Global Survey of Short-term International Assignment Policies

Are you using short-term assignments more frequently but finding them difficult to manage? Do you use a tracking system? Do you have the same policies in place for regular expatriate and short-term assignments?

TheMIGroup, ORC and ERC’s Global Survey of Short-term International Assignment Policies is the largest survey carried out on company policies for employees on short-term international assignments, which are typically from 3 to 12 months in duration. It contains data from 561 multinationals including the Americas (366), Europe/Middle East/Africa (135), and Asia (60). In total, participants send more than 30,000 employees on short-term assignments each year, representing 24 percent of their total international assignees.

Short-term and commuter assignments are becoming more popular and management of these assignments has clearly become a critical challenge for many multinationals. Keeping track of assignees can be difficult as individual business units often initiate assignment. Yet, human resources staff must determine the appropriate remuneration and services. To learn what major trend-setting organizations are doing, the survey posed these questions:

• Which departments within your company coordinate your short-term assignments?
• Are the terms and conditions for short-term assignments different from those of business trips and expatriate assignments?
• What is the driving need for short-term assignments?
• What are your company’s most significant problems in managing short-term assignments?

The survey results showed that:

• 89% of respondents had the human resources department handle these assignments
• 76% have different policies for short-term and regular expatriate assignments
• For nearly half of the participants (49%), the driving need was the lower costs of these assignments compared with normal expatriate packages; 38% cited management development programs
• Problems in managing these assignments ranged from coordinating the overall program (36%) to keeping track of assignments to avoid tax issues (54%); another 25% said it was establishing what (if any) financial incentives to provide

The survey report offers insight into the key reasons for sending employees on short-term assignments, the typical length of these assignments, the average number of short-term assignees by company, the key assignment locations, the number of trips home, who if anyone accompanies the assignee, support services, the trends in managing these assignments, and the major differences between multinationals.

While there are many options in handling short-term assignments, each company must determine what the most appropriate policy is for their assignees.

Get the survey that provides you with the latest trends in compensating employees on short-term assignments and can help you decide what policies suit your organization.

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