Answer the following with a page length of 3 pages. Minimum of 4 sources. You should follow the APA format
1. Discuss major points in the case
2. What lessons can be gleaned from the experiences that occurred with the management of expatriate employees at AstraZeneca?
3. What could have been done better?
The paper must discuss all the aspects above. No plagiarism is accepted.
Over the years, AstraZeneca Plc (AstraZeneca) has developed a strong reputation for its expatriatemanagement practices. Expatriate management at AstraZeneca went beyond tackling issuessuch as compensation, housing, issues related to the spouse’s career abroad, etc. It also took careto ensure that employees on international assignment were able to adapt well to the new environmentand achieve a work/life balance. With the global economic situation continuing to be grim,AstraZeneca also began placing emphasis on a “more thoughtful planning and selection process”of candidates for international assignmentsAstraZeneca is the world’s fifth-largest pharmaceutical company by global sales. It isheadquartered in London, UK and Södertälje, Sweden. For the year 2008, AstraZeneca’srevenues were US$31.6 billion and it employed around 66,000 employees. As of 2009,AstraZeneca had around 350 employees working on international assignments in 140 countriesworldwide. These were employees who were on short-term, long-term, or commuter assignments.
According to Ashley Daly (Daly), senior manager of international assignmentsfor AstraZeneca in the U.S., the company’s employees were mainly concentrated in Belgium,the U.S., and the UK, but they “also have a significant presence in the Asia-Pacific and LatinAmerica regions.”AstraZeneca’s policy stipulates that for any international assignment, therehad to be a business rationale. The company saw to it that the costs involved were acceptable,and that the career management of the employee during the assignment was consistent withpersonal development goals as well as business needs. The contractual arrangements for theassignment were also centrally managed. “From the outset, if there is not a clear sense of howthe international assignment experience can be applied at the end of the assignment term—atleast in broad terms—the business should strongly consider whether an international assignment should even move forward,” said Daly.
Once an assignment offer was made to a potential expat, AstraZeneca paired them up with an international assignment manager (“IA manager”), who briefed them on company policy and opportunities for cultural and language training. Before leaving for their international assignment, employees were provided training in a workshop that focused on relevant issues (such as leaving the destination location and returning back to the home country). The expats
were given information about the culture of the destination country—particularly differences with the home country—as well as social considerations and do’s and don’ts. If necessary, the employee and his/her spouse were given training in the local language. TessiRomell (Romell),research and development projects and HR effectiveness leader at AstraZeneca, said that the company also helped connect new expats with those who had already served in that location. Sometimes, follow-up workshops were held in the host country. Once on assignment, expats stayed in touch with their IA manager in addition to the manager they reported back to in the home country. AstraZeneca saw to it that expats were given the necessary flexibility required for them to achieve a work/life balance. “AstraZeneca is really good at allowing people to managetheir own time and being aware that we are working across different time zones. It’s alwayssomething that we try to take into consideration so we don’t have people [taking care of workmatters] in the middle of the night,” said Romell.With AstraZeneca taking various initiatives on this front, there were few complaints aboutwork/life balance among the company’s expat population. Romell attributed this to the mechanismsthe company had put in place to prepare the employees for life in a different country. “It’s acombination of things that the company is doing and having a culture that is supportive of work/life balance, as well as encouraging individuals themselves to think about their own work/life balance,” she said. Experts too felt that the practices followed by AstraZeneca, such as preparingthe employees for international assignments, providing them with support, and assigning IAmanagers, were effective. They lauded AstraZeneca’s practices, which were in contrast to those ofmany companies that rushed employees to foreign assignments without adequate support. ChrisBuckley, manager of international operations for St. Louis-based Impact Group Inc., pointed outthat the expats knew that the organization was spending a lot of money on them and they mightbe wary about coming up with any complaints regarding their new assignment with their boss. Insuch a scenario, contact with the IA manager was useful, as it could encourage them to open up.
With the economic situation around the globe continuing to be grim, experts felt that organizationswould be forced to take a second look at the costs associated with international staffing.Some felt that organizations would send fewer people on international assignments, or allot themto shorter terms abroad. They even predicted that the high compensation and benefits generallyassociated with foreign assignments could also see cuts. While AstraZeneca had also takenmeasures to cut costs (specifically tax costs) by sending employees on short-term assignments,Daly noted that this was not always possible. When the expat had a family and was being postedfor a longer term, Daly pointed out that some of the elements of AstraZeneca’s expat packages,such as comprehensive destination support and educational counseling for expatriate children,played a critical role in ensuring the employee’s productivity. These supports ensured that theexpatriate family was able to settle down in the host country. Not providing them could result inemployees not being able to focus on their new job, putting the company’s investment at risk.So, the company was not looking at this issue in terms of expenditures alone. The company alsodid not have any plans to decrease the number of its staff deployed internationally. According toDaly, “Our recent focus has been less on reducing numbers of international assignees and moreon making the right decisions about who goes on assignment; why they go; and perhaps mostimportant, how the skills and experience gained abroad will be leveraged in their next role, postassignment.”