There is training or development opportunities that must be offered to the expatriate worker before any international assignment. International assignments are always complex in comparison to domestic assignment, because they entail moving to another nation as well as a different culture. Training is helpful in preparing the expatriate.
Training allows expatriates gain ability to appreciate, adapt, and appreciate other cultures as well as develop an international mindset (Briscoe, Schuler, & Claus, 2009). Training can be in two types, soft skills and hard skills training. Hard skills training involve technical areas, which are specific to a job, for example, virtuosity with programs of computer like Excel and PowerPoint. Whereas as hard skills training is certainly significant, the soft skills coaching may be more critical.
Before a worker move to another state, the worker must learn the basics of the language of that country. For example, conversational Spanish will have a person in building or creating a comfort level professionally and socially within South Africa (SA). Native citizens appreciate visitors who try to learn to use the nation’s native tongue (Brown, 2008).
Expatriate must be educated on their adopted nation’s culture. Cross-cultural training is valuable in offering accurate expectations and therefore establishes high chances of meeting or surpassing expatriate expectations. In addition, family unit should be treated as a reciprocally supportive team. Training all members of family is significant for their novel roles, because satisfaction of the worker’s spouse or partners has an important impact on workers effectiveness in foreign country (Briscoe, Schuler, & Claus, 2009).
Cultural assessment tools may be used to gain trained workers who may share their experiences. The cultural assessment resources may be utilized in establishing pools of candidates when evaluating high-potential novel hires. The use of cultural adaptability tool permits a firm identify definite skills required for every new hire (Brown, 2008).
References
Briscoe, D., Schuler, R., & Claus, L. (2009). International human resource management- Policies and practices for multinational enterprises. Oxon, Great Britain: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Brown, R. (2008). Dominant stressors on expatriate couples during international assignments. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19 (6), 1018-1034.
