The classic expatriate wife happily accompanied her husband to wherever his company sent him and accepted the life she found there as a fait accompli. If she could not work, she filled in her time by playing bridge and doing charitable works. This made organising foreign postings very easy for the companies involved.

But these days partners, whether women or men, are less pliable and the rise of the dual career couple is becoming ever more an issue for multinationals. Similarly countries that forbid spouses from working may be discouraging foreign investment especially in the high-tech and scientific sectors.

The new trend has not yet fully shown up in the figures. Currently men account for 82% of expatriate workers and only 16% of spouses, both male and female, are employed during any expatriate assignment according to Global Relocation Trends 2003/2004 published by GMAC Global Relocation Services. However, this last figure is up from 13% previously due to the rise of the dual career couple.

Corporates take note

According to Kathleen van der Wilk-Carlton, secretary and board member of Permits Foundation – an international initiative to promote the improvement of work permit regulations for the spouses of expatriate employees – there is a large body of evidence showing that this issue has gained prominence in the corporate world and will continue to do so as a majority of businesses expect the need for a mobile workforce to increase over the next five years.

It is acknowledged that one of the key factors affecting the success of an overseas assignment is spouse/partner satisfaction. The GMAC report reveals that participating companies put the top reasons for assignment refusal as family concerns (47%), career aspirations (14%), compensation (13%) and spouse’s careers (10%). A recent Landwell/PricewaterhouseCoopers survey identifies the dual career issue as a significant hurdle in the management of expatriate programmes, with 59% of participants citing it is as one of the main reasons for assignment refusal.

It is clear, therefore, that businesses have to take into account the private aspirations of employees and their families when forming their expatriate programmes. The opportunities for an employee resulting from an international assignment can be outweighed by the detrimental impact of a career dislocation for the partner.

The GMAC survey also includes comments from companies, quoting: “For complete job success in the host country, the family must also be successful in being comfortable and happy.” If not, it could have a significant impact on the bottom line, according to the US Chamber of Commerce: “The costs of refused or failed assignments are substantial. Foremost, the company may have to forego sending the most qualified person abroad.”

It is certainly in a company’s interest to ensure that the spouse or partner of its employee can continue his or her career if desired. This is all the more relevant in an increasingly globalised world where according to Dr Michael Dickmann, director of the Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation, all trends indicate that expatriation of workers is increasing as the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Work permits

Although it is a widely acknowledged issue within multinationals – and many of them do provide comprehensive programmes helping spouses – the main problem lies with work permit procedures which are different within each country. It is well documented that a ‘soft issue’ such as this does have a marginal influence on where multinationals choose to locate certain operations.

“It does indeed play a role in situations where staff need to be recruited internationally and families will be requested to relocate. This is frequently the case for activities where highly qualified or experienced staff form an important part of the workforce such as headquarters and research and development centres,” says Roel Spee of the location consultancy IBM-Plant Location International.

“In this case a variety of ‘quality of life’ factors are important, which relate to the whole family, not just the employee that needs to relocate to the new locations. Other factors in this respect are: international schools, cultural and recreational attractiveness of the location, financial attractiveness such as high salaries and/or attractive expatriate taxation regulations, international communities and infrastructure,” adds Mr Spee.

Ms van der Wilk-Carlton also emphasises: “Providing open work authorisation for accompanying partners is very important in attracting the highly qualified staff and talent that goes hand in hand with international trade and investment.”

Encouraging FDI

Siobhan Cummins, managing director of ORC, an international human resources consultancy and founding member of Permits Foundation, states: “If countries want to increase inward investment, then they must provide work for the spouses. They are not going to take away jobs and do not affect the local employment market.” Very often, she adds, they will bring in new skills, exchange experiences, train local staff and leave after two to fours years.

In 2002, the government in Canada expanded its permits to cover spouse permits for foreign workers in all sectors when previously it had just applied to the high-tech sector. Soren Harbel, former general manager of international investment, ministry of economic development and trade, Ontario views it as “a competitive advantage in attracting global companies and talented workers”.

The French government which recently made a concerted effort to improve its investment environment by cutting taxes and bureaucracy, has also been looking into altering the legislation for spouse visas with the changes hopefully coming into effect this year.

It is an issue, according to Ms van der Wilk-Carlton, that has really gained prominence in the last 10 years in step with globalisation. Although a majority of multinationals employ less than 5% expatriate staff relative to their total number of employees, it is an important enough issue for most of the largest companies to join the Permits Foundation and expect results. “The numbers are sufficiently small for solutions to be found,” says Mrs van der Wilk-Carlton. She adds that this is why so many multinationals have added their support to the campaign and have sponsored the Permits Foundation.

The initiative, which was taken by Shell and ORC and is run out of the Shell International’s headquarters in The Hague in the Netherlands, draws support from a broad base of companies and international organisations across a wide range of business sectors and countries of origin. There are over 20 companies working together including Diageo, Ikea, ICI and British Airways. Patrons of the organisation include Henrich von Pierer, president and CEO of Siemens, and Unilever’s Ernst Baumann, board member and human resources director and Andr van Heemstra, board member and personnel director.

The group works together by making representations to host governments, raising awareness and encouraging debate, coordinating support from local networks and relevant organisations and sharing information. Most recently support has been added by HSBC and the UN.

Pressure on US

The most notable achievement of the Permits Foundation is the successful lobbying of the US government to relax its regulations on spouse work permits. The GMAC survey indicates that human resource administrators in multinationals and expatriates find the work permit process in the US particularly arduous and Ms van der Wilk-Carlton sees this change in legislation as a significant success.

“Originally the US government wanted to only grant spouse permits on a reciprocal basis so countries which allowed US spouses to work would be allowed the same privileges. Permits explained that this would be a difficult arrangement as expatriates represent a whole range of nationalities,” she says. The legislation was changed to allow the spouses of intracompany transferees on L-1 and E-1 and E-2 visas to apply for employment.

The Permits Foundation collaborated with US based group, Multinational Employers for Working Spouses (MEWS) – which works alongside American multinationals such as Motorola, Hewlett Packard and Kodak – in lobbying the US government and other governments on the issue of spouse visas.

Lynn Shotwell, legal counsel and director of government relations for the American Council on International Personnel, who has been involved with the issue for over 10 years emphasises that the coalition is working towards extending these permit provisions to newly hired employees from abroad. This is an area that is particularly important when it comes to the mobility of knowledge workers.

UK takes the lead

Ms Shotwell also points out that the Australian government was very active in influencing the decision of the US government but the UK is seen as the most progressive country. “The UK has long been a model of best practice and a few other countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US have followed more recently. We [the Permits Foundation] continue to work on other countries in Europe, for example, the Netherlands and Germany. We have also started to develop our networks in Asia and other countries.”

Mr Spee say that “one should not overestimate this issue as an individual factor”, particularly when a company is making a location decision. However, Ms Cummins says that it cannot be ignored by companies and governments, as more women join the expatriate work force and dual careers become increasingly common. “It used to be that the spouse, usually a woman, would settle down and have children once on assignment. The reality of the situation nowadays is that spouses actually want to work and will not forsake their career.”