Expatriate Repatriation: Retention and Commitment Strategies

Introduction

Employees sent on overseas assignments for a specified period of time often experience difficulties upon their return to the United States, struggling to readjust to the culture they once closely identified with. As a result, it has been established that employees frequently leave their organizations within two years of returning from an international assignment. This complicates matters for the employee who must find new employment, as well as for the employer who has lost a significant intellectual knowledge asset in addition to wasting extensive financial resources on expatriation and repatriation processes.

Organizations with successful repatriation programs have identified various requirements and employee needs that result in extended retention. The following study provides an in-depth analysis of the process of expatriate repatriation, commitment, and retention in today's U.S. organizations. The discussion defines the importance of retaining repatriated employees within a given organization and identifies some of the reasons why employees choose to leave shortly after repatriation. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made regarding the repatriation process and its long-lasting effects on employees and organizations alike.

The Process of Repatriation

Employees selected to commit a portion of their professional lives overseas must make many sacrifices that may affect the rest of their lives. Many decisions must be made regarding ties to the homeland, including how to manage one's residence, whether spouses and children will also travel overseas, and how to effectively compensate employees for their commitment. Furthermore, employees are required to completely alter their existence upon transfer to overseas operations for a specified period of time. Once the commitment has been satisfied, they are expected to quickly acclimatize to their original culture without significant time to gain familiarity with any changes that may have occurred.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult for many employees to maintain such an existence upon return to the homeland. Some employees may feel out of place and even betrayed by their employers for requiring them to transfer on a temporary basis. The readjustment period may often be too difficult to bear, and consequently, employees seek other employment alternatives. Repatriation is a difficult process that requires careful consideration and thought regarding the best means of reintroducing employees to the original corporate culture in order to make them feel as comfortable as possible.

Employers that transfer employees to overseas organizations must pay a high price. On average, employers can spend up to $1 million on each employee sent to serve at an overseas organization, only to discover that almost one-third of these individuals terminate their employment within two years of their return (Klaff 40). Some of the common reasons employees leave upon return include feelings of being out of place and no longer comfortable in their surroundings. Furthermore, many employees have no opportunity to utilize the skills they acquired during their overseas assignments. Others have gained significant autonomy during those assignments and no longer experience the challenges they strive for in their daily work. Each of these outcomes results in high turnover rates for repatriated expatriates.

A significant factor in the low retention rates of expatriates is the difficult transition from one culture to the next. A person who has lived in one culture for an extended period will naturally experience some difficulty upon transfer to a new culture. However, the most challenging aspect is when a person returns to the homeland and must regain familiarity with concepts that were once commonplace in daily life. A study by Nan M. Sussman demonstrates that cultural identity is a significant factor in the ease of transition back into the original culture. The Cultural Identity Model (CIM) proposes the following (Sussman 394):

The Sussman study concludes that those who maintain a strong cultural identity with their home country will experience less distress during repatriation, while those who do not share a strong sense of cultural identity will experience higher levels of repatriation distress (403). Furthermore, host-country cultural identity also influences the degree to which repatriation is a stressful event (405). This study identified several key areas of cultural identity that help explain the stressful events involved in the repatriation process.

Review of Related Literature

A second study by Nan M. Sussman examined the repatriation transition from a different angle. One of the primary causes of extreme repatriation distress is the unexpectedness of the process (Sussman 110). Furthermore, the repatriate's social support network is also unprepared for the unexpected difficulties that may arise upon return to the home country. One significant finding of this study is that repatriates may misunderstand their feelings of distress and place the blame on their employers (119). On the other hand, "Returning workers may find they are more attractive to other companies, their new 'intellectual skills' being more acknowledged and rewarded outside their home companies" (120). This study also determined that gender played no significant role in the distress experienced by repatriates upon return, which can provide human resource managers with broader recruitment options while reinforcing the importance of cultural identity and its potential consequences.

Other problems that repatriates experience upon return to their homeland include a lack of concern for future career development and for the cultivation of skills acquired during overseas assignments. As a result, employees tend to exit the organization soon after returning home. A significant portion of the failure to recognize the importance of career development for repatriates stems from the dynamic and volatile environment of international business: "Under such conditions, interventions that require top-down long-term planning or thoughtful, thorough communication from management may be neglected in favor of more immediate business concerns" (O'Sullivan 598).

By focusing on individual needs, retention rates may show improvement. O'Sullivan reveals that career transitions possess both objective and subjective components. They are objective because a repatriate must dramatically shift from one role to the next — a shift referred to as an intra-organizational transition (599). Such transitions are also subjective in that an individual assumes a new and different orientation to an existing role (599). As a result of these objective and subjective dimensions, repatriates face a number of challenges, including the following (600):

O'Sullivan suggests a new coping strategy to manage the problems associated with repatriation, called the protean approach (601). This approach "reflects the presumption that career trajectories can, and often must, be actively influenced by the individual if the career is to advance to both the individual's and the organization's satisfaction... the protean career thus consists of boundaryless, competency-based explorations, which develop through relational learning, interdependence, mutuality, reciprocity, unfolding evolutionary sequences, and chaos. Employees are expected to adopt proactive behaviors that use their own know-how, know-whom, and know-why in order to help meet their own and their organization's objectives" (601). This concept involves a number of coping strategies that may positively influence career transitions, including the following (O'Sullivan 601–602):

Social networking and active information-seeking have been shown to promote greater adjustment, greater success at securing suitable employment and career advancement, and better results in reducing turnover rates (O'Sullivan 601). Such activities are also known to improve repatriation outcomes for many employees. Furthermore, "Repatriates' adjustment can also be assisted by organizational provision of reimbursement for frequent communication (and trips to) home... through social networking, repatriates could conceivably gain both greater financial support and a greater assurance that the post-return job will be designed to their liking" (O'Sullivan 604). If repatriate turnover continues to be very high, the pool of qualified internal candidates for overseas positions will diminish: "The need to successfully repatriate the few who have undertaken international assignments becomes ever more critical for the long-term development of a pool of global leadership candidates" (O'Sullivan 611).

A European study by Brian F. Hurn provides another perspective on the repatriation process. His study demonstrates that, given the continued importance of expatriate assignments in overseas organizations, the need for effective repatriation programs is greater than ever. In past years, human resource departments have not been entirely successful in implementing repatriation programs because of their time commitment and cost. According to Hurn (224), "The pressure for employment of locally-engaged staff, cutbacks in certain markets, and the requirement to ensure high quality staff stay with the organization on return, have now boosted the need for repatriation briefings for returning staff as much as pre-departure briefings for those going overseas on an assignment."

It is also becoming critical that staff members selected for overseas assignments be trained in the culture and ideals of the host country, as well as the economy, health, and education systems. It has long been assumed that individuals foreign to the host country will experience culture shock upon arrival. Now it is increasingly recognized that a similar phenomenon occurs upon return to the homeland — a concept known as reverse culture shock. It is often quite surprising to both the organization and the individual that life does not simply return to normal. Many repatriates assume that their lives will be the same as when they left, as if they had taken an extended vacation in a foreign land. However, it is becoming increasingly common for individuals to experience feelings of distress upon return: "Returnees expect to be able to move back into the community, renew friendships, re-establish both business and social contacts and fit easily into their former lifestyle. Reality may, in fact, be very different as they come back to a totally new environment which is neither the world they knew, nor the world they were expecting. Home does not really feel like home at all" (Hurn 225).

In addition, many repatriates discover that friends and family members are often uninterested in their overseas experiences, which may result in frustration and a sense of neglect. In the workplace, some repatriates may encounter resentment from colleagues who perceive the overseas assignment as little more than an extended vacation without any responsibility to the home organization. Japanese repatriates experience similar feelings of resentment upon returning to Japan. Such employees are labeled kokusaijin, a designation suggesting that they are now considered international and that their loyalties to the homeland are somehow tainted by their experiences in a foreign country (Hurn 225).

Upon returning to the home organization, many employees feel that their role is limited by their service overseas. They often feel left out of the loop and face the possibility that no suitable position exists for them. Furthermore, the role they may be assigned can lack prestige and meaningful responsibility. In contrast, during their time overseas, employees typically carried significant responsibilities and were considered an important organizational presence in a foreign land. Upon return, many experience a lack of interest from colleagues regarding their overseas experiences, resulting in frustration and diminished self-confidence, as they perceive their time abroad as having been undervalued (Hurn 225). These feelings of poor self-esteem often produce the following behavioral patterns (Hurn 225):

A primary problem encountered upon repatriation is that employees have experienced significant personal growth as a result of their time in another culture: "They have often operated with more responsibility, less impeded by the headquarters office, been freer in making decisions, and as a result of greater autonomy, have developed their confidence. In some cases they may have enjoyed a completely different lifestyle, possibly with a larger house, servants, even a chauffeur and an official car" (Hurn 225). This type of personal transformation can cause conflict within native environments and can impede future growth and self-confidence.

Employees returning to their homeland are often led to believe that life will quickly return to normal, but this is not the case for many repatriates. Common perceptions regarding the process include (Hurn 226):

In many instances, such expectations fail to materialize in actual employment settings, as "Returnees often forget the limitations and imperfections of the environment and the people they have left behind in the home country" (Hurn 226). Employees are not the only individuals who experience hardship upon return to the native country. Children also encounter many problems in their transitions. It is often difficult for children to acclimate to a changed home culture, including fads and trends that may not have been present in the host country (Hurn 226). Other differences may prove significant, including diverse experiences that can hinder children from making new friends or reconnecting with old ones. As a result, children are often so stressed that their only means of expression is through disruptive or withdrawn behavior at school (Hurn 226). These behaviors must be assessed and addressed so that the transition to the homeland proceeds as smoothly as possible.

An organization that sends a qualified employee on assignment abroad should be sensitive to the high likelihood that the employee will experience transitional difficulties upon return. Companies would be wise to take proactive measures to retain these employees in order to sustain intellectual knowledge and competitive advantage. According to Hurn (226), "Companies, unless they are forced drastically to reduce staff, will be anxious to retain valued employees, and therefore HR departments, together with senior management, need to establish a credible policy on repatriation. It is most important that employees before leaving their own country to go overseas are aware of their long-term employment prospects, of what is likely to await them on return." One option is for companies to guarantee secure employment upon return, even if the specific position may not be available immediately upon the date of return (Hurn 226).

Another option is to conduct onsite repatriation courses. Such courses are typically designed by human resource officials and draw largely on individual experiences. In the United Kingdom, one example of a successful repatriation program is the course offered by The Centre for International Briefing, which includes the following modules (Hurn 226):

Repatriation courses should be individualized to best accommodate specific employee needs. For some employees, counseling sessions may provide additional support to manage the psychological and social aspects of repatriation, particularly when previous roles have been modified and new roles are limited in scope. These individualized sessions give employees a forum in which to express their frustrations and share their experiences.

Employees can also do much to facilitate their own transition by continuously striving to acclimatize to an environment that was once second nature. According to Hurn (227), "Those returning can themselves do much to smooth the transition... they should at least clarify their own expectations with an added touch of realism and set themselves attainable goals for their immediate future. It is important to re-establish links with former business contacts and friends and once again take an active part in community affairs. They should also brief themselves as quickly as possible on any new changes, particularly as regards structure and technology in the company." Employees who approach the repatriation process with realistic expectations and an open mind will generally find that the transition period proceeds far more smoothly.

A study by Margaret Linehan and Hugh Scullion entitled "The Repatriation of Female International Managers: An Empirical Study" focuses on a group of female managers in western Europe who experienced a repatriation phase that was considered more stressful than the original expatriation. The research indicates that the transition from the status of international manager to a domestic role is profoundly stressful for the manager as well as her family members (Linehan et al. 649). In many instances, an unanticipated and alarming sense of culture shock and isolation is experienced as a result of an insufficient understanding of behavioral changes that have occurred within the home environment (Linehan et al. 649).

For this study, fifty senior female managers were evaluated from a variety of industries, including mining, software engineering, pharmaceutical manufacturing, financial services, and management consultancy (Linehan et al. 650). The following areas were examined:

The study determined that a large majority of female managers who engage in expatriation return to their homeland to find the environment so unfamiliar and uncomfortable that they decide to resign from their home organization because the transition is too difficult to bear. Linehan et al. identified the following problems resulting from repatriation (651–652):

Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of repatriation is the placement of employees back into their home organizations. Since conditions can change dramatically between the time an employee departs for an international assignment and the time of reentry, many employers are unable to hold the original position open for an extended period. As a result, employees must be placed into new positions that are often not equivalent, leading to dissatisfaction. According to the study (652), "The problem is when one comes back from an international assignment it may happen that there is no position for the person to return to. Sometimes it is necessary to be a supplementary person in a department as one has to wait for a job. That is not very nice to come back to."

Other findings indicate that some employees are likely to seek new employment upon return because their existing career options do not provide a sufficient challenge. Additionally, some female managers, beyond coping with a difficult transition, must simultaneously "take responsibility for running a home, most of the shopping, most of the house cleaning, and raising the children" (Linehan et al. 653), making the overall burden extremely difficult to manage effectively.

Other issues faced by the female managers in the Linehan study include the perception that their expatriate assignment was a pioneering role, which increases the uncertainty of reentry into home-country employment (654). Those placed in roles different from their pre-departure positions frequently cannot utilize the skills gained during international assignments, reinforcing the perception that the assignment may have been a waste of time and resources. Many managers expressed the belief that if companies instituted a formal career planning mechanism within the organizational framework, transitional periods would be far easier to manage and adjustment periods would be shortened.

The establishment of a mentoring mechanism represents a significant opportunity for repatriates to readjust to their home environments. Research evidence suggests that both male and female managers may strongly benefit from mentoring relationships created by the home organization. For the managers evaluated in the Linehan study, "Their managers provided information, training, advice, and career direction for re-entering their home organizations. In addition, mentors were seen as important for introducing them to the informal networks which existed in their organizations" (654). Those managers who successfully complete the repatriation process are now discovering that they are providing the same support to junior managers in terms of advancement potential and social encouragement (655). By developing junior staff through mentoring opportunities, senior managers often express a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in their mentoring roles (655).

Research also suggests that the ability to access networking opportunities provides repatriates with a smoother transition back into their home organization. However, female managers are often excluded from many of these activities on the basis of gender. Nonetheless, female managers strongly believe that networking promotes "keeping in touch with the home organization and help with future promotional opportunities" (656). For many female managers, their status as pioneers in international assignments has limited their ability to build relationships with other female professionals, yet they earn the respect and admiration of colleagues based on their international experience.

Human resource policies in organizations that regularly engage in expatriate and repatriate activities require careful thought and analysis to promote effectiveness. European industry has not yet fully recognized the importance of repatriation adjustment activities, and many organizations are only beginning to seek ways to implement and promote these policies. Unfortunately, implementation remains a slow process and may ultimately influence the decisions of potential expatriates. The issues involved must therefore be addressed promptly, and solutions identified, in order to sustain international assignment programs for qualified managers.

Japanese repatriates experience similar results upon transition to their home environments. A study by Gregersen and Black demonstrates that "Organizational commitment after repatriation is important because of the positive relationship between commitment and executive retention and the much higher turnover rate for repatriated executives compared to their domestic counterparts and the high direct and indirect costs associated with repatriation turnover. Significant direct costs are incurred when firms must replace executives who have valuable international and corporate experience. Substantial indirect costs are incurred when repatriates take important market knowledge, host-country client relationships, and international skills with them when they leave, often to work in competitor firms" (210).

Japanese nationals tend to associate themselves in a collective fashion, providing a rather unique perspective on repatriation and its consequences compared to repatriates from the United States. Most Japanese assess their commitments in relation to a larger group, while U.S. residents tend to concentrate on individual needs and rights (212). As a result of the collectivist attitudes prevalent in Japanese organizations, many employees are rotated throughout all functional areas of the organization to develop a well-rounded perspective of the entire enterprise. Gregersen and Black believe that "As a result, we expect that Japanese expatriates returning to their home country will exhibit a single, global commitment to the employing organization rather than the dual commitments to a parent company and a new local work unit, as found in the research on U.S. expatriates" (212).

Conclusion

This study has identified a number of factors regarding the repatriation process and the difficulties that are often experienced by repatriates in their attempts to acclimatize to their native environments. A number of studies have been analyzed throughout and have demonstrated that repatriation can be a profoundly traumatic event for many employees returning from international assignments. As a result, their desire to remain employed by the home organization is frequently in jeopardy. The development and implementation of an effective repatriation program will provide repatriates with the tools necessary to make a successful transition to the home organization, and will likely benefit retention rates as well as intellectual growth and organizational knowledge.