Industry surveys reveal time and again that international human resource service providers often are not adequately addressing the primary needs of international assignees. So what are those needs and how can HR provide for them more successfully within the current framework?

IHR services being outsourced often need high-level, focused attention

Over the past five years, the international human resource management field has been buffeted by a variety of forces, one of the strongest being the trend toward the outsourcing of a variety of IHR services. 

One of the benefits driving the trend to outsourcing was the recognition by organisations that it allowed them to stay focused on what they do best: their core competencies. 

The irony is, of course, that the outsourcing trend also merged with a parallel trend toward consolidation of services among IHR services providers, so that while organisations could focus on their core competencies by outsourcing many of their IHR functions to independent providers, these independents were themselves ignoring their core competencies in order to provide fuller consolidated menus of services to their clients.

Therefore, to re-focus on their core competencies, many organisations are now in the uncomfortable position of having their IHR services outsourced to independent organisations with little or no core competency in the services they attempt to provide. 

This is a serious issue.  For one thing, it means that consolidated IHR providers often go to secondary, tertiary (and beyond) vendors in order to accomplish their work for their clients.

In this scenario, there is little guarantee of seamless, universal and dependable service.  In exchange for the privilege of 'one-stop-(outsourced)-shopping', many organisations have also surrendered the right of control and selection, and are often at the mercy of decisions made by their outsourcing vendor on issues they have no core competency in.

I know of no organisation that would willingly put itself into this position, and yet many organisations with outsourced IHR services find themselves in this situation today.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this situation is that the need for and nature of the IHR services being outsourced cries out for high-level, focused attention.

Survey after survey (ERC, 1992; NFTC, 1994; SHRM, 1997 and others) have indicated, with no surprise here, that the primary needs of international assignees are still not being addressed to the degree necessary by IHR service providers.  So what are those needs, and how can we can provide for them more successfully than the current situation does?

The million-dollar investment re-visited

 Relocating abroad, as all IHR professionals now know, is an anxiety-ridden, difficult transition that requires, for the sake of the individuals involved and for the organisation's bottom-line, a rich combination of training and support services.

In fact, the international assignee and family is a very needy entity, and requires a full menu of services for proper care and feeding.

Obvious 'nuts and bolts' or 'hard' services include the shipment of household goods, property maintenance, compensation and benefits counselling, destination services (such as neighbourhood familiarisation and local settling-in services), insurance and security arrangements.

Less obvious, but more critical, are the 'soft' training services, such as cultural orientation, language training, spousal career counselling, children's adjustment programmes, repatriation orientation, and in-destination mentoring and counselling.

Aforementioned surveys, and our own experiences, clearly highlight, in the words of the expats and their IHR counsellors themselves, that the one, primary, essential skill required to succeed abroad is the ability to relate and communicate within the local environment. 

All other services, including every one of the 'hard' services listed above, and any and all other training programmes (such as technical skills training) take a backseat in the minds of  both expats and global managers alike to services that can help develop what I refer to as effective global relational and communication skills. 

This is an extremely important point. In the words of one global manager, "I know my company will get my TV shipped, and my insurance paid.  I'm not sure, however, that they understand just how important it is for me to figure out how to thrive here." 

It is an irony that in the one area that most organisations are experiencing their greatest growth—the international arena—they spend the least for training and development.

Training and development departments will take culturally similar individuals speaking the same language and enrol them in all sorts of training programmes to get them to perform at yet higher levels of excellence in all sorts of functions. 

However, when it comes to helping individuals perform internationally—the one area where individuals will be expected to perform in very different cultures with people who do not speak the same language—more often than not, the response has been, "speak to Joe when you get there, he's been there a while, he'll show you the ropes."  

Another way to look at this is to realise that since the greatest source of growth for most organisations is international, then dollars spent on training for international success go farther than training dollars spent on anything else.  Nevertheless, most organisations continue to ignore this bargain investment, and spend training dollars on programmes with less return.

This is the first part of a two-part series on defining 'the heart of international relocation training'.

January 2005 (updated February 2006)

Dean Foster is President, Dean Foster Associates (www.learnaboutcultures.com). He can be contacted through its European Head Office at: info@dfa-europe.com, +32 (0) 87 77 68 66.

Subject: Relocation training