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Dual Career Support: Strategies for Defining and Providing Career Support for International Assignee Partners
The expatriate management landscape has undergone many changes over the past 10 years and is the subject of unprecedented survey and analysis by a variety of professionals from the relocation industry, the Human Resources community, academics and journalists. The examination of the dual career issue is no exception and although it has become a cliché of expatriate management to say that most failed assignments fail because of family related issues, it nevertheless remains true. In her book Breaking through Culture Shock: What You Need to Succeed in International Business Elisabeth Marx estimates that 75% of assignees are in dual career situations. Dual career issues have been identified as significant inhibitors to mobility and therefore worthy of industry scrutiny.
According to the 2005 Global Relocation T rends Survey Report (2005 GRTS), spouse and partner career concerns are the third most frequent reason for refusing an assignment. The same survey also indicates that prior to the relocation, 60% of spouses were employed but after the relocation, this drops to an alarming 21%. These were the highest percentages in the eleven year history of the survey.
As with many issues we can describe the problem and look at potential solutions in terms of both hard and soft issues but there is a problem with this type of approach. It seems to force an automatic ranking of the elements of the problem where ‘soft' is perceived as less important than ‘hard.' In turn this can produce similarly biased answers in terms of solutions which perhaps don't reflect the full spectrum of possibilities. In my experience, there is a great deal of interest and concern regarding dual career issues, but several inhibitors prevent companies from fully engaging in this area, with the ‘soft issue' perception of both the problem and potential solutions being high among them. Much of the literature stresses the critical; vital and other wise urgent nature of the problem, but the impression lingers that the soft issues remain secondary.
The Soft Side
Survey evidence, strongly backed up by anecdotal evidence, suggests that intercultural and other preparatory training which encourages an assessment of adaptability and a personal inventory of skills and experience are still too often seen as a ‘nice to have.' In fact, this type of training and assessment process can be part of a very practical approach to strategizing a dual career plan of action.
Companies are often reluctant to venture into too many areas that are considered personal, but actually,
the administration and management of expatriate assignments already requires involvement in areas normally considered personal. Spouse or partner issues are a part of this.
For many stretched Human Resources departments where international assignment management may be a small part of the workload and the competencies in this area of staff members may be limited, the dual career issue simply falls into the ‘too difficult' box. In other larger organizations, time and cost constraints play their part in ensuring that this never quite makes it to the top of the project list.
The Hard Facts
The hard issues have their own challenges. Very few companies consider income replacement, although I have recently seen a version of this in a Scandinavian headquartered company's policy.
Overall, 41% of respondents to the 2004 Worldwide ERC Family Issues Research Report, provide support in this area via a formal policy while 23% consider support on a case by case basis. Encouragingly, a sizeable minority of respondents to the 2005 GRTS will now help spouses and partners with the minefield that is immigration (33%). Additionally, although most companies do not provide specific programmes which provide detailed outplacement type support tailored to an international environment, between 28% and 31% do provides some sort of assistance in this area.
Finally the nature of the problem itself is evolving. In the past, the vast majority of accompanying partners were female. Now that the number of female expatriate assignees is rising (to 23% from an historical average of 14%), the phenomenon of the male accompanying partner is becoming more frequent. In a recent article for Expatica and quoting her recently completed work The T railing Spouse Survey: A 4 Year Study of Accompanying Spouse Issues , Yvonne McNulty asserts that the male ‘trailing spouse' is similar in many ways to his female counterpart, but that there are some important and potentially controversial differences.
Of these differences, it was interesting to see that male partners seem to direct less resentment at their partner or spouse regarding difficulties associated with the relocation and instead there seemed to be evidence of this sometimes being directed towards the assignee's employer.
“…we found little evidence that male spouses were resentful towards their wives as a result of the decision to relocate ... When resentment did arise towards their wife's employer , we found that it had more to do with misinformation, or what the interviewees perceived as lies about housing and career options rather than a lack of employer-initiated involvement in the decision to relocate.”
(Understanding a new phenomenon: The male trailing spouse in Expatica, November 2005.)
Strategy
It is clear that dual careers are becoming more common and that it is in a company ' s own interest to engage with the impact that this has on mobility within their businesses. How can companies engage effectively with the problem and provide solutions within the usual constraints of cost and available resources?
Assuming a willingness to address this problem with meaningful support, companies have some options. Firstly, they can consider offering a lump sum arrangement to compensate or assist with both the hard and soft issues noted above. The amount can be set and confirmed by benchmarking and delivered depending on tax effectiveness an as allowance or a reimbursement up to a capped limit. Second, companies can consider offering a more comprehensive programme which would usually involve one or more suppliers in the delivery of the various pieces.
We've already acknowledged that many Human Resources departments have limited expertise or resources to provide comprehensive and effective support in this area. Many companies have outsourced the overall administration of the expatriate assignment management function but not too many include comprehensive dual career support as a distinct part of the scope of se r vices within these outsourced programmes. Fortunately, some assignment management and relocation se r vice providers are now able to assist in this area and to help corporate clients put together a menu of se r vices which can meet the needs of dual career accompanying partners. Ongoing, theses se r vices can be incorporated into the overall outsourced programme scope of se r vices so that dual career support is fully integrated into all of the processes and materials used by the assignment management company.
What are the needs of dual career accompanying partners and how can they be addressed?
Information
The importance of providing of information should be self-evident but many surveys and writings on this subject confirm that information is sometimes neither adequate nor accurate. For first time assignment families this is even more critical and companies should do everything in their power to make sure that when commitments are made, they are followed through with timely and useful action. If mistakes are made or if managers make promises outside of policy, this should be discussed and rectified in an open and ‘good faith' manner.
Companies and their assignment management suppliers should ensure that briefings and written information are always offered and provided to partners and spouses. The 2005 GRTS Report indicates that 77% of companies offer briefings to the assignee only. It is quite simply not enough to email a few scattered pieces of information to the assignee and expect them to pass this on in a way that will be motivating and clear to their accompanying spouse or partner .
Relocation Processes Companies, particularly the line managers of assignees and their outsou r ced assignment management providers, should bear in mind that space should be made among all the other processes, tasks and new job responsibilities for assignees and their spouse or partner to adequately prepare for the assignment. This includes actively encouraging participation in preparato r y programmes such as inte r cultural and language training. T oo often if the assignee declines due to time constraints, the
opportunity is also lost to the spouse or partne r . Most relocation processes assume that there will be one
non-working partne r . Where both partners will be working from day one, these processes and accompanying tasks and follow-up should be adjusted materially to accommodate the fact that there will not be someone at home available to be present for household goods su r veys; fill out destination services needs assessments and so on.
Networking Opportunities Companies themselves are in a position to provide local contacts and to support networking opportunities at the new location and can offer or help support initiatives to form or host networking groups that might originate from the partners themselves. Additionally, informal mentoring or buddy systems from other partners already in work or company employees in the host location can also be considered.
Job Markets and Job Opportunities
Companies may consider a formal job matching process where partners can be offered a job in its local operation. Particular care should be taken to make sure that compensation and benefits are explained carefully. This is particularly true of tax policies where the additional income will usually be outside of the company ' s tax equalization benefit and where joint return marginal tax rates may be significantly affected, also outside the scope of the tax equalization programme. Communication and explanation is also important where both jobs are considered expatriate opportunities but where policy does not offer housing and other benefits or allowances to both partners. Information about the local job market and where opportunities can be found is obviously helpful and can perhaps be provided by local human resources or supplier under the outsourced programme. Additionally, participation in such programmes as partnerjob.com may yield opportunities and results.
Immigration & Work
Permit Support
This is the largest and most difficult area. In practical terms, local companies may be willing to employ an accompanying partner but unwilling or unable to manage the work permit application. Companies can consider underwriting expenses and helping where necessary r y with paper work and processes or making their own immigration se r vices supplier available to manage the application for a spouse or partner. To promote the alleviation of the obstacles to gaining the right to work in some assignment locations, companies can consider supporting the Permits Foundation. “This is an international non-profit corporate initiative to promote access of accompanying spouses of international staff to employment through an improvement of work permit regulations.” (Quoted from the website of the Permit Foundation: www.permitfoundation.com)
Specialist Suppliers
There are now a number of specialist companies such as Vandover in the United States which are positioned to offer spouse and partner assistance to corporate and individual clients. Job search; career transition, outplacement assistance, spouse repatriation programmes and policy design in this area are all on offer in the marketplace.
If All Else Fails
programmes and advice can be offered which help spouses and partners maintain professional and educational status or which help them seek out volunteer or educational opportunities which will not only be useful during the assignment but which will add useful experience which they can use as part of their career development strategy upon repatriation. All of us engaged in the business of facilitating mobility understand that the environment changes often.
We ignore these changes and the challenges and opportunities they create at our own risk. Companies that recognize spouses and partners as legitimate stakeholders; that include coherent and well communicated support for dual careers in their expatriate programmes and which partner creatively and thoughtfully with their outsourced providers can truly bring a new level of effectiveness to their programmes.
A Personal View
Although I write here as an international assignment professional, I too have been an accompanying spouse, the first time before the phenomenon even had a name! When my husband was transferred overseas I was very keen to continue my budding career in what I was sure would be an exciting new direction. Although I was easily able to obtain the promise of a transfer with my employer to a local status position in the new location, my company was less keen to undertake the cost and process to obtain a work permit for me. I was fortunate to be able to negotiate with my husband ' s employer that it would pay for my immigration work using its existing provider who would also help my employer to prepare the required paperwork. This one benefit, provided to me over twenty years ago, made possible the first steps on a career path which is still ongoing!
Authored by Gill Aldred, Director in the Strategic Services Group of GMAC Global Relocation Services (GMAC GRS). For questions regarding this article e-mail Gill at gill_aldred@gmachs.com .
For questions regarding other se r vices provided by the GMAC GRS Strategic Se r vices department, please contact Jill Taylor , Vice President of Strategic Services at strategicadvisor@gmachs.com or 1-630-972-2280. www.gmacglobalrelocation.com |
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