Five Things That Can Make or Break Global Assignment Success
Assignments abroad remain a critical means for companies to drive business growth and change initiatives worldwide. Short-term technical assignments, commuter roles, and virtual global teamwork have all increased. However, according to one recent study, 88% of companies predicted their volume of long-term assignments would increase or stay the same, with an average duration of 2.6 years.
Many executives understand the continuing value of relocation programs in achieving corporate goals and also developing employee talent, but feel they need a better way to manage them. With a significant number of assignments still ending in failure, we couldn’t agree more. The failure rate of up to 40%, depending upon the company and industry, has remained stubbornly consistent over the past several decades. Giving special attention to relocation management is especially vital now when international assignees, whether long-term or short-term, must deal with turbulent economic times as well.
Although candidates generally push for higher compensation and other forms of financial support, enabling expatriates to succeed requires a broader approach than simply relying on financial incentives. As an organization with more than 30 years of experience supporting global relocation success strategies, we urge hiring executives, relocation directors, and mobility professionals alike to carefully monitor and provide greater assistance to expats in the following areas.
1. Assignment Selection
Poor candidate selection is one of the most common reasons why global assignments fail. The majority of companies still don’t formally assess the adaptability of international assignment candidates. For some assignments, a particular technical skill set is required, and for others, the move may be for high-potential leadership development. Regardless of the reason, most organizations have a limited time horizon to identify possible candidates for a move. Even for those firms that do have time to field a pool of candidates, budgets often don’t allow for formal assessment of each candidate in addition to pre-departure cultural training.
In order to access and select the very best candidates for relocation programs, time and planning are key. Companies need a process for employees to self-identify early on that they are interested in a global assignment, which can help expand the pool of employees beyond those already identified by the business line or talent development. With a broader pool to choose from, it is easier to identify a suitable candidate.
Tip for Success: Nearly three-quarters of companies don’t maintain a candidate pool for global assignments, and a third don’t have a process for employees to designate themselves as willing to go on a foreign assignment. Starting with new hire orientation and extending to career development conversations at all levels, build in a way for employees with relevant skill sets to “raise their hand” if they are interested in a global move. To help candidates who have expressed interest to consider more carefully whether an assignment is really right for them, effective and economical self-assessment tools are widely available. When employees are identified for a key leadership role abroad, companies should consider investing in a more formal candidate assessment process which can identify professional or personal issues that need to be resolved before an assignment begins. In the absence of such a formal process, there are still relatively simple indicators that tend to be correlated with assignment success: the ability to speak a foreign language, previous international experiences, or personal characteristics such as relational skills, curiosity, and emotional stability. Companies that follow such a process will field and deploy employees who are better prepared for their assignments, leading to higher success rates.
2. Family Support
Family issues are consistently the number one reason why international assignments fail or end prematurely. A partner or spouse not being happy with their new location is one critical factor; issues with children are another common reason for failure. Before an assignment even begins, many otherwise qualified candidates decline potential roles abroad based on family concerns. The most common type of partner support benefit is language training. While language training can be helpful, it does not address the collective stress of cultural adjustment a family experiences when relocating or the desire of a spouse or partner for continued employment.
Tip for Success: Examine your service providers first to ensure they offer family integration and support (for both spouses and children). The cultural adjustment of these family members to the host country is just as important as the employee’s—if the family is okay, the assignee can better focus on their job. Also, make sure your providers can offer support for relocated families on their terms and schedule. Are they flexible in how they deliver their services, and do they have a range of capabilities from initial adjustment assistance to employment advice? Families need time to be together and restructure their lives during this stressful period, and the pace of their adjustment may vary.
3. Cultural Understanding
Fewer than half of companies offer cross-cultural training as a core policy benefit—which means the majority of organizations are not offering their assignees coaching or training to set them up for business success. The training which is offered is sometimes just one optional component of a fixed-budget “cafeteria-style” menu, and family members must weigh cultural training against other priorities such as home-finding assistance, childcare, pet relocation, or spousal job search support.
It is no surprise that the inability to “adapt to the host location” is a common reason for global assignment failure. The ability to perform a role or function well and meet demanding job expectations is directly connected to understanding and adapting to the culture. Cultural competence and agility do lead to assignment success on multiple levels. Companies frequently neglect the value of work-style adjustment when considering the ROI for “cultural training.” Many think such training covers basic protocol issues common to a tourist vacation, but a high-quality training program is directly focused on success while on the job.
A foreign assignee recently shared their surprise at the impact cultural work style training had on their global assignment: “I was amazed at how much I had not considered in working with colleagues who are of a different culture. I realized I can’t run meetings or give feedback to people the way I was used to in my home country. In fact, what worked great for me back home in terms of my work style turned out to be counterproductive in working with my host country colleagues. I now know how to make simple adjustments to the way I go about my work — and I see it paying off.”
Assignment failure rates are also commonly far higher in emerging markets than in developed ones—70% in emerging markets compared to 25-40% in developed countries—so special consideration is worthwhile to support assignees moving to more difficult locations.
Tip for Success: Although the large majority of mobility heads are under pressure to reduce overall mobility costs, cross-cultural training is one item that should not be cut from your core policy. Many assignments cost several times the employee’s previous salary, so a failed assignment is very expensive. You can limit that financial risk by providing a flexible package of integration support. One-size-fits-all policies could lead to overspending for under-utilized and ineffective training. Instead, find providers that can offer the widest range of flexible solutions to assignees to fit their schedule (pre-departure, post-arrival, virtual or in-person training and coaching, online self-guided learning, etc). These same providers should be able to offer you subscription-based pricing that ensures the training you receive is what you paid for. It is also essential to work with providers that have real expertise in key assignment locations, including emerging markets.
4. Decreasing Stressors
Beyond an employee uprooting their life and family, many other stressors can come into play during relocation. Expectations and goals are often unclear to foreign assignees, which can increase stress and confusion. Some employees have goals set by headquarters, while others follow the host-country goal-setting process. Assignees often have multiple matrix stakeholders as well. If goals and stakeholders are misaligned, this could be a significant challenge and a source of stress for candidates, particularly those facing unfamiliar challenges in a new location.
Tip for Success: Mobility department and talent development heads should ask themselves: “If I were to agree to go on a global assignment, what would I expect? Clear goals, aligned stakeholders, career advancement, new skills that will serve me later, higher pay?” These and other concerns are usually on the minds of prospective assignees, so it is critical to establish a shared understanding of the reasons for the move (business need and/or professional development), while at the same time summarizing the agreed-upon expectations of the employee and manager. Without these steps, there will be ambiguity and possibly resentment when things turn out differently from what the employee expected.
5. Adjustment within the Social Context
Significant advances in technology do not appear to have changed the international assignment failure rate. One might suppose that with increasingly powerful and inexpensive videoconferencing and social media for connecting with distant family and friends, and evolving online platforms that can help expats make new contacts, failure rates would have decreased. But success or failure on assignment continues to be a very human issue, more related to the ability or inability to integrate and adjust to a new culture. It is vital that employees come to feel “at home” in their new environment.
Tip for Success: Companies should leverage technology to help foreign assignees stay connected with family and friends, while simultaneously encouraging adaptation to their new home. Settling in requires personal work, much of it centered around self-awareness of one’s style in relation to the host country. In addition to what expats can learn in training and on their own, arranging for a structured on-site orientation process and designating local employees to be a “buddy,” “culture guide,” or host manager usually helps to accelerate adjustment. These local counterparts can also arrange social events with smaller or larger groups to promote networking and social acclimatization.
There is no simple way to ensure success every time for every assignee, but handling each of these five issues well vastly increases the chances of a favorable outcome for the company and the assignee. Personal lives are as complex as the business—but these strategies can help.
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Developing Cultural Competency for International Assignments: Beyond Do’s and Don’ts
Assignees experiencing the crush of moving abroad negotiating a package, getting family members on board, finding a place to live, moving a household, and so on—may see cultural training as “nice to have.” We hear comments from assignees such as,
I just don’t have time for this.
I’ve already been to the country on a business trip.
We’ll learn as we go after we arrive.
Can’t we look up the important information online?
I have a translation app on my phone. What else do I need?
Don’t the people there need to learn how to adjust to me?
I try to be the same wherever I go. That feels more authentic.
Frankly, these statements often become a recipe for disaster. KPMG estimates that the cost of a failed assignment is between $850,000, and $1.25 million, and the percentage of failed assignments still stubbornly remains at around 40%, depending on the organization. Yet far more is at stake than the financial investment that employers make in an assignment. For many expatriates, their move abroad is a critical stage in their personal and professional development, offering huge opportunities as well as risks for themselves and often for family members, too. Careers can be boosted or undermined, relationships strengthened or strained; children may have a formative learning experience or become isolated and lonely.
For all of these reasons—financial, professional, and personal—learning how to adapt to the new host culture is a key step along the path to assignment success. Instead of avoiding cultural training or turning it into a check-the-box exercise, assignees should make this step the launching pad for the experience of a lifetime.
Pre-Departure Preparation & Training
Expatriates and cultural training providers each have serious responsibilities in setting up an assignment for success. The maxim, “Slow down in order to speed up” definitely applies here. Even in the whirlwind of an international move, assignees are well-advised to devote some precious time to acquiring key cultural knowledge and skills, and ideally studying the local language.
Some assignments are more challenging than others. It is often assumed that going to an unfamiliar place with a different language and business environment—say, from Berlin to Lagos—is more difficult than moving to a location with a shared cultural and linguistic heritage—e.g., from Mexico City to Madrid. However, every move has built-in challenges, and there is always a risk of overlooking significant cultural differences even between countries that appear to be similar. Assignees moving from the U.S. to the UK, for instance, have found they encounter unexpected differences in local communication styles that often favor understatement and indirect feedback, greater emphasis on work/life balance, and slang references or humor they initially struggle to grasp.
When expatriates agree to prioritize training for themselves and perhaps for family members as well, training providers also have the responsibility to provide practical, customized support. Simple lists of do’s and don’ts could be useful initially (“Don’t start drinking your own beer before your Japanese hosts”), but these edicts are less useful in complex everyday work settings where it is essential to learn what employees are thinking and feeling, gauge an unfamiliar competitive environment, and find effective ways to make decisions and solve problems. The most effective learning programs go beyond host-country etiquette and are personalized to help the expatriate understand and adapt to host counterparts.
In addition, training can help prepare the employee and family to adjust to the day-to-day realities of moving to a new country. The most frequent cause of assignment failure has long been the inability of spouse and/or children to acclimate to their new environment. Expatriates must pay careful attention not only to their own new role, but to the adjustment process for any accompanying family members. Here are some common issues:
Finding work for the spouse; in many cases, spouses are not allowed to work in the host country due to visa restrictions;
Finding adequate housing in neighborhoods that meet the needs of the family;
Selecting appropriate schools that allow for easy transfer of grade and curriculum requirements from their home country school, or finding schools to support special needs;
Navigating language and cultural barriers that impact building and maintaining relationships;
Managing feelings of culture shock, homesickness, and in some cases, depression.
Essential country knowledge and practical strategies help to ease the settling-in process for the expatriate and for the spouse and children. The learning is then mapped to tactical plans the expatriate and family can apply throughout the international assignment life cycle.
Comprehensive training adds value by:
Improving productivity during an assignment through developing strategies to establish relationships, develop trust with local counterparts, and hone leadership skills;
Providing assignees and their families with specific strategies to read cultural behavior and interpret key messages;
Supporting the family adjustment process by focusing on specific needs for moving to a new country, meeting people, or transitioning to a new school;
Mitigating assignment risks that are heightened when the adjustment process starts slowly or results in friction with local employees or within the family unit.
The Assignment Crucible
An international assignment can be a demanding, vexing, fascinating, and fulfilling personal and professional experience. It has many characteristics of the so-called crucible experience that is associated with the development of seasoned leaders. The authors of a classic leadership study conclude, “one of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to…learn from even the most trying circumstances. They add that the skills required to “emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leaders.” Other research links living and working abroad with the development of cognitive flexibility and creativity. The best way to cultivate a global mindset and a network of trusting global relationships is to go abroad and immerse yourself, not for a day or a week or a series of virtual meetings, but for long enough to find your basic assumptions challenged and to feel the growth pains of trying new ways to live and work.
With so much on the line for the expatriate, family, and organization, it is well worth the investment of time and effort to position every assignment for success.
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