Culture shock refers to the perpetual stress experienced by individuals who relocate from their native countries to another country for work (Snell et al., 2015). Settling in a new country for an extended duration requires that an employee become accustomed to new social and cultural norms and ways of doing things, different from those used to back home. The contrast in doing things, social and cultural norms between the new and native countries, makes the employee disoriented. Language barrier is one of the contributing factors for employees’ frustrations since they may have trouble communicating with work colleagues, reading street signs, amongst other challenges (Snell et al., 2015). Technology gaps between the native and the new country may also be sources of stress since the employee may experience difficulties getting the telephone to work. Besides the incidents mentioned above, several other jarring and disorienting incidents make the employee feel frustrated. The frustration mainly stems from being unable to execute tasks that they could handle back home. Over time, the simple frustrations become catastrophic and make the employee feel a little lost. The sense of helplessness is associated with emotional and physical drain.
Culture shock becomes exacerbated when the employee’s family life becomes disrupted, particularly when one of the couples relocates to a different country and leaves the partner in the home country. The relocated employee experiences stress due to the disconnection of the accustomed human connections. Some employers have been assisting employees in handling the ensuing stress by aiding two-career couples to search for decent jobs in the same locations (Snell et al., 2015). Such employers have been assisting the employees in dual-career partnerships by presenting opportunities for career and life planning counseling, job hunting trips, continuing education, and intercompany networking (Snell et al., 2015). Some employers have also been assisting couples in securing work permits overseas. In rare cases, some firms may create job positions for the relocated employee’s spouse. The employers’ initiation of the aforementioned initiatives helps the relocated employees deal with the relocation stress since they can maintain family bonds with their spouses.
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References
Snell, S., Morris, S., & Bohlander, G. (2015). Managing human resources (17th ed., pp. 40-76). Cengage Learning.
