Expatriate employees who work abroad face difficulties adjusting to a new country and cultural differences that can impact their productivity and satisfaction. For American employees, the top five adjustment issues are an inability of their spouse to adjust, the manager's inability to adjust, family problems, the manager's emotional maturity, and coping with larger overseas responsibilities. Japanese employees struggle most with coping with large financial responsibilities abroad, adjusting to a new environment, personal emotions, technical competence, and their spouse adjusting. Regardless of culture, the main causes of problems are unclear expectations from management, learning a new organizational structure, and underutilization of overseas experience upon returning home. Firms can improve expatriate retention by providing clear goals and incentives, training for cultural adjustment and the new organization

1. An expatriate employee is someone who lives and works in
outside of their native country at the behest of the company they
work for. These employees can have a difficult time maximizing
their productivity because of the problems that come with
adjusting to another country. These problems can be different
depending on cultural upbringing. For example, the five hardest
adjustments for Employees from the United States have are an
inability for their spouse to adjust, Manager’s inability to
adjust, other family problems, manager’s personal or emotional
maturity, and an inability to cope with larger overseas
responsibilities, in that order (Hill & Hult, 2019). But Japanese
employees have problems with inability to cope with large
overseas expendabilities, difficulty with a new environment,
personal emotional problems, lack of technical competence, and
inability for a spouse to adjust in that order (Hill & Hult, 2019).
As you can see there is some overlap but the issues are
generally different with different levels of the problems being
caused. Regardless of the cultural difference these problems are
usually cause by three things, unclear expectations, learning a
new organization, and under-utilization of overseas experience
(Vilet, 2017). Often times management will be very gung ho
about the importance of international experience before the
assignment but won’t state clear goals of what kind of
experience they want the employees to get. This not only causes
problems while overseas but management often has a different
story when an employee returns making employees feel
unvalued. Speaking of unvalued having to work internationally
means having to learn to operate in a new organization
structure. While the company is the same often operations in
other countries are different so employees have to learn fast.
Evan if they are adaptable and successful with the new
organization they often return to find their coworkers have
received favorable treatment or even a raise or promotion. This
makes them again feel like their work overseas isn’t valued.
Management often doesn’t grasp that in many cases coming

2. back the employee’s home country is usually a downgrade in
responsibility then when they were overseas (Vilet, 2017).
Firms can mitigate these issues by being up front about what
expatriate employment means for the firm. There should be
training in place for employees to adjust to a new country and
the new circumstances of the organization the employee will be
joining. There should also be an upfront incentive that is clear
upon their return to their hope country if requirements are met
while oversees. From an outside perspective companies should
work to create social communities in their overseas
organizations to help spouses and families adjust to a new
environment and community as easily as possible. These factors
will allow employees to feel more comfortable and satisfied in
the long run which will ultimately increase employee loyalty
and create a stronger firm in the long run.
References
Hill, C. W., & Hult, G. T. (2019). International Business.
McGraw-Hill Education.
Vilet, J. (2017, August 22). Why Can't Organizations Retain
Their Expatriate Employees? Retrieved from

3. https://www.tlnt.com/why-cant-organizations-retain-their-
expatriate-employees/