Insurance executive Irene Dec moved to Warsaw in February for an exciting year-long assignment launching Prudential’s operations in Poland.
It’s the latest in a series of country-hopping work orders for Dec, 56. Since 2000, she has spent weeks or months on Prudential projects in Shanghai, Tokyo, Mexico City, London and Seoul. This is her longest international posting, and she hopes it won’t be her last.
“I don’t think I could ever just have a U.S. assignment again,” Dec says.
Dec’s career path places her squarely in the center of a growing trend in international corporate travel. Where international assignments almost universally used to last two or three years, companies increasingly are deploying valued employees outside their home countries in assignments that last less than 12 months — sometimes much less. A new survey of human resource managers in the United States and other countries by workforce consulting firm Cartus shows that while the globalization of business has driven up overseas assignments generally, assignments of less than a year are growing at the fastest pace.
Companies like shorter assignments because they don’t have to pay for big-ticket, family-related expenses such as private school tuition, international health insurance and a spousal allowance.
Employees also like such arrangements because they can live abroad and hopefully further their career prospects without uprooting their lives at home.
More Opportunities
Looking ahead the next two years, two-thirds of 184 global human resource managers Cartus surveyed said they expect their companies to send more people on assignments of less than one year, as well as on extended-business trips, in which an employee doesn’t relocate but spends weeks at the assignment location. Most also predict their companies will create more international commuter opportunities, in which a person relocates to their assignment location and visits home frequently.
As international work demands grow, companies have been forced to give more thought to how to prepare their people to work outside their home countries.
Americans on short assignments may have difficulty adapting in countries they’ve never lived in before, such as China, where lifestyles can be dramatically different from what they’re used to.
“New expats go through an emotional cycle and typically hit a low between six and 12 months after starting an assignment,” says Mark Giorgini, an expatriate human resources consultant who lives in China. “Short-term assignments sometimes result in people having to go through re-entry culture shock before they’ve even gotten through their expatriation culture shock.”
That may be one reason why the majority of overseas assignments typically last three years.
As in the past, the typical assignment goes to a seasoned, midcareer man who’s experienced in domestic operations and is getting sent abroad to play a leadership role. But the growth in shorter assignments is opening opportunities for other workers — notably, women of all ages and men under age 30 — to gain career-building international experience. Today, for instance, women make up 21 percent of employees on overseas assignments, up from 15 percent five years ago, says Sue Evens, director of Cartus Consulting.
Dec launched her overseas career after she helped Prudential plan for possible computer glitches related to the year 2000 changeover. Her superior asked her to join him in Prudential’s international division, rolling out new businesses.
