Report Shows Impact of Employers' Lack of Expatriate Career Management Support

Writer, author and expat expert Robin Pascoe sent me an report a little while ago written by Yvonne McNulty, international human resources management expert and PhD candidate at Monash University in Australia. The report, "Measuring Expatriate Return on Investment in Global Firms", was written as part of Yvonne's doctoral research on management and measurement of international assignees.  Yvonne is well known in the expatriate community for her 2005 report summarizing her research on accompanying spouse issues on international assignments entitled The Trailing Spouse Survey.

Although I encourage you to read this recent report on expat ROI in its entirety, I wanted to point out a few points that I think every expat on assignment and global organization employing expats should be aware of:

•  The report points to the importance of including both financial and non-financial outcomes in the evaluation of an expatriate's assignment in order to more accurately evaluate an expatriate's performance and the strategic impact it has on the company. With today's global crisis in an increasingly global marketplace, understanding the value an expatriate contributes to a company is extremely important in assessing how best to utilize often already overstrained resources. From an expat's point of view, being able to articulate the value you brought to a company while working abroad is crucial in leveraging the experience to your advantage.