the interviewees finished their expatriation a while

ago; nonetheless, not a single expat would give up participation in the assignment abroad.

“I am extremely satisfied, I think it brought to my life super satisfying challenges, not

only on a professional level but also on a personal level. I think it helped myself to be

conscious of how good I can be at my job, even if they take me from my own country and

put me in a new place where I am not an expert in the language, I am not an expert in the

culture at all, I just know marketing and commonsense and I am able to do a better job

than the people in their own country.”

Smaller group of participants, overall providing good evaluation, did not fail to underline certain

challenges. There were better and worse impacts faced by global employees when living far from

home in an unknown environment. Expats were facing a number of difficulties related to their

jobs and family adjustment, it was not always easy to build a new circle of communication and

extended family support was missing, language adaptation and physical and psychological issues

caused tough moments, too. All these provoked mixed feelings in some global employees though

they agreed on the point that expatriation definitely made them stronger. Yet, some of the

interviewees have not yet finalized their assignments and that could have influenced their general

evaluation.

“I am very satisfied with both. When I moved to Switzerland I was not sure it was the

right decision but after having done this it was totally worth. Of course, there are many

downsides here. Many downsides we knew before moving because we knew people who

had done the same. We knew it would have a financial impact and we knew we would

have started from scratch. But the people I have already met, and the job, and the chance

to live here - it pays off. It's very positive.”

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Sometimes it was difficult to evaluate simultaneously all sides of life influenced by expatriation

– especially valid it was when experiences have been very different. Professionally it could have

been extremely enriching, while family adjustment or other reasons could be taking a long while

preventing from full enjoyment of the new experience.

“I mean, the truth is, I have one professional and one personal assessment and they are so

different. Professionally speaking it was very interesting - very challenging but I think it

enriched me very much. But on a personal level it was hard... in the end it's no matter

what happened I am just stronger, I am wiser - I hope I am. It's just another experience.

From bad experiences you probably learn more than from good ones. I am just happy that

it just happened. I think I am a different person now.”

In addition to the overall assessment, general satisfaction with the assignment was quantitatively

evaluated for each life domain separately (Table 7). Expatriates marked their satisfaction with

professional life, family life and personal well-being, while being on an expatriate assignment,

on a scale from 1 to 5. Overall evaluations look as follows: professional satisfaction was the

highest with the score 4,3; it was followed by satisfaction with personal well-being and family

life which got similar score of 3,6. So, clearly there was a large gap between evaluations of

various domains, which demonstrates one of the paths for possible improvements of expat

experience.

Table 7. Evaluation of professional, family and personal life of expatriates.

Evaluation on a 5 point scale 1st expatriation 2nd expatriation Overall score

Satisfaction with professional life 4.3 4.3 4.3

Satisfaction with family life 3.6 3.5 3.6

Satisfaction with personal life 3.8 3.3 3.6

If to look at the rankings separately for the first and second assignment, the picture slightly

changed. Job was still ranked nr. 1 with its 4,3 for each assignment; family life did not alters

much – the scores are 3,6 and 3,5 points for the 1st and 2nd expatriations correspondingly; but

personal life domain showed different results – the satisfaction with the first assignment was

considerably higher than with the consecutive one, namely 3,8 fell down to 3,3. It might be

connected with the higher appreciation of the novelty of the new experiences during the first

relocation and diminished further on due to focusing rather on routine of consecutive

expatriations and not appreciating the experience so high any more. However, this needs to be

deeper examined in the future.

Interestingly, gender was found to slightly influence overall evaluation of expatriation

experience, too. Table 8 demonstrates the results of the assessment split according to male and

female responses. Thus, satisfaction with professional life was slightly higher for men, while the

score for family life assessment was at a higher level for female expatriates. Private life

influences were approximately on the same level. Such evaluation might reflect the importance

that different genders assign to various spheres of life – male expatriated focused their attention

on their more career advancement, while for females family was equally, if not more important;

therefore, women directed their efforts to reach high satisfaction with the family life.

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Table 8. Evaluation of expatriation impact on live domains according to genders.

Evaluation on a 5 point scale

Female Expatriates Male Expatriates Overall evaluation

1st expatriation

2nd expatriation

Overall score

1st expatriation

2nd expatriation

Overall score

1st expatriation

2nd expatriation

Overall score

Satisfaction with professional life 4.2 4.3 4.2 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.3 4.3

Satisfaction with family life 3.7 3.8 3.8 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.6 3.5 3.6

Satisfaction with personal life 3.8 3 3.6 3.8 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.3 3.6

Company support and practical implications

Given the multi-faceted nature of international assignments and the crucial role of the employer

who normally initiates relocations, company expatriation policies and procedures have been

analyzed in the current chapter. In order to examine the degree of the company support provided

to the expatriates the interviewees were asked about the points to be improved in the course of

their assignment in relation to the logistics of the relocation and the support of the employer in

general.

The majority of the global employees were supported by their employers in terms of

administrative processes connected with the movement to the new country and to the new job

position. They received sufficient information about the new position and were prepared for the

change. Having extensive experience of expatriating the company managed their expectations

correctly. The interviewees agreed that the standard arrangements which were typical for expats

went smooth, in many cases thanks to the help of relocation agency hired by the employer:

proper accommodation was found, personal belongings relocated, loan for the car provided along

with health insurance, visa and work documentation arranged. In the beginning of expatriation

temporary apartments were often provided for the time period of looking for a fixed place of

living. Family was helped too – the employer provided organizational and financial support with

schools for kids, offered language courses and job trainings for spouses. In some cases spouses

were accommodated by the company too being given temporary or part-time contracts. Travel

home was paid for all the family several times a year. Usually these procedures were clearly

indicated in the corporate policy for expats and were strictly followed; therefore, physical

mobility rarely caused serious issues. In general, behaving according to standardized procedure

step-by-step provided answers to most of the questions as normally “the system was well-

greased”.

“Logistics was pretty good, I think it is pretty standardized in the organizations used to

job rotations. The company and agency were well-prepared for that. This was very very

good. I had everything when I arrived and the agency would have done all the

arrangements for my visa, bank account, even getting a phone number. Accommodation

of course…”

36

“In this sense I was pleasantly surprised, everything was really well-organized. It was

nothing new, everything was planned, like a standard routine. Checklist tells you what to

do when you leave, when you come back, if you follow the checklist you shouldn’t have

any big issues. I did it and up to now I didn’t have any impacts. Critical is to ensure that

you have a relocation company with the local knowledge to make you aware of the

critical things you have to perform.”

In terms of logistics, only seldom employers – or agencies - did not do great job wasting a lot of

time for finding accommodation. Information about doctors had to be found by expats on their

own, mostly being spread by their colleagues. Medical insurance arrangements were not always

clear.

Expats’ contracts provided good conditions financially; economically the relocated employees

were frequently better off at the new place of work, as special adjustment conditions were

applied in addition to the risk evaluation of the countries when necessary. However, financial

conditions though being normally quite good represented the matter of concern too, especially in

cases of relocation with family and kids. At the initial phase expatriation requires quite extensive

resources investment. It might generate concerns for employees, so if possible such measures as

additional loans to expats are perceived positively.

Culturally it largely depended on the organization and the destinations of expatriation, however,

in some cases expats were given short trainings, while language classes were normal practice

though not always made use of by the employees due to scarcity of time. Sometimes expats had a

chance to travel to the destination of relocation before, especially if they were moved to the

headquarters. Besides, word of mouth was helpful too – employees communicated among each

other getting advice from the side of the former expats or frequent business travelers to the

region.

Thus, companies seemed to be doing their best providing expats with good conditions and trying

to foresee possible complications, which could not be fully anticipated. However, despite all the

measures foreseen to make the life of expats easier, there were a number of complaints expressed

by the interviewees.

The most frequently mentioned problem was the absence of extensive experience with

expatriation in some companies or at certain markets. The employers were reported to have lack

of expertise, lack of information, lack of speed of reaction to challenging situations. In some

offices no established rules or processes existed for expats. Mostly this situation is typical for

small markets at the destinations where expatriation was not typical, where HR departments were

not really familiar with this routine. Moreover, there could have been noticeable differences in

the quality of HR help at the home-base upon leaving and the support of the receiving HR teams;

depending on the maturity of the market and human factor too there could be insufficient help at

one of the destinations.

Even in mature markets, there was often a lot of uncertainty around all the arrangements, in

particular when international assignments were decided with a short advance notice; therefore, in

addition to more detailed approach to general expat arrangements, timeline extension was

expressed as a frequent request for improvement of experience as such.

“I don't know if it's politically correct to say, but you would think that the company I

work for would be experts, they are moving people around every day but... For the job it

was ok - you are there, this is your desk and this is your computer and this is your office.

37

On the personal front it was nightmare. Now I look back and I don't know how I did this.

I think I can start my own consultancy now. They (the company) just told me yes, you are

accepted, you can start, and I had 9 days to move. I had to sell my car, rent the apartment

at home, find new accommodation and school for kids – all these in 9 days, over

Christmas. Now I look back and I think it was someone else. It was really difficult and I

didn't feel supported, at least not the support that I needed.”

In few severe cases there was practically no support provided to the new employees – neither

physical help, nor information. Everything had to be done by the expats from scratch and it made

them really unhappy at the beginning.

To be fair, even when expats were mentioning absence of the needed knowledge to handle

relocation smoothly, they still acknowledged that offices mostly tried their best. However, very

rarely HR controlled the situation from the beginning to the end of the assignment. Absence of

contacts by the HR manager later in time to find out about their experience could have been

frustrating for the employees – after the initial relocation procedures they were often left on their

own and their further problems have not been traced by the company. It was found to be

important to have someone checking on expats both from HR as well as bosses from home

market, to have some fixed timing for getting feedback of relocated employees, so that they do

not feel lonely and keep the contact with the home base.

In addition, ‘being forgotten’ by the bosses from the home office and not being associated with

any new manager added to the frustration. Luckily these cases were very few representing rather

an exception from the rules. Nevertheless, they still exist, even in large MNCs and should be

paid precise attention to as this, along with loosing contact with the home market and worries

about eventual repatriation, caused some sad moments for expats.

Clearly settling down at a new place requires a lot of effort and time; therefore, some extra

flexibility in the beginning of expatriation period abroad would provide a great added value for

the relocated employees reducing their adjustment shock. It was decided mostly on the personal

level – bosses let newcomers take some hours off work to solve administration. However, having

official regulation about it could have been useful.

Normally company provided all the documentation and helped with visa arrangements for their

expats, but in certain situation, which were not very typical some problems were reported. Thus,

for instance, a lot of confusion was caused by the cases when expat lived and worked in different

countries choosing the option to be a cross-border commuter due to family reasons. Another

example was maternity leave, which had to be split between two countries – the destination of

expatriation and home base. In addition, there was no clear information provided about cross-

country taxation and retirement funds. These were obviously specific situations that were

difficult to handle; therefore, in these doubtful cases companies could be recommended to use

services of specialized in expatriation agencies or consultants.

Another challenge of expatriation mentioned by interviewees was connected to the dual-career

couples and absence of specific support for females. Despite some attempts of companies to

accommodate spouses, this was possible only in very rare cases. The support provided in terms

of finding the job was not sufficient and decreased satisfaction with the assignment’s influence

on the family life. Not all women were happy to stay at home and bring up kids; some tried hard

to find job at the new place. Issues with visas and local documents sometimes brought extra

complications in this regards, especially when going outside Europe. In those rare cases when

38

female spouses were able to find jobs at the new destination, it was normally thanks to their own

proactive attempts.

Particularly often disappointed opinions were expressed by female expats, as it was already

difficult to convince male spouses to leave their job at the home country and follow their wives.

Moreover, when the job search at the new place did not end up successfully, in some cases it

made employees finalize their international assignments earlier than planned and to return home

following their husbands.

When both spouses were able to find employment at the destination of relocation, this caused

problems of different nature. Employers did not always have understanding of the situation

where both parents worked in a new country where they had to raise their small kids without

social and family support available at home. Expats felt that companies could have more specific

regulations for dual-career international families.

“Of course, they are moving people every day but my profile maybe is a little bit

different - I have family, I have children and a husband. And the kind of profile they are

more used to is younger people single, without kids. For me it was critical, my family

was a critical thing for me and it was not taken care of at all.”

“I felt that I didn’t have the support in understanding well the consequences, as a family

unit, not just individual. The thing they really need to work on is a dual-career

expatriation. And they know it, in my company they know it, and they are working on it

but they are still a little bit behind matching the expectations and what they can do.”

“It's probably like in military service. You have one vision but it's a bit blurred. You do

everything according to the guidelines, but it could be more personal. Personalization of

the process could be improved, but the final result was good.”

In this regards, some opinions were expressed about the necessity to have someone like a

relocation project manager to handle all the sides of expatriation, instead of outsourcing all to

different agents who often work without coordination.

Additionally, in the course of interviews it was found that despite additional difficulties caused

by international relocation and new work and family life conditions the organizational context of

the companies-employers normally did not foresee any WLB support measures that would

contribute to better life quality of expats. Among those rarely mentioned procedures there were

specific rules related to flexibility of office entering or leaving hours and the possibility to

remote work on certain days (Mondays or Fridays normally). Sometimes it required consent of

the direct supervisor and these moments might be rather informal. Normally though working for

an MNC, there was the global framework but the implementation of rules was local, related to

country specific policies and market location. For example, in Nordic countries time flexibility

was popular when conducting business, which was not the case in Russia.

“We have a WLB program which applies to all the employees, it has global framework -

time of leave and entering, work from home. In HQ it is based on objectives – it doesn’t

matter when you arrive, there is no badging in/out, you just need to deliver what is

expected. This is something different from site to site. All companies are looking for

balance, which also can be constrained by local and legal regulations. Number of

working hours, for example. So, there is local approach but global framework.”

Important to mention, some countries were substantially behind the others in terms of paying

attention to the problem of WLB as such; moreover, recognizing that expatriation is associated

39

with manifold difficulties, there were no specific conditions provided for expats. The only

example revealed in the process of interviews is an extra days of vacations granted to the

international employees.

Therefore, many expats were not aware of any policies, acknowledging that their employers talk

about it more than they actually do; so there is big room for improvement in these regards by the

MNCs. However, WLB was found to depend also on the employees themselves and their

organization of the workday, in addition to the company regulations and managers.

Taking into account the challenges of expatriation for on a professional and personal level, the

following table (Table 9) summarizes some examples of support measures, which might

compensate certain adjustment difficulties.

Table 9. Examples of corporate support measures directed toward improvement of expatriation

experience

1 specific support for trailing spouses both male and female

2 family support measures directed towards female expatriates and dual-career couples

3

follow-up after relocation/completed expatriation by HR and former/present boss;

expatriation as a continuous process to control

4 avoid short notices of expatriation and uncertainty around conditions

5 anticipate arrangements connected with moving and settling down, when possible

6

provide full information about conditions, including cross-country taxation issues and

retirement fund

7

provide expats with extra flexibility at the initial stages of their relocation and elaborate

special WLB measures for the time of their assignments

8

provide help in specific situations (maternity leaves, health problems, untypical

documents, etc.)

9

control that expat has a reference person/doesn't loose contact with bosses/is not forgotten

at the home market

10

provide training to HR departments in subsidiaries not used to expats, hire professional

agencies, dedicate personnel

11 put expats in touch with other company employees who passed through similar situations

Thus, there is a lot to be done by the companies in order to improve the expatriation experience

of the employees contributing not only to their satisfaction but also improving the general work

outcome. Nowadays, Failing to recognize that expatriation is a broad experience, which touches

upon all life domains, companies are at a great risk of drastically decreasing expats’ efficiency.

The principle of pleasure as a key issue in the expatriate’s adjustment process should not be

neglected by the employers; consequently, international assignments should be managed as a

holistic experience.

Conclusions

40

Expatriation continues to represent an important form of international mobility. Nowadays,

global employees involved into expatriation are more likely to express strong desire to have a

balance between various life domains, not simply paying attention to the added value of

expatriation for their professional development and career growth but possessing inclinations

towards harmonious development of all life domains. Unlike domestic jobs, an international

assignment is more of a family affair (Osland, 1995), therefore, expatriates are looking for the

ways to avoid work-family conflict by all means, even declining the assignment or terminating it

earlier if negative effects of expatriation influence family life and personal well-being too strong.

In this case, not just individual satisfaction with the assignment suffers and work commitment

decreases, but the company-employer bears substantial material and human costs. Therefore, it is

important to assess expatriation assignment in a holistic way taking into account different

spheres of the employees’ lives. In this regard, special HR policies are to be developed and

implemented in order to increase efficiency of expatriation and moderate its negative impacts.