Expatriate Paper

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Anastasia Karkacheva

Expatriate Paper

IHRM

12/17/2010

The purpose of this report is to describe my ability, preparation and qualification for completion of the expatriate assignment for Acme Cola in Paris, France. Besides my educational qualifications, I have been employed in the HR field for seven years and spent the last two years in HQ as a special assistant to the VP of HR. I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia and while I am a citizen of United States I feel a strong connection to my European roots. I have studied French for 3 years while I was acquiring my formal education and have always admired French culture and history. Therefore when this expatriation opportunity presented itself I felt as though my candidature should be acknowledged and among those considered.

In terms of economy France ranks fifth in the world considering its GDP of 2.66 trillion as of 2009 and it forecasted to grow between 1.3% and 1.7% by the end of 2010. It has a skilled workforce, substantial agricultural resources and a large industrial base. Government economic policy of France currently aims to promote domestic growth and investment while creating new jobs and reducing the high unemployment rate. In the first quarter of 2010 the unemployment rate in metropolitan France increased by 0.3% from 9.2% in 2009. The French government continues to control a large share of economic activity in the country, ranking the government spending at 55.6% of GDP despite the significant privatization and reform that France has gone through in the last 15 years. The government owns shares in corporations in a variety of sectors such as including banking, energy production and distribution, automobiles, transportation, and telecommunications.

Most of the domestic development in France is centralized around telecommunications, aerospace, and weapons sectors. However, France produces virtually no oil and therefore has relied heavily on the development of nuclear power, which accounts for about 80% of the country's electricity production.

France’s current president Nicolas Sarkozy assumed office in 2007 and soon passed a law allowing overtime work beyond the 35-hour work week to be exempted from income taxes and payroll taxes in order to encourage work and to increase work time. During elections he was tagged as “pro-American” and was entrusted by voters to carry out the reconnection between US and France. During his service, Sarkozy placed a great emphasis on improving the performance of France's economy through liberalization of labor markets, higher education, and taxes. In 2008 the National Assembly passed a series of bills introduced by the French government to modernize the economy and improve the labor market. Around 5% of the private sector work force in France consists of labor unions and those are mostly concentrated in the manufacturing, transportation, and heavy industry sectors. Most of the unions are affiliated with one of the competing national federations such as General Labor Confederation (CGT) which is communist-dominated, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) and the Workers' Force (FO).

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The French society is ethnically diverse and includes ethnic groups such as Celtic, Latin, Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, in addition to the Basque minorities in the south. Similarly to the United States, there is a great number of immigrants living in France, both legal and illegal: France has an estimate of 4.9 million foreign born immigrants, 2 million of which have acquired French citizenship. Religion in France is practiced freely and is considered a constitutional right. According to a January 2007 poll by the Catholic World News; 51% were identified as being Catholics, 31% were identified as being atheists or agnostic, 10% were identified to be from other religions or without opinion, 4% were identified as Muslims, 3% were identified as Protestants, and 1% as Jewish. The French political system does not recognize any particular religion and religious organizations do not intervene in policy making.

Hofstede’s dimensions recognize that France has a high uncertainty avoidance ranking indicating France’s concerns for rules, regulations, and issues with career security. The UAI accounts for the fact that the French strongly resist changes to their traditional beliefs and institutions. For example, religious symbols such as the Islamic veil and the Jewish Kippah are prohibited from being worn in public institutions in France. In addition to uncertainty avoidance, both individualism and power distance are also ranked fairly high, with masculinity ranking the lowest.

In order to be a successful expatriate of Acme Cola in France it is imperative to engage in a detailed personal situation preparation. While anti-US sentiment is not among causes for concern in France, it has a history of political assassinations, bombings, public demonstrations and terrorist attacks. As with traveling to any foreign country, there are certain precautions that are required for US citizens in order to maintain outmost safety. Those precautions may include reporting suspicious activity or unmarked packages in public places, keeping distance from public demonstrations and labor protests that can become violent and maintaining ongoing control over one’s immigration papers as loss of those may lead to indefinite consequences and prolonged proceedings.

I have traveled to Europe numerous times and have great experience practicing the above precautions very thoroughly. It would be my family’s pleasure to travel to Paris with me as my husband has never been to Europe and it would be both a delightful and an educational experience for him. As far as my daughter is concerned, while she is not even 1 years of age yet, she adapts to different surroundings very easily and the verbal stimulation from hearing a different language would further contribute to her development. Considering I will be traveling with my family and therefore changing our family’s status of two working adults to only one, my compensation would need to be appropriate. While dwelling conditions are not of outmost importance, housing needs to suit the basic needs of my family in terms of space and proximity to job location or transportation. Goods and services such as food, furnishing, and medical care would need to be accounted for in order to make this experience possible. Perhaps it would be useful to utilize the balance sheet approach in order to adequately determine my compensation for this assignment and minimize the standard of living change that my family and I might encounter upon transfer.

While I possess a wide variety of skills and experience that is required for this assignment and have paid preliminary visits to France I may require further training in order to perfect my abilities. As stated before I studied the French language in my high school years however that knowledge is limited to the standard conversational communication while French corporate language is not my strongest skill. Therefore I will need some language training in order to successfully communicate with the local employees. In my previous experience I have contributed a great deal to the labor relations within the HR department that I managed. However considering recent market changes in France, the involvement of government in corporate structure, and the attribution of labor unions to communist-dominated federations I may require more thorough pre-departure training. Considering the length of my stay I would suggest that my training includes field experiments, simulations, and sensitivity training.

I plan to be as successful at managing employee relations on my assignment as I have been in managing the HR department of Acme Cola in the United States. In order to avoid possible employee problems it is imperative to obtain adequate training and redeem appropriate compensation to be able approach situations in a successful and educated manner. Once my training and compensation requirements are fulfilled I will dedicate myself to applying my knowledge of those attributes pertaining to French culture in an attempt to recruit and retain competent and dedicated employees. Acknowledging the colossal impact that cultural differences have on communications I will make sure to approach the host country nationals in a manner that is respectful and recognizable to them.

In order to establish a positive first impression, I would schedule my first meeting that would include the employees that are directly below me and considering that those mostly consist of host country nationals I shall book that meeting in advance. Considering the country’s norms, I will schedule that meeting over lunch hour and offer food and wine as well as dessert and coffee. Even though it may oppose my personal norms and beliefs I will not judge an employees lateness to the meeting as his or her negative disposition towards me or the company as punctuality is treated casually in France. I will prepare a brief introduction of myself and the ideas that I will be implementing in a clear summary as the French are most receptive to low-key, rational presentations and arguments that clearly highlight benefits. Upon success of that meeting I will observe the trends of the employees that are lower on the organizational chart of Acme Cola; specifically I will observe their attitudes towards their job, their relationships with American employees and their key strengths and abilities. Since the French draw information based on appearances, I will make sure to appear conservative and dress simply but elegant. I will also make sure that my ability to speak French is superb due to my training and use it primarily to communicate with the local employees in order to build a strong relationship based on mutual understanding.

Bearing in mind France’s high Uncertainty Avoidance Index in the Hofstede’s dimensions, I find it peculiar that my predecessor had faced issues with high turnover and absenteeism. According to Hofstede, such index implies the county nationals’ need for strict rules and regulations and the intolerance of opinions differing from their own. In order to use this statistic to my advantage at the Acme Cola plant in Paris, I shall develop a strict attendance policy at the plant which will require a documented notice for each workday missed by an employee outside of personal, vacation and sick days allowed. This initiative would utilize the locals’ need for adherence to strict rules and regulations and would also reduce the number of unexpected absences. While our company features a compensation program that does not offer rewards for team performance, I would suggest introducing a performance-based compensation for individual employees in the French plant of Acme Cola. Since France has a rather high Individualism index according to Hofstede it would be best to concentrate on each employee individually and offer regular performance evaluations which would in turn conduct further incentives on employee’s compensation. Considering the law that the French president Nicolas Sorkazy has passed regarding the tax-free overtime provision, it would be in the employee’s interest to work additional hours to improve performance and in turn increase the performance of our company overall. This compensation initiative should be beneficial for both, the company and the employee, as while the employee’s motivation and output is increased, the company’s tax record remains unaffected. Finally, in order to minimize the conflict between the host country and American employees I would suggest a specific training that would be required for American candidates to be employed in France. Considering that French are extremely proud of their language and regard it as a symbol of the culture itself, this training program would include language training as well as education in French cultural norms. Additionally I would engage the potential employees in role playing using different possible scenarios to determine the underlying causes for potential problems in the diverse workplace. In order to be considered for a position in the French plant, the candidate should display willingness to accept diversity, ability to adapt to cultural shock and an overall cross-cultural suitability.

It is apparent that I have all of the required experience to be qualified for this assignment as an expatriate on behalf of Acme Cola in Paris, France. In addition to my experience and personal skills I have also completed extensive background research on the history, political and economical conditions of the country of France as well as informed myself with regards to French culture and norms. As an HR professional I am eager to utilize my skills and abilities to improve the performance of the French plant by implementing my innovative ideas and initiatives. I am also very enthusiastic about applying my knowledge of French culture to the situations at hand and extending my awareness even further.