The Importance of Training and Development Programs for Expatriate Employees

The Importance of Training and Development Programs for Expatriate Employees

Cahyo Putra Wibowo

Management, Faculty of Economics, Universitas Islam Indonesia

cahyoputrawibowo@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Training plays an important role for the success of expatriate employees in completing their international assignments. However, there is still top management in some MNCs who think that training for expatriate is unnecessary to give. Therefore, the writer wants to explore the importance of training for expatriate employees and explore the problems that could possibly arise if a company does not give any training for its expatriate employees. This paper used some journals as the basis in order to present some theory from experts and also could strongly support the arguments and give accurate information to the reader. Based on the result, the writer found that training is very influential in improving the performance of expatriate employees. Additionally, the writer also found that expatriates could return home prematurely due to the lack of training provided by the company so that employees cannot adapt to the new culture.

Keywords: training and development, expatriate, cross-cultural training, job performance

INTRODUCTION

The role of human resource is very important in a company. Human resource is one of the factors which directly involves in running the company and has the important role in increasing the productivity of the company in order to reach its vision and mission. Human resource is very important because if the resource in a company is not good then the company will be difficult to achieve the corporate goals. In addition, if the quantity of human resource is not accompanied by a good quality, then it will be the burden of the organization. To improve the quality, a company needs to give training and development for its employees in order to improve their performance. The terms of training and development are quiet familiar in the field of work in the company, organization, and institution. It can be assumed that training and development of human resources are essential for the workforce to work more in control and better on the job which is held or will be held in the future.

Meanwhile, MNCs nowadays become more widespread. However, there are some problems that the MNCs still don't have accomplished. First, is about how to have successful employees. Second, the most important thing is about how to train the employees in order to make them a useful and successful resource of the company. MNCs sent their employees in a foreign country in order to undertake international assignment more than ever before, which possible that the number of expatriate will continue to increase in the future. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the key to decrease and remove such expatriates’ failures.

Based on a brief introduction above, the problems that will be discussed in this paper are how important training and development programs for expatriate employees and what are the problems that arise if company do not give any training for its expatriate employees. Moreover, the objectives of this paper are to know how important the training programs for expatriate employees and to know the problems that will arise if expatriate employees do not receive any training by the company.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Expatriate

According to Dowling et al. (2013, p. 3), expatriate is an employee who is working and temporarily residing in a foreign company. Many firms prefer call it as international assignees. Generally, expatriates can also be used to develop international capabilities within the organization. Expatriates who have broader experiences can be the key to develop the company globally.

Černek & Maková (n.d.) quoted the basic types of expatriates from Briscoe (1995). The first type of expatriate is traditional expatriate. It is characterized as an experienced older employee who is selected and sent abroad on the basis of their professional skill or knowledge. These employees are typically sent for one year to five years. Second type is a young and inexperienced expatriate who is sent to the host country to require necessary work experience, usually for a period of six months to five years. The third type is temporary expatriate who is sent abroad for less than one year. Another type is expatriate trainee who is sent over to foreign affiliates for particular training, learning and integration into multinational companies. A specific form is virtual expatriate. It is a manager who is responsible for foreign affairs in the office, but in fact he remains attendant in the home country. This manager controls specific foreign affairs through frequent telephone calls and video-conferencing.

Training and Development

Training and development are one of the imperatives of human resource management as it can improve performance at individual, collegial and organizational levels (Tahir et al., 2004). Training and development are planned learning experiences which teach employees how to perform current and future jobs more effectively. Sims (2002) cited in Tahir et al. (2004), training focuses on present jobs while development prepares employees for possible future jobs. Basically, the objective of training and development is to contribute to the organization's overall goal.

Tahir et al. (2004) mentioned that training and development is beneficial not only for the organization itself but also to the individual employees. Tahir et al. (2004) also quoted from Sims (1990) that training and development leads to improve profitability and positive attitudes toward profit orientation, improves the job knowledge and skills at all levels of the organization, improves the morale of the workforce and helps the employees identify with organizational goals. On the other hand, training and development is beneficial for individual employees through helping them make better decisions and effective problem solving, helping an employee a person handle stress, tension, frustration, and conflict, increasing job satisfaction and recognition and moving the person toward personal goals while improving interaction skills.

Cross-cultural Training

Cross-cultural training is a great medium to facilitate the development and to refine the competencies that expatriate managers need to successfully work in a foreign country. Porter and Tansky (1999) cited in Ghafoor et al. (2011) that training develops expatriate‘s learning orientation and helps them to understand the culture of overseas. An important component of cross cultural training is to provide the expatriate with a realistic preview of what is expected in the overseas position (Tung, 1998).  Ko & Yang (2011) quoted from Caligiuri, Lazarova, and Tarique (2005) that the aim of cross-cultural training is to help employees to feel comfortable living and working in a host country. Therefore, enhancing their cross-cultural adjustment and strengthening their ability to understand and appreciate multiple cultural perspectives are important.