January 2001

Editorial

Net Expat opens in the Netherlands

Alain Verstandig, Managing Director, Net Expat   This time it's for sure: the Third Millennium is really here! Even if we feel a little less excited than last time, when we welcomed the magic Year 2000 that we had all dreamed about when we were younger. To mark this new Millennium, we are delighted to announce the inauguration of our brand-new office in The Hague. 186 years after William of Orange won independence for a Holland committed to free trade and freedom of thought, we have pleasure in offering you the support of a new combat team! They will add to the skills of our international specialists who, as you know, are committed to finding gainful employment for the partners of expats.

Expert Opinion

The art of Family Management

Professor Hofstede, Professor Emeritus Senior Research Fellow - IRIC Worldwide expert on intercultural issues Professor Hofstede, our life is divided in two almost from birth, between our family and our school environment, and then between our family and our professional environment. What are the essential differences between these two phases? - The link between family and school is a strong one: up to the age of twelve years we are much more receptive to external influences than later in life. For that reason our relationship with the world of school is a more intimate one. The family-school relationship has been developed to ensure that a continual dialogue is maintained in support of the mutual investment by the family and the educational system in a future member of society. The level of dialogue depends on the cultures: it is very much encouraged in the Anglo-Saxon world, for example through parent-teacher associations which stimulate family-school contact. In the Latin world, the status of the teacher offers less opportunity for dialogue. I think we can establish a fairly strong correlation between what I have defined as the Power Distance Index (which measures the importance of hierarchy to a culture) and the degree of participation, hence the strength of the family-school link. The lower the Power Distance (i.e. the weaker the importance attached to hierarchy), the more genuinely interactive the family-school link will be. All of this of course depends on the personality of the teachers and the nature of the school environment. Coming to the family-job relationship, this is certainly weaker, even though the employer recruits the whole person, both the professional and social dimensions. This is especially true in the case of expatriate employees who face numerous potential sources of conflict. Expatriation is a very real challenge for couples, but it can also reinforce relationships. Expatriation is the source of a series of explicit experiences shared between partners: these experiences will encourage them to communicate more, and this in a foreign environment that will bring them closer together if all goes well. Here again, as in the family-school relationship, it is companies from the more participative cultures that invest most effectively in resolving the issues and openly face up to the challenges that confront their expatriate families, whether these challenges are future, present or past. Having said that, national cultures are not the same thing as corporate cultures, even if we use the same word for them. The first rely on stable values over time, deeply embedded in people's consciousness. Corporate cultures are more functional, more practical, more superficial and, for that reason, easier to change. Nevertheless firms tend to base corporate cultures on the founders' national cultures so that, for example, it is fascinating to note how corporate cultures match national cultures when it comes to an essential value like the partner's right to work. Today most international companies offer specific assistance to meet the family challenges associated with expatriation, for example help with school fees and support for partners who want to work or continue studying. In your opinion, how far should companies go in offering this kind of assistance? When I was Human Resources Director, the cost of studies was to some extent linked to the final exam results. I think it is important to make expatriates and their families to some extent accountable and to place at their disposition services and tools that will help them to solve their problems themselves. Give them fishing rods, not fish! When I was a professor at the ITP, I gave an optional course on multicultural issues which students attended voluntarily. My course was very popular, attracting maybe 75 per cent of the students. The course management then decided for the next year to include it in the mandatory core of the program, which meant that the other 25 per cent had to join in. The latter were naturally less motivated and very quickly destroyed the excellent climate that had previously existed in the class. In anything to do with expatriation or multicultural issues, you have to invest in awareness and commitment. Give people information, discuss with the families, open the minds of your future expatriates even if you have to bully them occasionally. Help them by all means, but let these families play a proactive part in finding the solutions. And, if this can be done, try to measure the effectiveness of the help you are giving them. Last of all, expatriate the HR people who are responsible for the expatriates! They will then understand the scope and implications of their own work far better.

Testimonial

The importance of preparation

Larissa Luy expat partner assisted by Net Expat Net Expat: Madame Luy, you were born in Peru and have always lived there. You decided to interrupt your career as an engineer in order to follow your husband to Belgium where he now has expatriate status. Can you tell us how your career plans evolved during this period of expatriation? - I arrived in Belgium with my husband in January 2000. I wanted to find work in Belgium as quickly as possible, but I very quickly realized that, as an expat partner, I faced a number of obstacles. In addition to language problems, I ran up against the administrative authorities who sent me from one place to another. So I took my courage in my own two hands and, without any help from anyone else, started to offer my services to the companies that interested me. I quickly realized that something wasn't working: the two or three interviews I had were unsuccessful and I got a bit depressed. I then had the good luck to have access to the services of Net Expat through my husband's employer and, together, we worked carefully on the specific aspects that were the weak points of my offer: my CV was rewritten to conform to the local norms and was immediately better received. The preparatory work for interviews and the explanations I received on the various cultural aspects that, coming from Latin America, I was totally unaware of, helped me enormously. Finally, I learned to "sell" myself to companies by applying a recruitment logic that was different to the one I had been used to. Quite logically I found a great job within a couple of weeks. My advice to all those new expat partners wanting to work in a new country is this: understand that you have to work on the preparation, for a job search is a job in its own right! Accept help because, when preparing for interviews, the objective eye of a specialist will help you better understand the new rules of the game you want to play. We are blind to our own culture - and that makes things even more difficult. Ultimately, you will be amply rewarded: the variety of the work environments will enrich your career more than you can imagine!

Survey

Which developments are currently influencing international assignment programs?

Mrs Patricia Isenborghs Director International Assignment Services, Deloitte & Touche Deloitte & Touche has scrutinized the market in this respect, by surveying 75 companies in its European Survey for Policies and Practices in International Assignment Programs, conducted during 1999. As a general trend, the survey concludes on a growth in the number of international assignments over the past three years, which is in line with the economic tendency of globalization. And according to most of the participants, there will be a further increase in the near future. Over the next three years, emphasis will be on short-term assignments, with 63% of the respondents expecting an increase. As a side-note, it is remarked that 60% of the participants report an increase of female international assignees over the past three years. The need for specific skills at the assignment location remains for 86% of the companies the number one reason for setting up an assignment. A majority of respondents rank the candidate's interest and willingness to accept an assignment in second place, followed by prior successful international experience and cultural/language aptitude. The HR department is frequently involved (41%) in the selection process; however, for half of the assignments, only one candidate is interviewed, and no assessment tool is used for predicting the employee's adaptability for an international assignment. Most of the companies do not interview spouses or other family members as part of the pre-selection process nor keep track of the percentage of assignments failing because of family adjustment difficulties. Nevertheless, it is evident that the family's readiness to relocate directly impacts the likelihood of the assignment's success since an assignment dramatically affects family dynamics. Acknowledging family needs leads to understanding and addressing the needs of the accompanying partner/spouse. Although 68% of the respondents do not have a written dual career policy, most of them do provide assistance for spouses and partners. The survey has shown that spouses and partners usually are assisted in the application for work permit and visa, followed by reimbursement for ongoing education and career counseling. Eleven percent of the companies report that they are in the process of creating a formal spousal assistance program, which indicates that companies do begin to accept spousal/partner assistance as an important component of progressive policy. With respect to financial education assistance to the assignee's children, almost all companies pay for primary and secondary school during the course of an assignment. Kindergarten costs are met by 51% of the respondents while university costs are only partially paid by 11% of the companies. At one point, a family may still wish to continue living in the home country for dual career or educational reasons. If so, half of the companies will review alternative possibilities on a case by case basis, while one third of the companies will consider sending the assignee on single status. But then the question arises whether or not the candidate will still be interested - in the end, the candidate is the entire family, not just the employee.

Advice

Do you believe in the New Economy?

Jerry van Waterschoot Senior Economist - BBL   Does the New Economy really exist? This is a hot subject of debate these days. Phrases like "I believe in the New Economy" (or "I don't believe in the New Economy") are used all the time, as if we were talking about flying saucers or the afterlife. "Believers" and "non-believers" face each another in serried ranks. Yet the New Economy is not an illusion, but very much a reality, even if it is only one of the facets of economic activity. It is in fact a flourishing sector. So it's not surprising that TMT shares (technology, media, telecom) have been the stars of the stock exchange over the last two years. But the madness that encourages people to buy shares of companies that have still to produce a profit - shares that have quadrupled or even multiplied tenfold in the course of just a couple of years - could not go on. TMT mania on the stock exchanges is completely over now. Our "faith" in such shares has been reduced to the right proportions, which means justifiable confidence in the future potential of the New Economy and new developments, and not a blind belief in promises of mountains of gold.   For more information, contact Mr. Dave Deruytter, Manager Expatriates & Non-Residents, dave.deruytter@bbl.be

Humor

The Funny Side of Things

Richard Hill, Intercultural consultant, trainer and author. His new book "Sharks and Custard: The Things That Make European Laugh" will be published by Europublic in early-2001. A sense of humor can be a great help in developing the right employer/employee relationship, particularly if you happen to be an expat. But, precisely because you are an expat, you may not be too sure what it is that makes Europeans laugh. Don't be discouraged! There is a lot of comic common ground shared not only by European nationalities but also by others. Take for example the following joke: A tourist found a monkey and asked a policeman what he should do with it. The policeman told him to take the animal to the zoo. The next day the policeman saw the man walking along holding hands with the monkey. "Look," said the policeman, "I thought I told you to take the monkey to the zoo." "Yes", said the man, "We went to the zoo yesterday. Today we're going to the cinema." I first heard this joke told by a Frenchman about the Belgians and it made me laugh (it's relatively inoffensive and I think it rather cute). But since then I have run across it as a joke told by the Brasilians (or Brazilians?) about the Portuguese, and as a joke told by the German Swiss about the Austrians - only there the monkey has become a penguin. You can also learn something about European differences from such jokes. They tend to put different nationalities (generally three, like the old Englishman-Scotsman-Welshman jokes) into a situation where they react according to their individual cultures. For example this joke: Three businessmen - a German, an Italian and a Finn - go on safari when a huge elephant ambles out of the bush. The German looks at the animal and thinks: "What a powerful beast, if only my engineers could come up with something as efficient as that." The Italian thinks: "If only we could catch him, we could make lots of beautiful things with his hide." And the Finn thinks: "I wonder what the elephant thinks of me!" This is another way of saying that Germany produces fine mechanical engineers, Italy produces fine designers, and Finland produces fine people with a tendency to self-doubt and introspection. Another (N.B. Finnish!) joke makes the point: Question: How can you tell a Finnish extrovert? Answer: He looks at your shoes...