Question

Expatriate failures can be a costly problem for multinational enterprises. As such, expatriate selection is an important role for global human resource managers.

If you were an HR manager for a London-based multinational enterprise that was launching a subsidiary in your home town, what are some challenges that you would expect an expatriate manager to face, and how might you seek to minimise those challenges and reduce the chance of failure?

Answer 1

Expatriate are home country employees who are sent on a foreign assignment. Expatriates face many challenges when they report at foreign location. They have to get acclimatized to new culture, new people etc. As a HR manager of London based firm, I feel expatriate who is sent to subsidiary will face legal issues to issues of culture. The subsidiary where expatriate is being sent has different culture and language from London. The employee will have to face a hard time in understanding the local language. Legal framework in also very different; therefore, employee will have to face conflicting situation in understanding the legal setup.

As a manager, I will provide training on local language and legal framework before employee officially starts his new job. I will set up a mechanism where the employee will have to deal with employees and customers at foreign location. It will enable him to learn language as well as business processes of that location.