The ideal expatriate should have global business savvy and be open-minded and willing to take risks. But how about HR managers who handle expatriates - what qualities do they need?

Companies entrust international HR managers with the care of expatriates — talented employees with high potential that they want to retain. Given such a vital role, I expected to find a plethora of articles and research outlining the characteristics the job requires and was surprised to find none.

Curious, I surveyed 10 IHR managers and 75 expat families and asked them to describe the skills the ideal IHR manager should have. As you might expect, this produced a long list, although the following were mentioned unanimously.

1. Understand the importance of the family

To quote Robin Pascoe, noted author and spokesperson for expat spouses, “The IHR manager must recognise the critical role the spouse and family play in the overall success of the assignment.” A

As she outlines in her recent book, Moveable Marriages, The British East India Company understood the benefits to the company of sending the family abroad: the spouse’s calming influence helped reduce employee turnover, increased efficiency, and bred company loyalty. The same is true today. IHR managers must, therefore, develop a relationship with both the employee and the spouse.

  When employees work domestically, communication is between the company and themselves. This paradigm changes at expatriation and becomes a triangle composed of the company, the employee, and the family. (Thanks to Brigitte Hild, Going Global, for this wonderfully apt description.)

IHR managers represent the company to the family. If they actively listen to the family’s needs, they demonstrate that the company understands it is moving a family and not simply the expatriate employee.

2. Empathy

Everyone agrees IHR managers should have international experience. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world and such assignments are highly unlikely. When asked why this was so vital, the response was that once you have experienced life in a world turned upside down, you become empathetic.

Can this skill be gained without personal expat experience? Yes.

Several suggestions were provided. For example, instead of staying in a luxury hotel when visiting expatriate locations, IHR managers could choose service apartments. They could prepare their own meals rather than eating every meal in a restaurant.

They could spend time with spouses and see what it is like to handle simple domestic chores. Walking through a less-than-sanitary market and realising this is the only food source for 150km is an eye-opening experience. Waiting in line for five hours only to discover they do not have all the signatures to get a telephone shows the frustrations families face on a daily basis.

IHR managers can increase their empathy by meeting with families, not simply the expatriate, before the assignment, during the assignment, when the family returns for vacation, and at the end of the assignment.

3. Integrity

IHR managers have two distinct, and often conflicting, roles according to the European director for a consumer products company.

“They support the company to ensure they are optimising the value of the assignment and they support the expat by ensuring they are able to maximize their value to the organization.”

These roles often require careful assessment and arbitration since they require IHR managers to work in the gray zone.

Expat assignments extend the employer-employee relationship beyond normal organisational boundaries, which means IHR managers become involved in the private, non-work needs of the family. It is crucial that they are sensitive to the emotional upheaval this openness can create.

Families must trust that personal information they confide will not become fodder for the gossip mill. IHR managers must inspire confidence, listen with both their ears and their eyes, and know when to prod for more information and when to pull back.

Good IHR managers understand that some families may require several meetings before they will raise the major stumbling block and do not get irritated at the trivia that is mentioned at the outset.

4. Flexibility

IHR managers need to be flexible in administering policies and in their own work schedules. Policies are guidelines. What matters is how to make this relocation successful.

Every move is unique. What families need and how they prefer to be dealt with will vary and may change with each relocation. IHR managers need “good business judgment skills and the ability to draw a delicate line at the right place between policies/procedures that apply to all expats and those areas where individual circumstances demand and deserve individual treatment”, claims one veteran expat in Germany.

Each expatriate family has personal baggage. At first glance, a young bachelor, fresh from university armed with a sense of adventure, may appear to need less assistance than a married couple with three children.

However, the IHR manager may discover that the family has lived in the expat location before and are eager to return, while the bachelor is the sole support for an ailing parent.

Does this mean the bachelor should not be sent and that the family will have no challenges? No. Minor accommodations may ease the bachelor’s mind and the career expats may discover that life is not as wonderful as they recall.

IHR managers do not have traditional 9-to-5 jobs. They are available when the family needs them. This may be evenings (daytime to the expat family) or the weekend (weekdays in certain countries).

5. Communicate effectively

IHR managers must communicate without placing blame and inspire a spirit of cooperation and teamwork.

It often takes several people to solve a problem, and IHR managers must be comfortable dealing with everyone from the CEO to the mailroom.

The expat family does not care why the problem arose. They want their errant shipment located, their paycheck deposited in their bank, or a new set of checks to replace the ones that, with the rest of their shipment, sat in pouring rain for a week when there was a strike at the local airport.

IHR mangers are liaisons between the expat family and the various departments that could be called upon to solve a problem. They provide a single point of contact for the family and accept the responsibility of overseeing the solution and advising the family.

Conclusion

Good IHR managers see themselves as allies, not policeman. They view their job as helping expat families so the expats can do their jobs.

Expat needs and situations vary. The best IHR managers take the time to get to know each family so that they can provide the support they need.

April 2003

Carrie Shearer spent 20 years in international HR, living and working in seven countries, as well as working at headquarters. Currently she runs a small international HR consulting practice and is a novelist who writes about expat living.