I believe in factual decision-making, based on our surveys. Our recent surveys confirmed my gut feeling about three important issues.
Standing still = decline
The on-going increase of non-family-related activities of expat partners, combined with a generally stagnant support volume, has led to an average drop of 8% (2011–2013) in ‘support needs met’ scores; this represents an average opportunity loss per company, participating in our demand survey, of at least 2 million euros, excluding the consequences of a reduced mobility.
This is a worrying trend, which confirms that partner support is still not regarded by many companies as an investment for successful assignments; rather, it is seen as part of the relocation costs and thus needs to be minimised.
Managing expectations about paid work
The majority of expat partners abandon their desire to work once they are located, which leads me to conclude that partners’ expectations need to be more properly managed. A Needs Assessment can be a great help here.
Ineffectiveness of ‘Gucci money’
The ‘support needs met’ scores confirmed that ‘Gucci money’ cash payments are ineffective and rarely perceived as partner support. Replacing this by a more effective support programme is often a challenging and time-consuming exercise, so we have decided to help the partners of our clients who offer this form of payment with a ‘Needs Assessment’ facility via our web store. Cycles of Change workshops and coaching can now also be bought online. We remain sceptical, however, about the use of Gucci-type payments for partner support, also because many partners are not aware of the availability of the allowance.
