Coming Home: The Dilemma of Repatriation: My reentry experience was not unique. It mirrored those of many expatriates, including Peace Corps volunteers, military personnel, and employees of multinational corporations
Coming Home: The Dilemma of Repatriation
by Joann Halpern
After seven years in Germany I returned to New York City, where the mayor didn't even call me when international guests were in town. Local newspaper reporters weren't jamming my phone lines asking "the New Yorker" for interviews, and Manhattan restaurant owners didn't greet me with a welcoming hug when I walked into their restaurants. My life in Germany ended in 2001 when I resigned from a tenured position as Director of International Programs at the Hochschule Harz in Wernigerode, Germany to pursue a doctorate. When I left Wernigerode I was a confident, experienced professional who had made a significant contribution to the internationalization of a small German university and a lovely German city. Yet, when I returned to the United States I was confronted with a very difficult transition as I began my doctoral studies in a city, country, and culture that had become alien to me.
My reentry experience was not unique. It mirrored those of many expatriates, including Peace Corps volunteers, military personnel, and employees of multinational corporations. Although a large body of research exists concerning expatriates and their experiences, relatively little has been written about the reentry or repatriation process. This article discusses why the issue of repatriation is relevant. Specifically, it focuses on the value repatriates bring to their organizations, reasons why repatriates leave their organizations, and what some organizations do to reduce repatriate turnover.
Repatriates are individuals who return to their home environment after completing a global assignment and are in a period of transition from a host country environment back to their home culture. These individuals can be valuable strategic and financial assets to their organizations because they possess first-hand knowledge of particular cultures and can provide detailed information about specific international markets. They also have a better understanding than their domestic counterparts of how their organization is perceived abroad.
Despite the apparent value of repatriates, corporations often fail to capitalize on their investments. Remarkably, approximately 25% of repatriates in U.S.-based multinational corporations leave their organizations within the first year after they return, and up to 50% leave within the first three years. This high turnover of internationally experienced personnel represents a significant financial loss to a corporation, especially if one considers that a three-year assignment can cost an organization over one million dollars, not to mention the indirect costs that are incurred when repatriates take important market knowledge and client relationships with them when they leave, often to work for a competitor.
High repatriate turnover also compromises an organization's ability to recruit future expatriates from within its ranks. The Director of Human Resources for a leading German multinational corporation, which has a repatriate turnover rate of less than 5%, told me in a recent interview, "Satisfied repatriates are our best recruiting tool for future expatriates." The converse is also true. High turnover rates and dissatisfied repatriates who remain with the firm serve as alarm signals to their colleagues, who will think twice before accepting an international assignment. If employees become reluctant to participate in international assignments, organizations will be forced to introduce incentives to make the international assignment more attractive. As these costs are added to the international assignment, organizations waste valuable resources.
Thus, decreasing the turnover rate of repatriates offers palpable financial and strategic benefits to corporations. Yet many U.S.-based multinational corporations have not made repatriate retention a priority. Although many corporations spend significant amounts of time planning and managing international assignments for their employees, relatively few invest the necessary time and energy preparing themselves and their employees for repatriation. Repatriates often return to the United States with expectations that are not congruent with the realities of the environment to which they are returning, causing them to be dissatisfied with their new situation.
Repatriates often feel slighted and undervalued when, after having completed an overseas assignment involving significant management responsibilities and a high level of autonomy, they return to a job in which they have less authority and are not able to utilize their newly acquired skills. The following comment by a repatriate manager is indicative of what many repatriates experience upon return. "Considering the authority I'd exercised abroad and the autonomy I'd learned to handle there, I came back to a job level and title that disregarded my new leadership skills. My extended range of global competencies, enhanced judgment and tested self-reliance were not acknowledged." As a result of unfulfilled expectations, the concomitant disappointment, and a number of other salient issues, a large percentage of repatriates leave their companies after returning from an international assignment.
Various practices to retain repatriates have been developed by corporations to stem the outflow of valuable human capital. Some of the more effective practices include: (1) providing expatriates and their families with a repatriation training program that prepares them for reverse culture shock and other adjustment issues they will encounter upon return; (2) providing expatriates with a mentor, company newsletters and other information resources that keep them abreast of organizational developments while they are abroad; (3) providing expatriates and their families with paid home leave in order to facilitate reintegration into the home environment; (4) holding at least one debriefing session in which the repatriate discusses how his/her experiences during the international assignment can be of value to the home organization; (5) providing the repatriate with a challenging, globally-oriented position that utilizes the knowledge and skills he/she acquired abroad. The preceding list is not comprehensive but represents a few of the most common practices currently in use.
As effective repatriation practices are implemented and the reintegration and retention of repatriates improves, organizations will be in a better position to effectively leverage the skills and experiences of their repatriates. Organizations will thus be able to capitalize on the substantial investment they have already made in their employees, and repatriates will have the opportunity to utilize their newly acquired skills and knowledge.
Joann Halpern is a doctoral candidate in International Education at New York University and an alumna of the Robert Bosch Tutor Program. She is specializing in cross-cultural exchange and training and can be e-mailed by clicking here.
