Despite ongoing concerns about high expatriate attrition rates, companies do not seem to be paying a lot of attention to the repatriation phase. A similar observation can be made in HRM journals; whereas expatriation has been researched extensively during the last decades, repatriation has received scarce attention in literature. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to highlight the relevance of repatriation management in the earliest stages of expatriate management.

Recent research indicates that successful expatriation assignments rely on four elements: the selection of the candidates, pre-arrival preparation for both expatriate and family, the provided support and possibility to keep in touch with the home organisation while on an expatriate assignment, and the repatriation arrangements after completion of the assignment (Baruch and Altman, 2002). That appropriate attention to repatriation arrangements is important follows out of various observations: Valuable personnel frequently leave the organisation relatively shortly after repatriation. Research findings from 2002 showed that about 50 percent of personnel left a financial services company within a few years following the return to their home country (Baruch & Altman, 2002).  As well, it has been found that 30  to 40 percent of expatriates leave their companies within two years of repatriation compared to 5-10 percent of non-expatriate employees.

More than 30 percent of overseas assignments fail, resulting in similar premature return rates of expatriates. Expatriate failure rates are generally unrelated to aspects of functioning that were relevant in domestic organisational settings. Although a lengthy discussion of underlying reasons for expatriate failure is unfortunately out of the scope of this article, it can be argued that companies benefit from managing this repatriation process in order to exploit the knowledge and skills of returning expatriates.

High attrition rates have been found to be primarily related to organisations’ difficulties in effectively repositioning their repatriated employees. This observation is a strong argument to stress repatriation management in HR departments.

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