MGT472-01 SPRING 2017 Expatriate Management at AstraZeneca Plc 1- Critically analyze AstraZeneca expatriate management practices. What AstraZeneca did well: • Decision based on solid business rationale • Once the offer was made, employee paired up with international assignment manager. • Workshop training before the employee embarked on international assignment: social differences, language training. • Connected with employees who had already served in the destination country • Significant follow up workshops • Healthy work/life balance. shortfalls were: • Amid economic downturn, there was as shift towards more short- term assignments which led to complications. • Reductions in relocation packages may have led to reductions in productivity levels. • Some suggest that the positive feedback form international assignees may be misleading given they understand the AstraZeneca investment in them. 2- Surveys show that most expats report feeling strain of managing the demands of work and home while adjusting to the foreign environment, leading to more anxieties at home and at the workplace. What steps can an organization take to mitigate this? The steps that an organization can take to mitigate this are: • Prepare the expat for international assignments before they leave through workshops, training and providing them with information about their new home country. • Provide support both before and while the expat is on their international assignment. • Allow adequate time to prepare and send their expat to their new location. • Create packages to suit the individual-dependent on if they have spouses or children. • Provide reasonable compensation for their move. • Give the expat flexibility in order for them to achieve a better work/life balance. • Show empathy for the difficulties the expat faces while being on an international assignment. 3- What decision related to expatriates can organizations take to maximize the benefits to the company despite the economic downturn? Do you think a company that paid more careful attention to selection could further boost its chances of success? AstraZeneca have focused measures on cutting costs because of the ongoing economic recession. Originally, one way AstraZeneca did this was to send employees on short-term assignments. This would provide AstraZeneca the opportunity to spend less money on each expat creating less of an investment in them if something doesn’t work out, however this can cause problems for AstraZeneca. Instead, AstraZeneca’s senior manager of international assignments Ashley Daly stated, “Our recent focus has been less on reducing numbers of international assignees and more on making the right decisions about who goes on assignment.” In order to cut costs in a more efficient way, AstraZeneca can use the Internet to connect people for business decisions via webcams and save money instead of sending someone abroad. The downside however to doing this comes from the lack of cultural, language, and face-to-face experiences. If a company were to pay more careful attention to selection of employees would need to focus on retaining the employees. Expatriates are often not satisfied with compensation packages or, in regard to AstraZeneca; employees aren’t in countries for that long so the change becomes extremely rushed. If the company provided employees with enough resources and knowledge before leaving, and compensation for doing so, then the chances of overall success will definitely increase dramatically.
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