Joann S. Lublin, of CareerJournalEurope.com, investigates a new wave of Americans refusing to work in so-called security hot-spots, concealing their nationality and even being 'tracked' by head-office to assure their safety.

Heading to downtown Cairo in early March, US businessman Mahan Tavakoli found himself stuck behind a frighteningly big anti-American demonstration. Half a million Egyptians were protesting the looming Iraq war. They chanted, “Down, down, Bush,” burned US flags and carried signs with slogans such as “Death to America!”

“There must be a better time to be traveling and to better places,” the 36-year-old Tavakoli remembers thinking at the time.

An executive of Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc., he was in Cairo to help open a major franchise for the Hauppauge, New York, global management-training concern. He cut short his stay by a day. Later that spring, a co-worker balked at a Kuwait business trip, then three others refused to travel to Asia.

Tavakoli has flown to Cairo four more times since his March visit but steps he takes to protect himself overseas often leave him feeling trapped in his hotel and bother him so much that he spurns recruiters' feelers about expatriate jobs in the Middle East or India.

“It's easy to stick to strict controls when visiting a country for a week or two,” he says. “It's a whole different thing if that has to be the way of life for months and years.”

Companies face a tougher time these days persuading US managers to accept certain international assignments and, occasionally, to travel abroad. A key reason: intensified jitters about safety. An outgrowth of the continuing Iraq hostilities, post-9/11 terrorism attacks, possible resurgence of the SARS outbreak, and more executive kidnappings in South America.

Employers attempt to allay staff anxieties through extra pay, pre-departure security briefings, and computerised monitoring of trouble spots, along with armoured cars, 24-hour guards, attack dogs and walled housing compounds for the riskiest areas.

Human resource officials believe that security qualms may accelerate the trend toward shorter expatriate stints, more international telecommuting and the expanded use of local hires.

Places to avoid

The cities considered the most dangerous in the latest tally are Karachi, Pakistan; Lagos, Nigeria; Algiers, Algeria; Bogota, Colombia; Baghdad; and Jerusalem.

Although he has looked for work here and abroad since last October, former expatriate Gregory J. McDonald rules out working in a number of overseas locales.

A 53-year-old Greenwich, Connecticut, resident, McDonald spent 25 years in Europe and South America in a variety of marketing and management positions.

“I've always had certain countries that I wouldn't consider, such as Colombia,” he says. His enlarged off-limits list includes Venezuela, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. In fact, he says, “I wouldn't want to take my family to live anywhere in the Middle East right now.”

McDonald certainly isn't alone in feeling that way. “People would rather quit than take assignments in at least 25 nations,” says Kai Lindholst, a Chicago managing partner for Zurich-based recruiters Egon Zehnder International. He says several years ago, there were probably fewer than 10 such countries.

Some US managers even hesitate to relocate to foreign locales long considered safe havens. One is Singapore. The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, earlier this year killed more than 30 people there and at least 812 world-wide. Singapore won praise for its strong quarantine and monitoring measures, which quickly contained the spread of the pneumonia-like illness.

Uncertain about the disease's duration, 31-year-old Russell Ziegler asked Macromedia Inc. to delay, and consider cancelling, his two-year Singapore transfer just a week before his scheduled departure last April. He was due to become the Asia-Pacific finance operations manager for the company, a San Francisco-based designer and developer of Web software.

His bosses granted his request because “they didn't want me to go over if I didn't feel comfortable doing so,” Ziegler recalls.

Ziegler rented an extended-stay suite for himself, his wife and two toddlers because tenants already occupied their California home.

His anxieties subsided after he saw Singapore's tight SARS controls during a two-week trip in late April. When he finally moved there in June, he discovered so many expatriates had left town that their old apartments cost 20 percent less to rent than 12 months earlier.

Yet expatriates' apprehension about Singapore persists. Forty American executives with international experience recently rejected overtures on becoming chief human-resources officer of a Singapore transportation company.

Wendy Murphy, a New York partner at head-hunter firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., which conducted the search, says many of them cited fears about SARS and Iraq.

“The executives said, ‘there's no way I'm going to do it. It's not a stable environment over there,’” Murphy recalls.

A promising US prospect lined up by Murphy was weighing up the offer last month when a terrorist car bomb exploded near a Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least 14 and injuring about 150.

“Do I really want to do this?” the man's worried wife asked. She feared he might become a terrorist victim during his required extensive travel within Asia.

At the candidate's request, the Singapore concern drafted an employment-contract provision that promised him and his family a fast trip home if local conditions turned perilous. The gambit failed.

Playing it safe

Among other things, the executive also wanted assurances that he could work remotely following an emergency evacuation. He turned down the job in favour of a US position with a different Asian business. His would-be employer promoted a local national instead.

Similarly, a former expatriate whose wife was nervous about the SARS outbreak suggested that he commute between the US East Coast and London rather than relocate for a British telecommunication concern's top job.

“The company's response was, ‘we don't want a guy who's that timid,’” says Rae Sedel, the London-based head of the global technology practice for recruiters Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. in New York.

Like Singapore and London, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has long been a popular destination among American expatriates - until now.

“My friends who are there feel very safe,” says Jeff Oney, a 50-year-old technical writer and former flight trainer for Boeing in Seattle. “It's paradise.” Last April, he interviewed for a flight-training instructor's job with Emirates Airlines in Dubai.

But he was the only American applicant; airline officials blamed terrorism fears, according to Oney. And he was surprised by the scant security when he visited a housing complex for expatriates.

“They had one guy standing there but no gates or barbed wire,” he recollects. He initially accepted but then rejected the Dubai opportunity partly because he was unsure his wife and nine-year-old son would feel safe living there.

Some businesses pursue more aggressive tactics to lure American managers abroad. A major US engineering and construction company with federal contracts to rebuild Iraq compensates for the hazardous duty by offering each typical USD 130,000-a-year expatriate an extra USD 75,000 tax-free a year in foreign-service, hardship and danger allowances, says Timothy Dwyer, a national director in KPMG LLP's international executive-services practice in New York.

“The greater the danger or hardship, the more ways the employer will find to funnel cash to that person,” Dwyer continues. “We've seen dramatic increases in danger pay for places that a year ago weren't even on the list.”

Higher standard

Many companies now mandate security briefings for every expatriate and foreign traveller because “the standard of care for employees post-9/11 has been raised,” says Bruce McIndoe, chief executive of iJET Travel Risk Management Inc.

The booming travel-intelligence firm in Annapolis provides a global 911 emergency service plus real-time guides to 182 countries and 248 cities.

Extra security precautions reassure American managers who must make overseas business journeys - skittish or not. With clients on six continents, “we have to continue travelling or we're not going to have any clients,” says Doug Weeks, corporate travel manager for management consultants Booz, Allen & Hamilton in McLean.

The firm taps iJET's database to learn more about possible foreign security risks, as Weeks did for three US consultants before they flew to Jakarta last month.

Booz Allen is investigating getting special tracking software that would keep closer tabs on its international travellers. The software didn't exist before the 9/11 attacks. IJET's system matches individuals' travel 24 hours a day with its latest reports on global hot spots.

“Companies want to know where everyone is,” no matter how safe their destination, says Nigel Churton, chief executive officer of rival Control Risk Group Ltd. in London. “Who would have thought that Bali would be a high-risk area?”

On the other hand, Dale Carnegie takes a more informal approach to safeguarding its 25 US managers who regularly travel overseas. The company simply delayed last spring's planned trips for as long as five months, and will postpone them further if SARS returns this fall, says Peter Handal, president and CEO.

“It's harder to get people to take international business trips, but we're not pressuring anyone,” he emphasizes.

Indeed, Handal faces internal pressure to stay away from foreign cities prone to executive kidnappings. Colleagues persuaded him to cancel a planned visit to the company's Bogota office soon after 9/11. “People in my office asked if I was crazy.”

Handal urges Dale Carnegie officials going abroad to constantly carry local associates' home phone numbers “so they can reach them if they get in an emergency.”

“The [hotel] guy who carries up my bag always asks where I'm from,” Mahan Tavakoli says. “I say anywhere but Canada because American tourists all say they're from Canada - sometimes, I pretend to come from France – luckily I speak the language!”

October 2003