Well, this industry never ceases to surprise me. I would have thought that, given the recession, employers would be cutting back on costly overseas assignments (and the also expensive training and communication for workers and families that go along with them).
However, new numbers from KPMG show that although companies are making cost-saving adjustments to their international assignment programs during the economic downturn, but continued to send assignees overseas.
According to the 470 HR execs surveyed, companies are implementing short-term assignments (79%) and even permanent transfers (45%), but not keeping employees stateside altogether. Further, global employers are using an “efficient purchaser index” to determine COLA adjustments – a sliding scale measurement of the ratio of the cost-of-living between the home and host locations (31%), which assumes that an experienced assignee is a “smart shopper” and is able to purchase goods and services more economically than the average (newly arrived) assignee.
For all their cost-cutting though, it’s important for employers to remember that expats still are expensive, and that they need to measure overseas programs effectively.
“As organizations continue to utilize international assignments, they also need to make sure there is a mechanism in place to measure how these assignments provide long-term benefits to the organization,” says Ben Garfunkel, national partner at KPMG.
