Strategies to Enhance Expatriate Retention and Program Success in IHRM

This essay delves into strategies for enhancing expatriate retention and ensuring the success of international human resource management programs. The essay emphasizes the importance of selecting the right individuals for expatriate roles, highlighting the need for specific skills and competencies. It underscores the significance of cultural training to facilitate adjustment to new environments and communication styles, thus mitigating culture shock and promoting effective performance. The role of local support, including mentorship and coaching, is also discussed. Furthermore, the essay stresses the importance of competitive compensation and benefits packages tailored to expatriate needs, including family considerations and maintaining a similar standard of living as in their home country. Finally, the essay addresses the critical aspect of repatriation, emphasizing the need for careful planning to ease the transition back to the home country and prevent dissatisfaction. These strategies, when implemented effectively, contribute to higher retention rates and the overall success of expatriate programs, which are crucial for international business operations.

Expatriate Retention & Success
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT –
986721
1

Expatriate Retention & Success
Table of Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................3
Strategies for Expatriate Retention and Success.................................................................3
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................5
References.........................................................................................................................6
2

Expatriate Retention & Success
Introduction
Expatriates are those employees who are sent from one country to another country for the
fulfilment of a specific task or assignment. In terms of international business, the term
expatriates is used for home country employees that are working in a host country (Adekola
& Sergi, 2016). Expatriate programs can require a lot of heavy investment of time and
resources and their success is also imperative for business organizations (Ang & Van Dyne,
2015). Therefore, it is important for business organizations to ensure high retention rates of
their expatriates and implement strategies that would ensure success of expatriate programs.
In this report, we will discuss certain strategies that can be helpful in expatriate retention and
can also increase their chances of success.
Strategies for Expatriate Retention and Success
The strategies that can increase expatriate retention and their chances of fulfilling the task
assigned to them are discussed below:
First of all, choosing the right person for the expatriate program is the step that decides the
success of an expatriate program. If an organisation choses a wrong person i.e. a person who
lacks the desired skills and competencies to complete a task in question, it will be impossible
for that person to achieve success in an expatriation program. Further, due to high expectation
of the company, such as person would become more likely to experience stress and negative
job attributes while working in a foreign country, which would lead to the failure of the
program and the employee becoming more likely to quit (Pinto, et al., 2017). Therefore,
choosing the right person in the first place is the most important step to ensure expatriate
success and retention.
Secondly, cultural training is an important step towards expatriate retention and success.
When expatriates are transferred to a host country for fulfilling a specific task, they are
required to deal with people from different cultural backgrounds. While working in the host
country subsidiary, they have to adapt to the national culture and also learn the
communication styles preferred in that very country (Okpara & Kabongo, 2017). The failure
of an expatriate to adjust to the new culture can make them go through a culture shock, which
would result in the failure of the program and they might even show a tendency to quit their
3

Expatriate Retention & Success
company (Ramaswami, et al., 2016). As a result, increasing cultural awareness amongst
expatriates is an important strategy that makes them more open to a new culture and increases
their knowledge about the cultural preferences of the host country. Having a greater cultural
awareness allows them to perform better in their job while working in the host country, which
ultimately leads to the success of the expatriate program and also ensures higher retention
rates. Another factor that increases expatriate effectiveness and retention rate is the level of
local support that an expatriate receives in the host country. An expatriate can be assigned a
mentor or a coach that can help him or her in tricky situations. The training and development
of expatriates is a process that should be allocated sufficient time. It can take months for
expatriates to gain knowledge about a culture, which makes it imperative for the management
to provide them with time and other required resources as well (Reiche, et al., 2016).
Thirdly, to ensure high expatriate retention rates and higher chances of success of expatriate
programs, business organizations need to design competitive compensation and benefit
packages that would appeal to the expatriates and fulfil their needs. An expatriate being sent
for a foreign task might be the only earning member of the family and in such cases, his
company would have to look after his family once he is away and provide additional
incentives to them, such as housing allowance, health insurances, etc. If an expatriate feels
that his family is suffering in the home country because of his or absence, they become more
likely to fail in the task assigned to them and might even quit the company. Further,
expatriates also require a compensation and benefit package that would help them in
achieving the same standard of living that they had in their home country (ECA, 2015).
Therefore, business organizations have to design their compensation and benefit packages
entirely different from the home country employees. Having competitive packages can make
the expatriates feel that their company is placing a value in them and expects them to provide
a return on their investment by completing their program (Nicks, 2016). Even though such
strategies might increase the overall cost related to the expatriate program, the increase in the
cost will increase the chances of success of the program and expatriate retention. Thus,
competitive compensation and benefits can help business organizations in retaining
expatriates and ensuring that they achieve success in the work assigned to them.
Fourthly, one of the prime reasons for high expatriate retention is their failure to adjust in the
homes country once they are transferred back after completion of their work, which is a
process called repatriation. At times, expatriates can experience a higher standard of living in
4

Expatriate Retention & Success
the host country as compared to the home country. Their power and authority in the host
country can also vary as compared to their power and authority in the home country. Once
they are repatriated, it can become difficult for their organizations to provide them with the
same working conditions as were present in the host country, which leads to the expatriates
becoming stressed and dissatisfied with their jobs (Cave, 2014). This can lead to high
turnover rates and can also have an impact on the success levels of other expatriate programs.
Therefore, it is important that business organizations carefully plan out the repatriation of
their expatriates and are able to provide them with good working conditions in the home
country as well.
Conclusion
Expatriate programs have become an inevitable part of international business and their
success has become even more imperative for the market success of a company. Business
organizations invest a lot of time and resources in choosing, training and development,
transfer and repatriation of expatriates and their failure is not just a loss of resources but can
also have a negative impact on the overall employee morale and workplace environment.
Therefore, it is important for business organizations to implement competent strategies that
can be helpful in making expatriates more effective in their jobs and ensure higher expatriate
retention rates.
5

Expatriate Retention & Success
References
Adekola, A. & Sergi, B., 2016. Global business management: A cross-cultural perspective.
s.l.:Routledge.
Ang, S. & Van Dyne, L., 2015. Handbook of cultural intelligence. s.l.:Routledge.
Cave, A. H., 2014. Analyzing Engagement Effects for Repatriate Retention. [Online]
Available at: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/54052/1/IJKIB-01-1003.pdf
[Accessed 20 May 2019].
ECA, 2015. Expatriate pay and benefits packages in India are third highest in the region.
[Online] Available at: https://www.eca-international.com/news/may-2015/expatriate-pay-
and-benefits-packages-in-india-are[Accessed 20 May 2019].
Nicks, L. E., 2016. Expatriate Retention: A Challenging Goal for Global Corporations.
[Online] Available at: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=3081&context=dissertations
[Accessed 20 May 2019].
Okpara, J.O. and Kabongo, J.D., 2017. The effect of cross-cultural training on expatriates’
adjustment: Evidence from an emerging African economy. Journal of Management
Development, 36(9), pp.1114-1124.
Pinto, L., Cabral Cardoso, C. & Werther Jr, W., 2017. Expatriates’ withdrawal intentions:
The influence of organizational culture and satisfaction with the assignment. Personnel
Review, 46(8), pp. 1852-1869.
Ramaswami, A., Carter, N. & Dreher, G., 2016. Expatriation and career success: A human
capital perspective. Human Relations, 69(10), pp. 1959-1987.
6

Expatriate Retention & Success
Reiche, B.S., Stahl, G.K., Mendenhall, M.E. and Oddou, G.R. eds., 2016. Readings and
cases in international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.
7