Expatriates come up with various unique and beneficial skills in an organization. This creates and builds diversity in the organization, improving performance and work relations. They are as well expensive employees to hire since they are paid highly in terms of salaries and allowances. This costs an organization a fortune in investment and, therefore, should not afford to lose them at any expense before their contract expires (Mark, 2015). The tendencies of expatriate turnover are said to be work-related attitudes which comprises of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Personal characteristics also include: age, education, and experience. External environments which include organizational climate, management practices, and supervisory behavior also have a major influence on turnover.
Some of the expatriates lose their support networks, which include their family and established childcare arrangements, and quickly feel isolated, unhappy and anxious in the country in which they settle (Mark, 2015). The following are strategies to minimize employee turnover should be appropriate to the diagnosis of the problem.
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Work-Related Attitudes
On work-related attitudes, an expatriate employee may feel that his job expectations are not met and are unsatisfactory to his needs. This may be a different job role from what he is trained and skilled at. At the end of the day, the employee views themselves as unappropriated and unfit for the job and demands to quit. This can be dealt with, first, by the organization when advertising job offers to the expatriates, clearly outlining the job roles and expected qualification, attitudes, and behaviors to be portrayed in the workplace. Second, once an expatriate successfully qualifies for the job, there has to be adequate training and orientation to understand the organizational culture and people. The way to conducting oneself and relating to issues in that particular society. Training is important so as to improve the expatriate’s skills and measure their abilities towards the performance of a task and improve in demanding areas. This develops a good settling attitude of an expatriate in the work environment.
Family Related Issues
Research on the effect expatriates` families have on their work performance shows that families may lead to involuntary turnover causing an employer to discharge an expatriate due to his job performance. Families too have a capability of influencing an expatriate to decide to quit their job voluntarily leading to a turnover. This may be caused by stress brought about by pressure at home leading to an expatriate losing focus at work. Poor spouse adjustment creates a burden on expatriate employees, whereas, positive adjustment by expatriate parents reassures children (Shaffer et al., 2001). In such family situations, the organization can organize for short-term breaks for the expatriate to travel back home and be with his/her family, spouse or children. Catering for transport expenses would motivate an expatriate to continue working in the organization and improve performance.
Conclusion
The organization should not only seek to improve the level of job satisfaction for an expatriate, but the issue is also in understanding exactly how to do that (Denisi & Griffin, 2008). According to Mello (2011), exit interviews provide employers with the opportunity to gain candid feedback from departing employees and a manner that might not be possible if conducted within the context of ongoing employment relations.
References
Denisi, A. S. and Griffin, R. W. (2008) Human Resource Management, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Mark Bussin. (2015). Expatriate Compensation. A practical and informative textbook for managing expatriate compensation, mobility and international assignment in the world of work . Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke on 26th October 2018.
Mello, J. A (2011) Strategic Human Resource Management, 3rd Edition, South-western Cengage Learning.
Ongori, H. (2007). A review of the literature on employee turnover . African Journal of Business Management.
Shaffer, Margarete A., Harrison, David, A., (2001). Forgotten patterns of international assignments. Development and test of a model of spouse adjustment in Journal of applied psychology 86,2: 238-258.
