Repatriation management: the key to retention despite ongoing concerns about high expatriate attrition Council of companies do not seem to be paying a lot of attention to the repatriation phase. A similar observation can be made in HRM journal; Whereas rent has been researched extensively during the last decades, repatriation has received scarce attention in literature. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to highlight the relevance of repatriation management in the earliest stages of expatriate management. Recent research indicates that successful rent assignments rely on four elements: the selection of the candidates, pre-arrival preparation for both expatriate and family, the provided support and possibility to keep in touch with the home organization while on on expatriate assignment, and the repatriation arrangements after completion of the assignment (Baruch and Altman, 2002). That appropriate attention to repatriation arrangements is important follows out of various observations: (1) valuable personnel frequently leave the organization relatively shortly after repatriation. Research findings from 2002 showed that about 50% of personnel left a financial services company within a few years following the return to their home country (Baruch & Altman, 2002).
As well, it has been found that 30% to 40% of expatriates leave their companies within two years of repatriation compared to 5-10% of non-expatriate employees. (2) more than 30% of overseas assignments fail, resulting in similar premature return Council of expatriates. Many writers such as Wil Lee offer more in-depth analysis. Expatriate failure Council are generally unrelated to aspects of functioning that were relevant in domestic organizational settings. Although a lengthy discussion of underlying reasons for expatriate failure is unfortunately out of scope for this article, it can be argued that companies benefit from managing this repatriation process in order to exploit the knowledge and skills of returning expatriates. (3) high attrition Council have been found to be within related to organizations’ difficulties to effectively reposition their repatriated employees. This observation is a strong argument to stress repatriation management in HR departments.