Even though the vast majority of companies recognise the importance of intercultural training to expatriated employees and their partners/ family, only 39% offer it for all assignments.
All in all, 84% of companies taking part in the latest Global Mobility Trends Survey, published by Brookfield GRS, offer intercultural training for international assignees, 45% offer training on some assignments, while 39% offer it on all assignments.
Host location challenges
Why don’t companies automatically offer intercultural training to all their assignees? The reasons cited by the participants are host location challenges (37%), familiarity of assignee with the host location (17%) and type of assignment (17%).
Contribution to success
But the Brookfield survey adds that since 89% of the respondents rated the value of the intercultural preparation programme as a “good” or ”great” contribution to an international assignee’s job success, cost reduction “is the most likely reason” why intercultural training is not offered to all expats.
Entire family
Where intercultural training is offered, 57% of companies provide it to the entire expatriating family, 33% to the assignee and spouse partner, and 5% to the assignee only. Historically, 44% of the respondents provided this training to the entire family.
Mandatory
In most cases, following an intercultural programme is optional, says the survey. Yet 23% of companies view it as mandatory training.
