Over the past five years, the international human resource management field has been buffeted by a variety of forces, one of the strongest being the trend toward the outsourcing of a variety of IHR services. However, there is evidence that these service providers are not adequately addressing the primary needs of assignees. So how can HR overcome this shortfall?

The greatest source of growth for most organisations is international, and therefore dollars spent on training for international success go farther than training dollars spent on anything else. Nevertheless, most organisations continue to ignore this bargain investment, and spend training dollars on programmes with less return.

'Blackouts' and 'brownouts'

What makes this myopia even more remarkable is what is at risk, in terms of the expense and resources needed for the international assignment. Most statistics speak of the million dollar investment, which is the average cost to the organisation of the average assignment for a family abroad these days.

International training is paramount

If the assignee should fail and need to return prior to the term of the assignment—a 'failed' assignment according to the gross measure of 'premature' or 'early' return—that cost can double.

I know of no organisation that wouldn't try to minimise the risk to such an investment by taking every measure available and yet, when it comes to the international assignment investment, apparently the advice: "speak to Joe when you get there, he's been there a while, he'll show you the ropes," is a good enough insurance policy.

Furthermore, we are speaking of the costs associated with the obvious: a 'blackout' or premature return.

In fact, the greater cost to organisations when they work internationally with untrained staff is the 'brown-out' phenomenon: employees and families who manage somehow to stay, but who, because they are untrained, fail to maximise their assignment.

They may be surviving, but they definitely are not thriving, and neither is the organisation.  Professionally, these brown-outs, because they do not deeply understand either the language or the culture of their host country, fail to see opportunities, do not make the contacts necessary, in short, slide through. Families muddle through, sticking close to their home national community, with children typically doing best, if the underlying family discontent does not wear them down. Partners, however, fare worst of all - failing to develop their careers while abroad and generally being unhappy and counting the sentence of days and months left till they return home. 

The costs of 'brownouts', while difficult to document, I am convinced, far outweigh the already staggering costs of blackouts.

Returning to core competencies

If we are learning, apparently again and again, that the most important primary skills to develop among global managers and international assignees are relational and communication skills, then it flows logically that, while not ignoring the 'hard' services—the obvious 'nuts and bolts'—organisations must first seek out providers whose core competency is in the seamless, reliable and dependable global delivery of communications and relational skills development training.

.In fact, as the title of this article implies, we need to re-define the central goals of international relocation, and re-discover the heart of what needs to be done in order to service and support our international assignees adequately

Putting first things first

First and foremost, we need to prioritize: put first things first, and develop your organisation's criteria for the selection of IHR service providers based on what we know to be the essential priority: relational and communication skills development.

In the present climate of outsourcing and consolidation of services, we need to re-think our primary criteria for selecting these providers.  "Is my provider's core competency in the one area of greatest importance, where my organisation will see the greatest return, or am I selecting them because of their supermarket menu of services?"

Another question to ask, to gain clarity on provider selection, is: "Which provider can clearly demonstrate a singular history and mastery of training and development services that provide these skills?" 

Finally, the organisation needs to ask itself: "Do I want a one-stop-shop provider with a core competency in a less-important service, such as insurance or move relocation, which happens to offer international relational and communications skills training as a value-added, or do I want a provider with a core competency in these skills first, and with the ability to provide the easier-to-access 'nuts and bolts' services, too?"

International training and development is not a cost: it is an investment

Like the adage says, 'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance'.  This is all the more true in international training and development.  Relying on informal networks of support, like Joe "who's been there a while" is only scarcely better than nothing (and sometimes worse, if Joe's experiences haven't been accurate or typical), and certainly not the kind of rigorous, in-depth and substantive quality training that an organisation wants to use to guarantee performance levels of excellence in an area as critical to growth and profit as international.

Yet, precisely because international is so critical, we know these training dollars produce the greatest return.  Why then, do organisations continue to avoid focusing on the need for international training, and, instead, measure the degree to which they are successful at serving their international assignee in terms of how well they've arranged to sell their home or set-up their insurance and compensation and benefits packages? 

The answer, I believe, lies in the premise that such training and development is viewed as yet just another international assignee cost, like the moving of household goods.

The fact is, of course, just the opposite.  While the 'hard' services do represent real costs, the 'soft' services, such as the providing of international relational and communications skills training, actually represent an investment.

International training and development needs to be looked at in terms of ROI, because the value of training to these skills far outweighs the cost.  Not only in immediate terms (the success of the overseas assignment), but also in terms of the development of an employee who is capable of bringing a great deal of information and skill to the organisation for many years to come, international training and development is an investment with an immense return. 

Returning to the heart of relocation training

Relocation training, therefore, essentially is about communication and relational skills training.  I would even go so far as to call relocommunication.

The heart and soul of the services provided by organisations must be focused around these training services as their first priority.  And identifying a provider of IHR services must require that the provider have, as their core competency, their ability to train these skills globally.

Anything less short-changes the international assignee, family, and ultimately, the organisation, as it attempts to achieve success in the global arena.

This is the second part of a two-part series on defining 'the heart of international relocation training'.

January 2005 (updated February 2006)

Dean Foster is President, Dean Foster Associates (www.learnaboutcultures.com). He can be contacted through its European Head Office at: info@dfa-europe.com, +32 (0) 87 77 68 66.

Subject: Relocation training