HRM textbook

594 PART 5 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
negotiate better benefits for laid off employees. 106 Developments like these had already
prompted employers to take steps to protect their expat and foreign employees better,
for instance, evacuation plans to get employees to safety, if that becomes necessary.
TAKING PROTECTIVE MEASURES Legally, employers have a duty of care for
protecting international assignees and their dependents and international business
travelers. 107 Employers are doing so in a variety of ways. Many employers purchase
intelligence services for monitoring potential terrorist threats abroad. The head of
one intelligence firm estimates such services as costing $6,000 $10,000 per year. 108
Many employers retain crisis management teams services. They then call on these
teams, for instance, when criminal elements kidnap one of their managers. As one
insurance executive puts it, When you have a specialist, there s a better chance to
get the person back. 109
Retaining risk management companies ahead of time can prove valuable in a volatile
world. For example, when the protests erupted in Egypt in February 2011, Medex Global
Solutions evacuated more than 500 client employees from Egypt, and had already been
advising their employer clients about the possibilities for political unrest. 110
KIDNAPPING AND RANSOM (K&R) INSURANCE Hiring crisis teams and
paying ransoms can be prohibitively expensive for all but the largest firms, so many
employers buy kidnapping and ransom (K&R) insurance. Various events may trigger
payments under such policies. The obvious ones are kidnapping (for instance, the
employee is a hostage until the employer pays a ransom), extortion (threatening bodily
harm), and detention (holding an employee without any ransom demand).
The insurance typically covers several costs associated with kidnappings, abductions,
or extortion. These costs might include hiring a crisis team, the actual cost of the
ransom payment to the kidnappers or extortionists, insuring the ransom money
in transit, legal expenses, and employee death or dismemberment. 111
Keeping business travelers out of crime s way is a specialty all its own, but suggestions
here include the following. 112
* Provide expatriates with general training about traveling, living abroad, and the
destination, so they re more oriented when they arrive.
* Tell them not to draw attention to the fact that they re Americans by wearing
flag emblems, for instance.
* Have travelers arrive at airports as close to departure time as possible and wait in
areas away from the main flow of traffic.
* Equip the expatriate s car and home with security systems.
* Tell employees to vary their departure and arrival times and take different routes
to and from work.
* Keep employees current on crime and other problems by regularly checking the
State Department s travel advisory service (click on Country Specific Information
at http://travel.state.gov/).
* Advise employees to remain confident at all times: Body language can attract
perpetrators, and those who look like victims often become victimized. 113
Repatriation: Problems and Solutions
One of the most worrisome facts about sending employees abroad is that 40% to 60%
of them will probably quit within 3 years of returning home. 114 Given the investment
the employer makes in training and sending these high-potential people abroad, it
makes sense to try to make sure they stay with the firm. For this, formal repatriation
programs can be useful. 115 One study found that about 5% of returning employees
resigned if their firms had formal repatriation programs, while about 22% of those left
if their firms had no such programs. 116
Probably the simplest thing the employer can do to improve repatriates retention
is to value their experience more highly. As one returnee put it: My company was,