Your chosen expats are ready to go. You review your checklist one last time. Have you forgotten anything? One area easily overlooked is family support for trailing spouses and their children.
In many ways, their needs exceed those of the international staff. Departing employees may have a whole system working to their benefit, including host country workers, supervisors, and other foreign staff ready to greet them on their first day of work. But the family of the expat? When mom, dad, husband, or wife walks out that door for their first day of work, their family is left behind to fend for themselves.
This is an important but underserved group – the children, spouses, and other dependents of the staff on assignment. Below, learn about work-family conflict and its consequences for staff, families, and employers. Then discover the distinct challenges facing employees abroad departing with and without their families and how HR can help them overcome these challenges.
Challenges When Families Accompany the Expat on Assignment
What Work-Family Conflict Is and How It Affects Employees Abroad
Work-family conflict occurs when work and family demands collide. Some scholars suggest that the family environment is more important to an international assignee’s success than on-the-job skills. Similarly, expatriates may quit or depart their international assignment early when family members are unhappy in the host country. Some scholars go so far as to identify this as the leading cause for early termination of an international assignment.
Foreign families on assignment must identify schools for children and work or other activities for a spouse. Just as the international staff member must adjust to a new culture, so too must the family members.
All of this may lead to stress and in turn work-family conflict. In addition, let’s not forget that the workplace itself is often a source of very real stress for the employee. As we’ve seen, rates of failure are high as foreign staff struggle to adjust to new job responsibilities.
Much as we might like to draw a sharp line dividing our work and family lives, the reality is that there is a crossover effect. This means that emotionally we bring our homes into our workplaces, and we take our workplaces back to our homes.
Amidst this conflict, employees may respond by detaching either from their family obligations, their work obligations, or some of both. As rates of work-family conflict increase, for instance, employees work fewer hours and miss work more often. They also may shift their focus from work to family issues. The employee and family members alike may experience reduced well-being, including declining marital satisfaction for the parents.
These results are not intended to discourage employees from moving abroad with their families. This is a problem that, according to one study, affects about one in five expats moving with family. The rest report either positive or neutral experiences. However, there are numerous areas in which spouses and their families are regularly dissatisfied.
Let’s look, then, at the ways that HR can support expats and their families. We’ll begin with the area that may most often contribute to marital strife: children.
Accompanying Children
International schools, often English-speaking, are available in most countries around the world for the children of international employees. Parents may require support identifying the various school options, choosing the best, and following through with enrollment. Trailing spouses surveyed by researchers reported widespread concern about the disruption the move had caused to their children’s education, for instance. Even more were concerned about their children’s loss of social ties and friendships, with just 7% unconcerned by such losses.
Many parents also fret over the cost of international schools. These are private, tuition-charging schools which can be pricey even in otherwise inexpensive countries. First-time staff on overseas assignment may not realize the extent of these costs.
What can HR professionals do? Ideally, foreign staff will have their children’s school costs fully subsidized, though not all organizations offer this benefit. Regardless of coverage, however, HR pros can help reduce stress by transparently outlining what will and will not be covered in the overseas assignment compensation package.
In addition, HR can do some of the groundwork on behalf of their employees. Which schools do parents have to choose from? What are the pros and cons of each? And, to help children socialize and integrate, which schools are other international co-workers sending their children to? These are just some of the answers that expats and their spouses may have – and to which HR can have answers at the ready.
Read Also: Expatriates: Choosing the Best International School
As a final point, it’s worth noting a not-altogether surprising finding: the most stressed staff were those on a foreign assignment with children but without a spouse. HR should spend additional time addressing challenges with these staff members before departure, during assignment, and on repatriation.
For instance, childcare options may be especially vital for these employees. Organizing get-togethers between expat families is another great option to consider, as this can help prevent children from feeling socially isolated in their new homes. In addition, these employees may require additional vacation time so that they may accompany their children on flights back home.
Of course, children are not the only source of angst. Spouses, too, must overcome a set of challenges in their new homes.
Accompanying Spouses and Partners
The scholar Paul van der Laken writes that as “family members experience a disruption of their established social network, they often experience feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression and stress.” Other research shows that over 90% of all expat partners were concerned about the loss of friendships and their distance from family.
One solution to this issue can be local employment for the trailing spouse. This not only offers obvious financial benefits but can help them integrate into the local culture. Yet, studies show that too many spouses must fend for themselves in new countries. As few as 10% received assistance finding work, according to one study.
Without support, many previously employed spouses fail to find work abroad. Those that do report lower rates of job satisfaction. In one study, only 8% of working spouses expressed complete satisfaction with their work. A mere 2% indicated that the new job worked well with their family life.
Read Also: How to Avoid and Overcome Trailing Spouse Syndrome
This is unfair to the accompanying spouse. It is damaging to the international employee who experiences increased work-life conflict. And it is harmful to the organization. One staff member on assignment, for instance, described to researchers a “weakened long-term commitment [to the organization] because of [the] heavy price paid by family.”
Research also suggests that many potential expats choose not to volunteer for international assignments due to concerns about the professional impact on their partner. LGBT employees may also resist international assignments given the broad scope of potential challenges they face – including but not limited to finding work for their spouse in certain LGBT-unfriendly countries.
Organizations can assist in several ways. They may work with the spouse to find employment befitting their skills and experiences. They may also hire the spouse themselves. This is more common in developing countries or in countries with limited opportunities for employment. For instance, spouses of diplomats in the US Foreign Services are regularly employed within the Embassy.
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Challenges When Family Stays Behind
A Family Separation
Not all expatriates travel with their families, of course. In the US, around 30% go on assignment without the company of their families. Among East Asian workers on assignment, the number rises to about 50%.
I spoke, for instance, to Chinese employees on multi-year assignment in Kazakhstan. Due to a combination of company policy and personal preference, all had left their families behind in China. This, the Chinese expats explained in a series of interviews, was a product of a culture that emphasized not just the nuclear family but the broader family as well. Many spouses were caring for – even living with – their elderly parents. Their children would continue bonding not only with siblings but with nieces, nephews, and even more extended family members.
This focus on extended family also justified accepting the international assignment. As one explained, “I work overseas, so I have [a] better salary. When I was young I live in a very poor family. If I earn more, I can [help] my father, mother, and my wife have a better life.”
In addition, finding adequate Chinese language education facilities for their children abroad proved an insurmountable barrier to many of these parents. This is an issue for many non-English speaking foreigners, especially those working outside of major, globally connected cities.
While far from their families, these expatriates still are subject to work-family conflict. In fact, the very distance between them and their families can be a source of tension. For these employees, therefore, HR must step in to provide support of a different kind.
Organizational Support for Families Back Home
In the case of the Chinese expat I spoke with, they reported that their organization had responded forcefully to support both them and their families. To help reduce loneliness, the foreign staff lived in comfortable corporate housing. They had their own cleaners, a restaurant with free Chinese restaurant-style food, personal security, transportation services, access to sports clubs, and other perks. This created a camaraderie between them which offered the possibility for deep friendships among their coworkers.
In fact, many described these relationships as the highlight of their international assignment. One staffer explained that “we are single here. Our [co-workers] are our family. We have relationship[s] with them. We go together, shopping, for a walk, things like this.”
This policy may not be exactly replicable for a traditional western organization, in which employees tend to highly value privacy and independence. It does however offer insight into the types of social practices that organizations can support to ensure employees feel connected to one another at a time when their families are far away.
The employees I spoke with also received generous leave allowances. They worked in 3-month intervals, followed by a full month off for a total of 90 annual vacation days. Most staff I spoke to rushed home the moment their assignments ended. As one young father explained, “When I have vacation [time], I will spend all my time with my family. If it’s not necessary, I will not go out. Not for the club, not to [socialize] with friends. Only with my daughter and with my parents.”
Expats even reported that their company’s leaders back home would periodically check in on family members. They would ask if the family needed anything and do their best to provide it. The company also assisted family members with medical issues, for instance by finding a good doctor or overseeing emergency room visits.
The result, according to most of those I spoke with, was satisfaction with their work and gratitude towards their employers. Indeed, the lengthy duration of their assignments was noteworthy, extending to seven years in one case.
However, this feeling was not universal. One explained that he regularly experienced loneliness, “and I have to face it by myself. [There is] no one [I] can talk to.” He went on to worry that “for the family, we can do nothing. Like my daughter, some days ago was ill, and [went] to the hospital. I [could do] nothing, only be very sad here. But I cannot help.”
This example demonstrates that even with extensive organizational support, HR must remain compassionate to the very real struggles that many of their staff will face. Providing benefits and tangible support is of course a key element in helping employees on overseas assignment and in reducing sources of work-family conflict.
To that end, organizations should follow the example of this Chinese organization in ensuring that family back home and employees on assignments are cared for. Ultimately, however, we must not lose sight of the fact that expats and their families are facing immense disruptions to their lives. While many flourish, others need more than just a robust policy – they need a friendly face and a helping hand.
This article has not presented a comprehensive list of challenges that expat families may face – a list that would be long indeed. But education and employment, as well as issues relating to safety, security, and healthcare, are among the most common challenges faced by these families. So, if you haven’t already, review your checklist one last time – and make sure that support for your employee’s family is near the top of that list.
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Sources and Further Reading
Anderson, B. A. (2001). Expatriate management: An Australian tri-sector comparative study. Thunderbird International Business Review, 43(1), 33-52.
Forster, N. (1997). ‘The persistent myth of high expatriate failure rates’: a reappraisal. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(4), 414-433.
Guzzo, R. A., Noonan, K. A., & Elron, E. (1994). Expatriate managers and the psychological contract. Journal of Applied psychology, 79(4), 617
Lin, C. Y. Y., Lu, T. C., & Lin, H. W. (2012). A different perspective of expatriate management. Human Resource Management Review, 22(3), 189-207.
Takeuchi, R. (2010). A critical review of expatriate adjustment research through a multiple stakeholder view: Progress, emerging trends, and prospects. Journal of management, 36(4), 1040-1064.
Van der Laken, P. A., Van Engen, M. L., Van Veldhoven, M. J. P. M., & Paauwe, J. (2019). Fostering expatriate success: A meta-analysis of the differential benefits of social support. Human Resource Management Review, 29(4), 100679.
Wang, C. H., & Varma, A. (2019). Cultural distance and expatriate failure rates: the moderating role of expatriate management practices. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(15), 2211-2230.