Expat spouses and social issues

Case Study: The Expat Dilemma - Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria, and Kerry Herman - Harvard Business Review

I really enjoyed reading this case study. Not only did it show the difficulties one might have in retaining international staff, it might just give you, the would-be expat, some idea of just how emotionally difficult the expat life can be, particularly for expat spouses.

Don't underestimate the dangers of loneliness
Photo by Kazi Hirok Al-Arafat

I should write more about the latter. I've spoken to so many people who want to move abroad, were it not for their spouse. And for those who do so anyway, it can be very difficult. Many people forget that the spouse is often not legally able to work, or if he or she is, they often can't find work. Who wants to hire a foreigner who doesn't speak the language or might leave in a couple of months? Even if they don't want to work, they certainly want to have friends and a social life. They'll start with neither and their spouse is often working long hours, compounding the problem.

My wife and I have solved the latter problem by the simple expediency of yelling across our garden to neighboring balconies, inviting confused strangers to dinner. It's an unconventional strategy, but it's been successful. We've had fine dinners with new people and are slowly rebuilding a social network.

Becoming expats is a great start on a divorce if you're not careful. The homesickness which often grips the expat can be doubly difficult for them as they may not even have the distraction of work to help them adjust. You need to work hard to overcome this and if you don't take it seriously, you'll regret it. So try inviting your neighbor for dinner. Heck, how many of you know your neighbors even in your home country?

Discrimination in teaching English around the world?

What an interesting dilemma. If you want to travel the world by teaching English, you might find that:

• You're too young to teach
• You're too old to teach

Fun, eh? Reminds me of job adverts I've seen in programming where they ask for more years of experience in a technology than the technology has existed.

By the way, the above links are from the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Tips blog. It's a good source of information if you think teaching English might be your ticket to another country.

Blue cards in Slovakia

Great news! Blue cards are now available in Slovakia.

Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Photo by xlibber

The European Blue Card is a joke compared to the US Green Card, which it was designed to compete against, but it's a small, halting step forward in Europe's attempts to deal with their skilled labor shortage (after years of living in the UK, I still spell that as "labour"). However, Slovakia's implementation is nice because unlike some others, you need a university degree or five years of professional experience. I only have an Associate's Degree but with over a decade of experience, a book under my belt, many published articles and a speaker at numerous conferences world-wide, I still don't qualify for the Dutch Blue Card thanks to the AS degree only being a two-year program. Of course, with a French wife it really doesn't matter to me, but when you're trying to get to move abroad, issues like this become extremely important.

Slovakia's economy has been struggling with high unemployment, but overall the country seems like it's heading in the right direction. It's one of a number of emerging Eastern European nations which would-be expats should keep an eye on, particularly if you're looking at the long term.

What's wrong with Stockholm

What's wrong with Stockholm - CNN.com

Our friend Armgard (in the middle)

Every paradise has a downside. Admittedly, as a travel article it's going to look at things differently from how a native would, but it's a lovely discussion of a country that one of my best friends, Armgard, lives in (and one who hopefully will be joining us for dinner tomorrow with her boyfriend (sorry guys)).

I've also a friend Nadim who lives there and linked to the above article. I really need to get a flight over and catch up with all of them. Of course, once again this is the beautiful thing about Europe: hopping over to another country is so easy.

Speaking of which, I should be in Prague for a few days next month. I'll be working, but hopefully I'll get a few photos to toss this way.

DutchNews.nl - Minister to stop 30% tax ruling for low-earning expats

DutchNews.nl - Minister to stop 30% tax ruling for low-earning expats.

How on earth could they be so stupid? I really like the part where they're suggesting workers must be at least 150 kilometers from a Dutch border to qualify. Guess what? Kleve, Germany, is about 140 kilometers from Amsterdam. With a law intended to attract skilled workers taking away their most likely destination, I suspect some people have been shooting off their mouth without thinking about what they're doing.  There are very few places in the Netherlands you could both find a job and not be within 150 kilometers of an international border.

Retaining international employees

I previously wrote about recruiting international employees and today we're going to cover retaining them.

I've written about homesickness before, but I was curious just how prevalent this problem is. In Chapter 2 of the US Expatriate Handbook, I found the following:

Consider the following percentages, provided by the Business Council for International Understanding, of expatriates who return to the US prematurely from a foreign assignment: London 18 percent, Brussels 27 percent, Tokyo 36 percent, and Saudi Arabia 68 percent.

Why? It's difficult to generalize this study because it focused on employees who were transfered from the US to international assignments rather than employees directly recruited abroad, but from my personal experience and research, I would suggest that recruiting someone from Dubai to Saudi Arabia might have a better success rate than recruiting from the US to Saudi Arabia. This is because the more foreign a culture is, the more homesickness an international employee might feel. If you're hiring someone from the UK and your target country doesn't have a "pub culture" that employee enjoys, that might be a warning sign.

Homesickness

This is your biggest obstacle. Read my homesickness post if you really want to understand this. Most of the expats working for my company with whom I've chatted about this topic all tell me it's a problem: they often don't want to move home, but there's a lot that they miss. We hire enough people from around the world that you often can find a couple of people from your country, but at the end of the day, when you can't even figure out how to write a check or find a dentist who speaks your language, that added stress contributes to the homesickness.

Form a Welcoming Committee

This could be a single person or a group of people, but if you're hiring someone from another country, there's a good chance that people in your company will be just as curious about the new hires as the new hires are about their new home. If you can create a welcoming committee, someone from that committee can be introduced to that person on their first day and offer to "show them the ropes." When I first moved to Nottingham, UK, one of my new colleagues, Paul, offered to carpool to work with me and he quickly became a good friend and we even took a road trip to Corsica together. We're still in touch even though we live in different countries. Having a local I could turn to to ask stupid questions was invaluable in helping me adjust to the British lifestyle.

Of course, you could also designate an HR representative to this role. This has the benefit that they're more likely to know relevant laws and have a better appreciation of confidentiality, but having "volunteers" for this strikes me as a way of finding something more welcoming than someone who's paid to do it.

Language Courses

If their primary language is different from that of the new country, consider helping them enroll in language courses. Even here in Amsterdam where everyone speaks English, virtually all government and banking paperwork is in Dutch. Even if that wasn't the case, it's much easier to integrate into a culture when you speak the native language. This is particularly true in areas such as Paris where not speaking the language can be seen as rude.

Offer Financial Advice

This might seem strange, but employees won't necessarily know where to bank, what housing they can afford, or where they can affordably shop. The first time I lived in Amsterdam, I did all of my food shopping at Albert Heijn, not realizing that Albert Heijn is one of the more expensive supermarkets in the Netherlands. That had a significant impact on my budget. Today we do most of our shopping at ALDI or Dirk van den Broek and only go to Albert Heijn for specialty items.

While you're at it, consider buying your employees travel cards/passes, or whatever your local area offers. When transportation costs are less of an issue, it's just one more stress that the internatioanl employee doesn't have to worry about. Traveling a bit and getting to know the area will make them appreciate it more and the cost of the pass is an inexpensive way of building loyalty and showing that you care.

Understand Cultural Differences

US workers are often encouraged to speak their minds very directly. This works well here in the Netherlands, but it's decidedly less popular in the UK. An international employee who isn't aware of these differences can easily offend people without meaning to. Crossing your legs and bouncing your foot up and down might entail the grievous insult of showing the bottom of your shoe to someone. With all of the work an expat has to do to get up to speed in a new culture, getting advice on the differences is very welcome.

Adjusting to a new life in a new country can be challenging, but you can earn your new employee's loyalty by helping them however you can. There's a lot more to recruiting internationally than simply offering a nice salary and benefits.

Recruiting international employees

I've written about international recruiting before. However, as I get more involved in recruiting I'm discovering that many companies don't have a clue how to go about it. It can be a difficult task, so don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you need advice.

Recruiting employees internationally breaks down into two parts: recruiting and retaining. You can't retain employees you don't recruit and recruiting an employee who leaves a few months later is a huge waste of time and money. Today, however, I'll focus on recruiting.

Why should you listen to me when I write about how to move abroad rather than focusing on recruiting? Because even though I'm just a software developer for booking.com, I've found that I'm bringing in more referrals than some of the professional recruiters we work with.

Recruiting Internationally

If your company wants to recruit internationally, this is probably because you simply can't find enough local workers. At this point, you might want to ask yourself if it's worth recruiting local interns or entry-level personnel and training them. You could contact local universities about upcoming graduates or possibly arranging intern time for students that earns them work experience and college credits. You could also look into retraining your current staff who may work in different areas and are willing to switch. You could also consider opening a remote office or allowing workers to telecommute. There are many ways to deal with domestic labor shortages, but not all are appropriate for your needs.

Know your immigration laws

That being said, you may not be in a position to do this. If you've exhausted all opportunities and you want to try recruiting abroad, your first step is to learn your country's work permit laws inside and out. Some countries make it easier than others and, at least when I was hired in the UK, there was a slightly different process for companies who had never sponsored a work permit before (they had to prove they were a legitimate company and not formed merely to provide someone with a work permit). If you find an international candidate you want to hire, you need to provide them with extremely clear expectations of the timeframe and process. They won't be happy quitting their current job only to find out they have an extra four months to wait before they can move.

In the process of researching the work permit laws, talk to specialists in this field. I met a gentleman who was staying overnight in an airport hotel because he was being refused entry to the UK to accept the university professorship that he had received a work permit for. This is because he was the first international recruit for the university and they didn't know that a work permit wasn't enough. He also needed entry clearance to move to the UK. You don't want to trip up potential recruits by missing out on key portions of immigration law.

Know your target market

You're probably recruiting experienced professionals in a field which requires specialized skills. The people who will mostly likely jump at the chance to live and work in another country are younger, more adventurous individuals who are less likely to have the skills and experience you are searching for. The older, more experienced worker is more likely to be married, have an established social circle, own their own home or have any of a number of reasons why they can't move to another country. I've had so many excellent candidates tell me "I would love to but my spouse won't move" that I've joked about hiring divorce lawyers.

Don't advertise for things you don't need.

So if you're at a trade fair and you're trying to recruit someone, one of the first things to find out is whether or not they're willing to move abroad. If they're not, nothing else matters. If they are, this is what you focus on first. Why? Because you're trying to attract skilled workers who've heard plenty of job pitches and words like "agile, autonomy, fun working environment" tend to make their eyes glaze over after a while. Buzzword Bingo is a mockery, not a selling point. I've had plenty of jobs where UML was listed as a requirement but I've never used it professionally. I've learned to ignore this in job adverts. Potential employees have learned to ignore a huge amount about job adverts. What they haven't heard is "we will pay you to have an adventure in another country." This is what really sets you apart from your competition.

Case in point: I was recruiting people move to Amsterdam and the booth next to us on the trade show floor was doing the same thing. We heavily, heavily pitched the "Amsterdam" angle and they pitched the "job" angle. We had plenty of qualified applicants. They had none. They seemed like fun people and the job sounded great, but you really had to look hard to know that they wanted you in Europe.


Evaluating candidates

This is hard. It's particularly difficult because you have a higher risk than normal, but most companies don't do a great job of assessing a candidate's suitability. Personal references are rarely helpful. The only time I've received interesting feedback from a personal reference was from the candidate who accidentally provided me with the phone number of her lover's wife. I did not schedule an interview. Work references are also often useless. Calling previous employers is difficult as they often are not willing to provide much information due to the risk of lawsuits.

Education can also be problematic as at least one study found 10% of candidates lying about their education background. Diploma mills can make this even harder to sort out. Does your company verify (or care about) education? Do you accept a photocopy of an applicant's diploma as proof?

The interview process is also abysmal. Most interviews I've been in have been informal "chats" with hiring managers. Admittedly, I'm fairly well-known in my field, but sometimes these "chats" are idiotic.  I was once asked if I carried a knife (excuse me?)! A far better strategy for hiring is the structured interview. It helps to minimize bias and focus on your company's specific needs. A structured interview tends to weed out candidates faster, but you really want more false negatives than false positives here. Hiring the wrong candidate, particularly for international recruiting, is expensive. If you don't have good results interviewing domestic candidates, it will be even worse for international candidates.

Offering a job

You know your labor laws, you know who you're trying to hire and you've found a candidate who you want to hire. You need to pitch the job. You'll need to remember that their primary motivator could well be "move to another country." Ironically, this is probably their biggest fear. They don't know how to find a place to live. They don't know how to open a bank account. They don't know how to find a doctor. They don't even know how they're going to move over there! You need to make saying "yes" as painless as possible.

You're going to tell them how to do all of this. Due to the skilled labor shortage here in the Netherlands, the government has created the Expat Center. They can help the new expats with the various legal requirements for getting integrated into society, right down to advice on finding a veterinarian or buying a car. Assuming your country doesn't offer anything similar, designate (or hire) someone in HR to assist in these matters. If you're trying to convince a candidate to move to Barcelona and they're afraid of the hurdle of reading bank documents in Spanish, it's good to have someone on hand they can turn to. Of course, this is a very sensitive position and must be handled by a very trusted employee. Helping translate a medical document could be a humiliating experience.

You're also going to pay their way over. In fact, if you look at the cost of paying a recruiter to find someone, if you do it yourself, paying for someone's relocation and putting them up in a short-stay apartment for a couple of months might be extremely cost-effective. Also, consider paying for language lessons if appropriate. Even here in Amsterdam where everyone speaks English, the paperwork is invariably in Dutch.

You might also consider a clause in the contract asking them to pay back a percentage of relocation costs if they voluntarily leave within a set amount of time. Getting a work permit to move to the UK is hard, but once you have it, switching employers is often easy. Having a repayment clause might scare off candidates, but it's worth considering.

Where do I find these people?


You'll know your business better than I do. New Scientist magazine has many "help wanted" ads aimed at scientists. Many tech companies send recruiters to conferences. Ask your current employees who they could recommend. Buy advertising on Web sites your potential employees will likely read. Make a good pitch on a relevant linkedin.com group. Many times you'll find specialty web sites like jobs.perl.org which are free and cater to exactly the market you are looking for. There is no magic formula for finding international candidates and my experience with professional recruiters is very hit or miss. Be creative! Make a video about how wonderful your city is and what a great work environment you have and put it on Youtube! Really take the time to understand your industry and what your potential employees read or do and you'll find out how to get in touch with them.

My next post is about retaining international employees.