You Manage It! 4: Global Training for Expatriates

A global foreign assignment can be an exciting opportunity and challenge for the employee. However excited or cautious someone might be about the opportunity, it is in everyone’s interest to prepare the worker for a successful experience. As discussed in the Manager’s Notebook, “Expatriate Assignments and Training Needs,” a variety of training needs should be considered for expatriates. Specifically, the three categories of country, job, and worker characteristics are sources of potential training needs.

Inadequate preparation for a foreign assignment can result in a job not being done well and could result in longer term costs, such as derailed international opportunities for the organization. Inadequate preparation for repatriation could also have negative effects on job performance and could result in dissatisfied workers who decide to take their international experience elsewhere. Whether training is needed by expatriates is an important consideration to make as a manager.

Critical Thinking Questions

  1. 8-33. How could you measure the training needs for each of the three areas of country, job, and worker characteristics?

  2. 8-34. Do you think that the three categories of potential training needs (country characteristics, job characteristics, worker characteristics) should receive the same or different weights? That is, should a deficit in a job competency be viewed as more critical than a deficit in a cultural competency?

  3. 8-35. If time or budget were limited, what areas of training would be the top priority?

  4. 8-36. How do you think the effectiveness of training for expatriate positions should be measured?

  5. 8-37. Training for repatriation is also an important consideration. How do you think the effectiveness of training for repatriates should be measured?

Team Exercise

  1. 8-38. As a team, consider training for repatriation.

    1. a. Do your team members agree that training for repatriates should be offered?

    2. b. How could you know whether the training is effective?

    3. c. Share your team’s judgment of repatriation training and how its effectiveness could be assessed.

Experiential Exercise: Team

  1. 8-39. Decide for yourself or have your instructor assign your team to focus on either expatriates or repatriates.

    As a team, consider the three sources of possible training needs: country, job, and worker characteristics.

    1. a. How would you assess training needs in each of these areas, for either expatriation or repatriation? For example, would you conduct a survey, interview, or something else?

    2. b. What would you measure? That is, what items or question might you include? Provide examples.

    3. c. Share your approach with the rest of the class.

Experiential Exercise: Individual

  1. 8-40. The effectiveness of training is an important consideration, and the effectiveness of training for expatriates is no exception. Consider the four levels of measuring training effectiveness (Level 1: reaction; Level 2: learning; Level 3: behaviors; Level 4: financial return on the investment).

    1. a. How could each of these levels be measured to assess the effectiveness of expatriate training and of repatriate training?

    2. b. Generate examples of how you could measure effectiveness at each of these levels.

    3. c. Which level of measurement seems best to assess the effectiveness of expatriate training? Why?

    4. d. Which level of measurement seems best to assess the effectiveness of repatriate training? Why?

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