The 6 percent of failed assignments mentioned in the Brookfield Report are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to assignments which were less than successful.
Partner dissatisfaction
According to Brookfield, failure is attributed to partner dissatisfaction in 17 percent of cases, and ‘other family concerns’ in another 11 percent of cases. In a Global Connection expat partner survey carried out in 2011 (n = 540), we asked if there had been any moments when our expat partner respondents seriously considered not going ahead with the expatriate posting, or ending it prematurely.
Shocking stories
The proportion of respondents who had one or more critical moments was 36 percent, broken down as follows: 41 percent faced a crisis before departure, 48 percent during the first half of the posting and 20 percent during the second half of the posting. Respondents told us shocking stories about the crisis situations they went through. For example, “I couldn’t cope anymore with the sound of planes flying overhead as it reminded me of being in the wrong place”.
Reducing critical moments
These moments of crisis have no doubt led to less successful assignments for the employee. Though critical moments cannot be reduced to zero, we are convinced that training or coaching which pays attention to the recognised Cycles of Change through which an expat partner will go will help to reduce the number of these critical moments.
