{"id":2394,"date":"2016-05-10T11:50:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T10:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2394"},"modified":"2016-05-10T11:50:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T10:50:34","slug":"latest-insights-from-expat-industry-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2016\/05\/10\/latest-insights-from-expat-industry-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Insights from Expat Industry Survey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"self-assessment\"<\/a>Recently, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by UnitedHealthcare Global, surveyed 360 executives from North America and Europe and conducted five in-depth interviews with experts to examine companies\u2019 experiences with global mobility<\/strong>. In the following I will highlight some key report data that caught my eye.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Assignment geography is not about the traditional home and host location combinations any more<\/p>\n

Apart from the traditional routes within the US and Western Europe, as well as between these two regions, Eastern European destinations and emerging markets<\/strong> in general are becoming more and more popular. Moreover, multinationals headquartered in emerging markets<\/strong> are increasingly sending their workers overseas too. Notably, emerging market multinationals do not necessarily follow the traditional pathways of landing in developed locations, but rather end up in other emerging destinations<\/strong>. As reported in the survey results, Indian and Chinese firms are actively sending their workers to Brazil and Africa, for instance. In addition, although much less experienced than established multinationals, start-ups and small and medium-sized firms have also become more active in sending their workers abroad.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The expectation of travel \u2018is built into employment contracts\u2019<\/p>\n

Nowadays, the pattern of employee travel is far from the stereotypical well-compensated middle-aged expats<\/strong> with family. Instead, given the multitude of mobility practices<\/a>, ranging from permanent relocations to project-based assignments or commuter assignments<\/a>, travel is basically a work requirement, pretty much built into many job descriptions. The report data also point out that due to companies\u2019 cost pressures short-term trips become more common, which also signifies greater availability of mobility<\/strong> to a larger range of employees. In essence, if before we were speaking of a group of global employees<\/strong> working for longer stretches in different locations, then today frequent travellers are becoming the ordinary \u2018workhorses of the globally mobile world<\/strong>\u2019, as one of the experts put it. I would argue that not only do companies deprive expatriation<\/strong> of its privileged status; employees\u2019 mindsets are also changing. Younger generations<\/a>, namely generations X and Y, are often willing to relocate and perceive mobility opportunities as enriching and career promoting.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Travelling for work is widely available, but becomes more risky<\/p>\n

Based on the survey data, nearly half of the survey respondents expect expatriation risks<\/strong>, including risks to personal security, to increase. Global political instabilities, terrorism and natural disasters are some of the potential causes. Although hardship allowances are nothing new to the world of global mobility<\/strong>, compared to the situation a couple decades ago, the perception of increased risk does not depend on the assignment destination so much anymore. In other words, no place can be considered safe anymore.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Risks increased, but expats are selected in a traditional manner<\/p>\n

Interestingly, although the global mobility landscape is changing, the expat<\/strong> selection processes seem to remain quite traditionally focused on technical skills. Specifically, according to the reported data, 43% of respondents said that workers\u2019 overall expertise and skills was a typical consideration, whereas willingness to work abroad (27%), psychological strength (24%) and physical fitness (19%) are considered to a much smaller extent.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Expat<\/strong> support is a persistent worry<\/p>\n

Another \u2018traditional\u2019 element within global mobility<\/strong> is the challenge of consistently providing support to international assignees<\/strong>. Apart from constant cost pressures \u2013 and hence trying to send abroad more employees for less money \u2013 companies also experience also mismatch between the support needed and support provided. First of all, given the increased risks the majority lack emergency protocols (60%) and don\u2019t offer regular updates about political or personal security in the host destination (62%). Moreover, almost 70% of respondents do not provide their expats<\/strong> with psychological counseling, which could address the stress and challenges experienced by global employees. In general, survey participants agree that softer support for international assignees and their families is underused, partly because their benefit is quite hard to assess. According to UnitedHealthcare Global, these report findings confirm the visible gap between recognized human capital risks and responses to these risks. Highlighting the lack in security-, health-, and wellbeing-related support, as well as cost saving-oriented sacrifices in these important areas, UnitedHealthcare Global concludes that these gaps are representative of the new era of globalization and call for innovative and borderless solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by UnitedHealthcare Global, surveyed 360 executives from North America and Europe and conducted five in-depth interviews with experts to examine companies\u2019 experiences with global mobility. In the following I will highlight some key report data that caught my eye. \u2022 Assignment geography is not about the traditional home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[44778,577,18342,17550,89573,82127,44741,782,89572],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-emerging-destinations","tag-emerging-markets","tag-expat","tag-expatriation","tag-expatriation-risks","tag-global-employees","tag-global-mobility","tag-globalization","tag-international-assignees","megacategoria-mc-leadership-and-people-management"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2406,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions\/2406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}