How to effectively support and manage a return from an international assignment?

How to effectively support and manage a return from an international assignment?

Santa Fe’s 2019 Global Mobility Survey identified that 90% of business leaders agree, or strongly agree, that employees who have undertaken international assignment achieve greater career progression.

But, how does a company ensure that this progression benefit is maintained within the company – and not gifted to a competitor when an assignee returns to an under-prepared home country that has not given enough thought to how they will use that knowledge and experience acquired on assignment?

Integrating Mobility into the sending employer’s Talent Management Strategy has been talked about for some time, but many employers still struggle to make that happen in real life.  Dire figures of the number of returnees who leave within 12-24 months of return may over-state the problem as they exclude those who have successfully decided to stay abroad.  But the problem remains.

Many companies overlook that the ‘reverse culture shock’ of a return from assignment can be more stressful for an assignee than going away in the first place, as the world they left has changed, despite looking the same.

Providing relocation destination services, including extending your support packages such as cultural training programmes, to a returning assignee will ensure that the employee feels supported and valued on return.

That will ensure that the employee integrates back into the sending organisation, and shows that the company intends to use the experience positively for everyone’s benefit.

Download and read the full report: 2019 Global Mobility Survey ‘REVISION: Mobility through the looking glass’.