World Business

More multinationals, including Glaxo, are sending executives overseas. Here’s how they help families adjust to a new countrified

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Dutchman Herman front Barneveld always wanted to travel. In fact, the 44-year-old CFO of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) eagerly told human resources at Glaxo’s Netherlands office that he would be more than willing to relocate. Canada was first on his list because of the contentment of transition: He says the country is similar to Europe, except different enough to make the relocation exciting. Also, he felt Canada’s booming pharma market would also put van Barneveld in a other thing dynamic environment. Brazil and Italy were next on his list.

The explosion of the global economy resources companies are sending more execs abroad for longer periods, rather than merely finding and training new execs within those countries. With this surge of exec expatriates (a GMAC Global Relocation Trends survey reported that 68% of multinational companies expected any increased expat population in 2008) comes increased pressure on companies to help employees arrange to new countries. The challenges discursive power from figuring out in quest of what cause to help execs acclimate themselves to very greatly different cultures to ensuring stable productivity levels.

For his influence, one of van Barneveld’s stipulations was that his family conduce the move through him. “Without my family, I am not able to perform,” he says. And he’s not without another: A recent study conducted on Marriott Executive Apartments’ behalf by CfK Custom Research North America found that 28% of the surveyed executives stationed abroad cited “staying connected to friends and family” as a major concern.

The biggest issue for van Barneveld, though, was language. Even the whip from languages like English and Dutch (which allotment more similarities than, say, English and Japanese) can be tough. His three children spoke nary a word of English before the clan’s move across the pond, a source of stress not only because of the kids, but concerning van Barneveld and his wife as well. So fore-rank Barneveld started going in to work at the opening of day to free up his afternoons to spend with the kids, a maneuver Glaxo encouraged. “The company was very supportive, especially in a situation where burnout is very possible,” he says.

Another Glaxo expat, Steve Nechelput, a vice-president for monetary theory, relocated from Britain to Mexico in 1996 with his partner and 1-year-old son. The company paid for power classes for Nechelput and his wife, though he says his wife proved much more adept than he. After five years in Mexico, Glaxo then set up Nechelput and his family in Philadelphia for a six-year stint.

The U.S., incidentally, was harder to rectify to than any of the other countries Nechelput has lived in. “We underestimated the cultural differences,” he says. “We didn’t suitably prepare ourselves, such it took much longer for us to mesh with the community.” Part of the difficulty stemmed from a lack of fellow British ex-pats in the area, but everyday processes like getting a Social Security number and passing a driving trial also presented challenges. The Nechelputs are very lately two years into a three-year residency in Singapore. The tribe has adjusted in a proper manner—Nechelput says the kids are level doing better in school than they did anywhere other.

Glaxo put van Barneveld and his line of ancestors through a counseling program both control and after the move, with notification on transitioning from one place of traffic to another and a daylong workshop prepping the family for the cultural differences and similarities.

Nechelput says the most helpful conflict the company took was not in the pre-move stages, however rather in providing household leave (which allows the family to return to Britain once a year) and with educational comfort during these extended tours. “My wife is currently studying hypnosis,” Nechelput says. “Educational allowances are great, since she can now proceed along areas of study she couldn’t prior to.”

Both covered wagon Barneveld and Nechelput moved by children, which they both assume was trickier than just moving with a spouse would have been. Van Barneveld played up the Canadian winters to his ski- and skate-loving kids. Nechelput had to answer this tough question from one of his daughters: Was it the company that was forcing their family to move, or was it him? It was a question that made Nechelput think, but whether his answer pleased his daughter or not, he did eventually come to a arrangement: “It was me.”