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Expat Partner Support HR Newsletter | September 2014
YEARS
expat partner support
Welcome to the September Global Connection HR Newsletter. This quarterly publication will inform you about research and HR consultancy, and includes comments from David Enser, partner of the RES Forum, accomplishments from the Permits Foundation and several interesting findings from expat related surveys.
PARTNER SUPPORT AS RECRUITMENT/MOBILITY USP I would like to share with you three recent examples showing the importance of partner support as a recruitment/mobility unique selling point (USP) for an organisation. 1. Support seen as key factor in career step Last spring, an expat of an American Global Fortune 500 multinational, who was approached for a job with HEINEKEN, asked me for information about their extensive partner support programme. He told me a next career step would only be with a company that takes partners more seriously than his present employer. 2. Expat quits company due to lack of support An expat of another American Global Fortune 500 company, living in Belgium, was asked to move to Vienna. His HR department, who were really keen for him to move, called him while the family was on their pre-visit tour and asked how he was doing. The expat directed the phone receiver to his family, who were crying on the back seat of the car. With a heavy heart, they decided to move to Vienna even though support for the family was completely missing. A week later the expat heard that plans had changed, and that Vienna would now be Dubai. In return, he also shared some news with HR: he was quitting the company because of the lack of support. 3. Miserable in a fantastic condo While recently in Singapore, I met an expat who had just arrived in the country to work for a big US-based software company. We got talking and he asked what I did for a living. He was really amazed to hear that a company like ours existed. The only support his employer had provided for himself and his family was a ‘cash out’ lump sum. With his family miserable in an admittedly fantastic condo, and a demanding job waiting for him, he said he would have given anything for someone to help his spouse find her feet in a strange land. As a consequence of his family being unhappy, he wasn’t able to focus fully on his job, a situation which he sees as “waste of human capital”. European versus American approaches Surveys show the above experiences are not random cases. European companies not only pay more attention to partner support, they also focus on a broader programme (and not only career-related) in which the ‘cash out’ is less of an option. Consequently, their programmes are often far more effective, especially in the long term. See also the article opposite. Jacqueline van Haaften
EU AND US COMPANIES: DIFFERENCES IN PARTNER SUPPORT European companies take a larger interest in partner support than their American counterparts. This is clearly shown by the Worldwide Survey of International Assignment Policies and Practices, published by global consulting firm Mercer. In the last edition of their survey (2012) Mercer writes that almost 52% of European companies have a corporate policy that provides guidelines on the support offered to expat partners. For American companies this figure is 37.6%.
No partner policy Conversely, the statement “we do not have a policy on spouse/partner support nor do we address the issue” is supported by 41.7% of American companies, and 29.5% of European companies. The statement is furthermore supported by 61.8% of Latin American companies, and 67.9% of the companies from Asian and Pacific countries. Different types of support Looking at different types of partner support, European companies are far more likely than American companies to offer: education reimbursement, business start-up advice, day-care subsidy, and membership to internet-based expat forums and associations. Global Connection | September 2014
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