The Shock of Going Home!

It's good to be back - or is it?
The shock of going home, and other issues surrounding repatriation were the subject of a recent seminar at Farnham castle International briefing and Conference Centre. The theme for the workshop was to look at the impact on the family and the employee's effectiveness when returning home after an assignment.

Participants were fortunate to have Robin Pascoe, an experienced Canadian speaker and writer on expatriate issues, to present the facts, based on her own considerable experiences during a 15 year period in four Asian capitals and her subsequent research into the subject.

Unplanned returns
Robin touched on the current impact of uncertain economies resulting in assignments being cut short, and the knock-on effect on both the working partner and the family of having to return home unexpectedly and in an unplanned manner. She talked about the importance of handling re-entry effectively in order to retain the employee and thereby gain from his or her increased experience and skills as a result of the assignment. According to a recent survey, the cost of failure following a two-year posting can amount to almost US$1.5 million in replacement, lost experience and retraining.

Robin also touched on the more personal issues of cumulative culture shock fatigue, depression and even anger and resentment that can result from mis-handled re-entry and how, essentially, with re-entry shock, all issues of life are exaggerated. These feelings can turn on the employer and result in the employee leaving the company.

Finally, Robin talked about how HR personnel can help by early preparation before repatriation and again on return to the home country, the establishment of mentoring programmes, assistance with managing expectations and career counselling for the non-working partner wanting to re-enter the workforce. And most important of all, welcome your expatriates home!

A Personal Experience
The personal side of repatriation, following a very successful assignment, was presented by Jenny Smart in the second part of the workshop.

Jenny and her husband had been on a two-year assignment in Warsaw, Poland and had returned home only eight weeks previously so the repatriation experience was in full swing when Jenny came to The Centre.

However, she was extremely positive about their experiences in Poland and how she felt they had all benefited from the opportunity to live in such an interesting country. Her children were young and were therefore easily "transportable" and despite Jenny's having to come to terms with the loss of her job in the UK as a Computer Consultant, she believes that overall, the expatriate experience was very worthwhile for all the family.

Participants were very interested to hear Jenny's views on the important issues surrounding the family's return, including the financial implications of being back in London and she highlighted a series of on-going difficulties from home, schools, after-school activities to buying a car and finding new babysitters. On the personal front, the fact that the assignment was for a fixed duration from the outset was a real benefit as it meant that she could plan more easily both prior to departure from the UK and again from Poland.

As seen from the above and by many who have been through the experience of expatriation as often the most difficult aspect to handle, primarily due to the fact that it is so unexpected, re-entry shock and repatriation issues are clearly not to be underestimated by HR managers.

Original article at www.intercultural-training.co.uk