Global Assignments:Pre-departure Training Program

Table of Contents

Global Assignments:1

Pre-departure Training Program1

Introduction3

The Training Program4

Session A: selection and expectations5

Part A: Country Briefing5

Part B Candidate Assessment Program6

Session B: Preparing expatriates and their families10

Part A (1 hour): Surviving culture shock10

Part B (1 hour): Practical problems12

Conclusions and Wrap-up13

Session C: Relocation and repatriation13

Part A (30 mins) Prepare the employee and family for relocation13

Part B (1 hour) Repatriation programme15

Part C (30 minutes): Three Case Studies in Point17

Appendices20

Session B Appendices20

1.Case study for Section A20

2.Role playing game for Section A21

3.Case study for Section B23

4.Simulation game for Section B24

Session C Appendix - PowerPoint Presentation26

Introduction

Global assignment of managers has been a traditional method of operating far flung commercial empires since the days of Robert Clive and the British East India Company. The importance of transferring knowledge, upskilling remote or local managers and instilling best practice throughout a multinational organization has long been recognized as a source of competitive advantage for those firms able to expand successfully. The failure of rate of global assignments, and indeed international expansion, has throughout history been nothing less than fantastic. The vast majority of firms have been unable to master operations across multiple cultures, political systems or levels of economic development. The need to simply find out what is going on has, in the past, been the major motivator for global assignment. The advent of modern communication and travel technology has arguably reduced the need for "inspection" style assignments; however this role has been upgraded to the "mentoring" vocation of international managers whose primary purpose is to transfer knowledge. The plethora of technological marvels that enable cooperative endeavor expanding around the globe do little to change the fact that knowledge is "person bound" - acquired overtime through...