Low-Cost Tips for Successful Inpatriation

Employees transferring to the United States from overseas need help in adjusting to America's sometimes strange ways. HR pros can ease the transition, even on a tight budget.

Companies that send their employees to work in foreign countries typically help them get oriented to a new culture, customs, and language. But when U.S. companies relocate employees here from other countries, it's often a different story.

Although 78 percent of the companies surveyed by Relocation Resources International (RRI) transferred employees to the United States, only 50 percent of them offered unique relocation policies for these "inpatriates" or "inpats," as they're called. They're often plunked into a strange land without even the support of an expatriate community that Americans often have to soften the cross-cultural landing.

"There's an American on practically every corner in Paris," says Laura Herring, president and CEO of The IMPACT Group. "There is not someone from Dusseldorf on every corner in Clayton, Missouri."

The companies in the survey acknowledged that inpats needed assistance with such issues as child care and schooling, but they didn't offer the services, typically citing the need to save money, according to RRI.

It may be that companies also are suffering from a touch of ethnocentrism, says Michael S. Schell, CEO of ExpatSpouse.com, a global online community for families transferred abroad by their employers. "America perceives itself as the best place to be, and we think everyone wants to be here," Schell says. "There's the idea that you're lucky to have this assignment."

But global relocation experts say that adjusting to life in the United States is not a snap. For the First time since 1995, the United States was listed as one of the most challenging foreign assignments in the Global Relocation Trends 2000 Survey Report, sponsored by GMAC Global Relocation Services/Windham International, the National Foreign Trade Council, and SHRM Global Forum.

Fortunately, there are a number of things that HR people in charge of inbound relocations can do to ease the transition for inpatriated employees and their families. Many of the strategies are not expensive, and they can make all the difference between a productive work assignment and a costly failure.

Conduct a Needs Assessment

As soon as HR knows there is going to be a relocation from a foreign country, a representative should contact the family and conduct a needs assessment, says Diane McIntire, director of career and family services for Cornerstone Relocation Group, a relocation company based in Warren, New Jersey. Cornerstone's four-page form covers basic contact information, move dates, descriptions of the family's needs, and housing preferences. Once the form has been completed, a counselor calls to discuss the assessment with the family.

The process gives FIR a picture of the family and any special needs it might have. It's good to know at the outset about a family's plans to bring a 150-pound dog to a Manhattan apartment, or that a spouse has a chronic medical problem that will make establishing health-care contacts a top priority for FIR.

A commercial marketing specialist for a pharmaceutical company had a particularly challenging family situation. The woman was relocating to the East Coast from Switzerland and needed help finding the right day care for her four-year-old daughter. The little girl speaks Chinese and German, but no English. The employer's relocation consultants helped the employee, a single mom, find a family day-care setting that would be a good fit for her daughter. The company also arranged for English instruction for mother and daughter. Finding such resources by herself would have been very, very difficult, the mother notes.

Since arriving in the United States at the end of March, the little girl has become more comfortable with day care and is quickly picking up English phrases, including "OK" and "I love you." "She sings a lot of love songs," her mother says.

Do Your Homework

While the inpat family is compiling its list of needs and wishes, it's time for you to anticipate the difficulties your inpatriated employee and family will face, says Tara Brabazon, director of intercultural services for GMAC Global Relocation Services. A quick Internet search to gather information on the home country's culture can be a useful starting point, she says.

The Internet can also help you research good neighborhoods or areas for the transplanted family, she says. "If you're involved in making a housing recommendation, it's good to know where the ethnic communities are. If you're in Kansas City, Kansas, and you have an Indian family inbound, it's good to know where the Indian community is--and there's a huge one in Kansas City, for instance. But if you're putting them way across town from it, you're not helping. You're separating them from stores, schools' and other cultural anchors that would help them feel at home.

Address Expectations

When you have the completed needs assessment, you can use it to help the family get an accurate picture of life in the United States and understand the differences they're going to encounter, global relocation experts say.

"So many people inbound to the U.S. think they know it through movies and TV," Brabazon says. "But they're not a good representation of what life is like here."

Crime, for instance, is a big issue with relocating employees, she says. "In the past year, the majority of inbound families have been concerned that their children are going to get shot at," she says. Having crime statistics at hand for the city of relocation can help counter the impression that life in the U.S. is just like a Schwarzenegger movie.

Some inpat spouses might hope to continue their careers in the United States. The assessment process gives HR an opportunity to explain that the U.S. is very strict about its work permits and that most spouses probably will not be allowed to work at a paying job, Schell says. At the same time, the U.S. has ample volunteer opportunities that HR can scout for a spouse who wants to find meaningful work and a way to hone her skills for work when she returns home.

It's a good idea to prepare families for some rental price shock. In many countries, housing isn't nearly as expensive as it is here. In addition to giving families an idea of what to expect, it's wise to guide their rental shopping whenever possible. Some inpats, in an effort to keep costs down, rent in unsafe neighborhoods, or in suburbs that are too far from the office for a reasonable commute. That kind of housing also might isolate a non-driving spouse.

Now also is the time to talk about lifestyle in the United States. In many foreign countries, families have access to low-cost domestic help, and lots of it. McIntire says that one client, a Brazilian chemist, was used to having three domestic workers. In the United States, she discovered that the three domestics she could afford were "me, myself, and I."

Gather Resources for the Family

Because there might be pressure on the employee and his family not to ask for help, it's important to give them resources they can use on their own, global relocation experts say. That might include providing helpful Web sites and building a list of contacts with social, professional, or recreation groups with shared interests. It could mean that you've scouted out services--everything from medical professionals to plumbers to dry cleaners--that can work with them in their own language, or at least are willing to try.

Another resource you can provide is to identify someone in the inpat's home country who has worked here and returned home, Brabazon says. "You can ask that person to be a mentor, someone that's a safe person to ask questions of. That person can also help in the readjustment when the employee is repatriated."

Set Up an In-Depth Briefing

A thoroughly researched inpat briefing session that covers key issues is critical for a family's relocation success, Schell says. Ideally, the briefing would be done before the family leaves its home country. But realistically, he says, "that's not going to happen." So it should take place as soon after the family's arrival as possible.

Who should be there? Not just the employee, but the employee and the spouse. You can't assume that the employee will convey all the information presented in the briefing to his spouse. Furthermore, Schell says, "It is not reasonable to assume that you can tell an employee's spouse, 'Call me if you have problems,' and they will. Their husbands will tell them: 'Don't you pickup that phone and embarrass me.' That's why self-help tools are so important."

Schell describes the outcome of one such husband edict: a Spanish woman, relocated to England with her husband, wound up doing laundry and dishes by hand because she didn't know how to use the washing machine, and the dishwasher wasn't functioning. Her husband forbade her to call his company for help. She didn't know whom to call, and her husband's promises that he would take care of it went unmet. That could just as easily happen here, Schell says.

Address These Three Briefing Basics: Credit, Housing, Schools

Credit: Most inpatriates have no U.S.-based credit history. Without it, they'll be hard-pressed to buy a car, get a credit card, or even rent an apartment. They will need the help of the company and a cooperative bank in order to apply for, receive, use, and make payments on a credit card immediately, so they have a credit history. This is an issue that doesn't require money from the company, but it does require "focused attention to find a solution, because there isn't a ready-made solution," Schell says. "The company has to grease the skids for the inpatriate at the bank and at the credit card company."

Housing: HR also can help inpats with housing by making a connection for them with a real estate broker who is willing (probably for a fee) to help them find appropriate housing. "Ideally, you could identify, do a little training, and sensitize the real estate brokers you would want to be using," he says. That real estate professional also would be linked to you and your company, so that if the inpat was unsure about a decision, the broker would know that you could be contacted to help work it out. The company might also have to be willing to stand behind the employee in order for him to secure a lease on a home, Schell says. Many landlords are leery of renting to inpatriates. Knowing that there's recourse to the company if something goes wrong will make them more comfortable.

Schools: Making decisions about where the family's children will go to school might precede the housing relocation, according to a Prudential Relocation white paper, "The United States as a Foreign Destination." It cites the example of a Swiss executive relocating to Manhattan. He examined the relocation consultant's research on schools and opted for a German school in a commuter suburb, and then found housing in that area.

Here are some key questions to ask about schools in preparation for passing on the information to the inpat, according to Prudential:

* Is an international baccalaureate program available in the district in which the child might be located?

* How much freedom do teachers have in planning curriculum? In countries with national standards, the government requires teachers to follow a prescribed curriculum.

* Is an English-as-a-second-language program available? Not every school district has ESL classes or even teachers who understand the needs of a second-language learner.

The company should not assume that the inpat's children will go to public school, Schell says.

"If I'm being relocated to France, there's no question that the company will let me send my kids to the American school there. If inpats are coming here, they have to negotiate a school allowance. It's a huge issue to drop a foreign child into a public school. There are issues of dress, manner of addressing teachers, everything is different."

Prepare Them for Culture Shock

Inpats (and expats) go through a predictable cycle when they relocate, Brabazon says. There's a honeymoon phase, when everything about the new country is great, exciting, and wonderful.

Pretty quickly, though, they hit "crisis mode," a major dip downward, when everything about the new country is annoying and difficult. This is the point, Herring says, when relocation counselors often get teary phone calls from spouses, who in trying to do something that was so easy at home--cook a special dish, for instance--can't find what they need, and decide they've been relegated to a circle of hell. It's not really about the lack of a certain mustard, Herring says. It's culture shock.

With help, things get easier as time passes, the experts say, until the family is about to return home, when they realize that they like it here. Then it's time for another adjustment. Once they return home, there's the honeymoon, and the cycle repeats. Then it's time for repatriation counseling, Brabazon says.

Build a Case for Return on Investment

If you think your budget is inadequate and you want to secure funds for such services as cross-cultural classes or spousal language training, you can try a technique that Herring developed as she worked to repair a relocation gone awry. An inpatriated Chinese employee and his wife were relocated from Los Angeles, which has a huge Chinese population, to corporate headquarters in Dallas. It made little difference to the employee, who spent 75 percent of his time traveling to China on sales calls. But his wife, who spoke no English, found herself stranded in suburban Plano, without other Chinese-speakers, markets, or friends. She was miserable, and after several months, the executive pleaded for a return to Los Angeles. Management's first answer was no, Herring says, because the L.A.-to-Dallas move had cost $57,000. The company wasn't willing to spend that amount again.

The HR person who received the case sought Herring's help because she had heard her talk about return on investment in a relocation. Together the two gathered information, and learned that the executive produced sales of S2 million a month during his overseas trips. Given his sales abilities, his facility in five Chinese dialects, and his willingness to spend 75 percent of his time traveling, it was estimated that it would take 18 months to replace him.

"If they had to replace him, they would have a loss of $36 million in revenue," Herring says. For $57,000, they could move him back and keep him. The HR person took Herring's one sheet of data to the company's management. The return to L.A. was promptly approved.

"It's become a model that I use for inpats all the time," Herring says. "What is the value this individual is bringing to you? Does the company think it can't afford to spend money for a good relocation? It's really, 'Can you afford not to?' The cost needs to be measured in terms of return on investment for the growth of the entire company, not just this solitary relocation."

Carroll Lachnit is content managing editor of Workforce.

Symptoms of Shock

There are certain symptoms HR might observe as inpatriates adjust to their lives in a new country. HR might also consider giving inpats this list, as well as the remedies shown on the right, so they'll recognize what's happening.

* Boredom

* Withdrawal (avoiding contact with the local nationals, spending much time at home reading or writing, speaking only to a few other expatriates)

* Needing excessive amounts of sleep

* Eating or drinking too much

* Unexplainable emotional outbursts or crying jags

* Excessive cleanliness

* Physical distress such as recurrent stomach-aches, headaches, or other ailments

* Blaming local nationals (repeated discussions that begin with, "The people are so ..." or "This would never happen at home!")

* Blaming the company

* Blaming one's spouse

* Family tension and conflict

* Excessive involvement in outside activities (overextending oneself)

* Being extremely impatient and quick to criticize

Tips for Coping

HR can help inpats manage their culture shock with some basic strategies. You can suggest they:

* Talk about their feelings.

* Avoid constant comparisons with home.

* Search for remedies to problems.

* Gain a basic knowledge of the language so they can speak and read comfortably.

* Identify and adopt a local community.

* Use local products.

* Attend local festivals and concerts.

* Subscribe to the local paper.

* Associate with positive minded people.

* Make friends with those expatriates who are enjoying the new environment.

* Spend leisure time together; travel.

* Maintain family values and adhere to established rules.

* Develop a new interest or hobby that would not be possible at home.

* Keep in touch with home and friends.

* Share their own culture with friends and locals.

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