Global Human Resource practitioners should take note of a new publication: GenXpat: The young professional's guide to a successful life abroad.

First-time author Margaret Malewski embodies the new breed of young, global, single and mobile professional. At barely 30, she's already studied, lived, and worked away from her native Canada—and returned home to write a book to help others hoping to travel down the same path. 
 

Young expats have particular needs

Confident, well-educated, and multi-lingual, she is not just the future global assignee, she's exactly the type of person IHR is looking at right now at recruitment fairs, advertising for in the newspapers, or recently hired with the intention of long term development and grooming within a company.

And as a former employee of Procter & Gamble—she was based in Geneva but travelled extensively marketing brands in the Near East—she has the experience behind her to write a book which not only offers common sense advice for other young people who want to go global, but to offer candid insight and more than a few words of wisdom for the managers who both recruit and assign her fellow international workers.

"GenXpats [anyone born between 1964 and 1981] typically set off at a point in their lives when their careers are their top-most consideration and their personal lives are still unsettled," writes Malewski in the introduction to her new book before quickly identifying the top three challenges facing this new generation of expats.

The challenge of being single

To begin, they are still single, which according to Malewski means they lack the emotional and logistical support of a spouse. For IHR, this means they need to understand that their young recruits will have to handle the relocation solo at the same time they are learning a new job. And, being unmarried, means relationship challenges will come with the package. To overlook these needs, believes Malewski, is to undermine the effectiveness of the young employee.

Imbalance and burnout

With no one at home, challenge number two will come forward: imbalance and burnout.

"When GenXpats head abroad, work is often the only thing to do that is readily available," she writes. "Recreation and social pursuits all require making an effort in a culturally foreign setting and this can be quite intimidating and time-consuming, especially without the social setting of a university or the help of a partner. The combination of overwork and few outlets for stress can lead to imbalance or even burnout."

And for the most part, they are what she calls 'hidden expats' hired locally and living like natives and having most of their needs go unnoticed by head office. Until now, that is, when her book clearly points them out.

From that starting point, Malewski is off and running, discussing and advising on everything from the decision to move, relocation logistics, relationships, and culture shock among other considerations, based on her personal experience and that of her friends and young colleagues around the world.

Contract negotiation

In what I consider to be the most useful part of her book she examines the often complex and ad hoc procedures of contract negotiation. It's in this very extensive chapter that IHR can gain a glimpse into what the young expat is thinking when they sit down to talk contract. And, if Malewski's points are taken up, companies will recognise it's in their own best interest and bottom line to establish compensation policies which apply to this new tier of employee.

The young expat assignment

"The young professional assignee is essentially on a new kind of assignment, one that should be added to a growing list that used to just include a traditional long term assignment. Now, in addition to short term and commuter assignments, as well as business travel, the young expat assignment needs to be added," she points out.

"Policies need to be developed for young expats if companies are going to not only recruit, but retain, the best and brightest of my generation," Malewski believes.

In an otherwise comprehensive and often humorous look at the needs of young professionals, the only minor quibble I can take with GenXpat is the chapter that examines the married young professional and the dual-career issues they face.

Like every generation is prone to do, Malewski believes her peer group invented challenges which others, dating back to colonial service, faced such as resentment on the part of the non-working accompanying spouse. Some things never changed and the married couples among the genXpat group may think their situation is new, but sadly, it's not.

Otherwise, Malewski has taken up the needs of a generation that was never one to be ignored. Human resource managers should definitely take heed.

May 2005

For more information on GenXpat: The Young Professional's Guide to a Successful Life Abroad, by Margaret Malewski (Intercultural Press), visit www.genxpat.com

Robin Pascoe is the author of four books on expatriate living and can be found at her website www.expatexpert.com

Subject: Young global professionals, International careers