Expat partners matter

Expat partners matter for a number of reasons. 

Global mobility reports like the Brookfield surveys have consistently shown us that expat partners matter right at the beginning of your talent search.  For family reasons, some partners refuse to become expat partners and your employee refuses the offer of an overseas assignment.

“Family concerns continue to be the number one reason cited for assignment refusal and ... the third most common reason cited was spouse/ partner career.” Brookfield Global Relocation Trends 2013 Survey report

Expat partners (those who do take up the challenge of an assignment) matter because they are traditionally one of the top reasons for early return from assignments. 

“The most common reason cited for the early return from assignment has traditionally been family concerns, although the percentage of those indicating family concerns (23%) slipped behind the percentage indicating acceptance of another position within the company (25%) to become the second most common reason for the premature end to assignment in this year’s survey report.”

Don’t misread me here – I am very aware that assignment failure rates are much lower than often quoted by service providers trying to scare you into purchasing services.  The Brookfield 2013 Report shows only 6% of respondents’ international assignments ended early.  But of those, a significant proportion was due to family concerns.  (Cultural adaptation challenges was also listed as a reason for the early end to the assignment and this category showed the largest increase over reasons given in previous years.)

It’s not surprising that expat partners may find global assignments challenging.  Many who had careers / jobs prior to the assignment were not working on assignment –similar to results in earlier reports.  Partner resistance to an international assignment was listed as one of the top assignment challenges followed by family adjustment and children’s education.  The expat partner is often dealing with their own loss of career and support networks, adjustment to a new culture and location and managing the children’s adjustment and education challenges, as well as supporting the employed partner in their work.

Sadly compared to earlier reports, Brookfield’s 2013 survey reported less assistance provided by companies for partners.  The report showed decreases in the amount of companies offering reimbursement for partner career enhancement, lump sum allowances also decreased, education and training assistance decreased as did work permit assistance.  There was also a significant decrease in the number of companies who offered cross-cultural training to the entire family, down to 46% from last year’s high score of 60%.  Brookfields cited cost cutting as a possible reason for these changes.  

Does it matter?  It matters because expat partners matter.

Ultimately expat partners matter because they are in a partnership with your employee.  They are influencing your employee, probably significantly more than you will ever influence them.  Expat partners will be inspiring, encouraging, and challenging your employee.  Sometimes they will be supporting and enabling your employee’s highest performance and sometimes they will be inhibiting that performance.    

If your expat partners are adapting well to the culture, adjusting well to the new location and society, it is more likely your employees are also adapting well.

We shouldn’t really be surprised at these results but perhaps we should be in awe that the failure rates are so low.  We should recognize the work done by expat partners alongside expat employees globally in succeeding together and completing their assignments. 

We believe expat partners matter. 

To support that belief we deliver face-to-face cross-cultural training for the employee and partner at the same rate as training for a single employee and insist that partners are included in the training.

Our on-line resources at www.cicollective.com provide resources written for the partner and children as well as the employee, addressing separately the issues faced by each group.

And our webinar this month focuses on expat partners and how they can build satisfying lives in their new locations.