Instead, it is up to the repatriate to self-manage the next steps in their careers within the company to a very significant degree, although most corporate employees are unclear about how to do this effectively. Defining Success Factors for Assignments Because most companies typically do not rigorously construct expectations for expatriates on assignment prior to relocation, it is difficult to assess whether or not the expatriate has achieved his or her business goals. Investment in expatriation can be measured in terms of an employee's continuing contribution to the organization as well as from a perspective of performance during the assignment. Companies that do not provide expatriates with repatriation support may find that large numbers of expatriates leave their organizations within one to two years of their return home. This is of course a poor return on the financial and business investments that have been made in the employee.
Former expatriates are also likely to move to jobs with competing firms in the same field.
Therefore, companies that lose their repatriates have unwittingly financed and trained the talent pool of their competition. When expatriates are asked prior to assignment about what they anticipate their responsibilities will be during their international assignments, they typically have a general sense of what they are expected to do and who they are expected to work with. Only rarely do they have a clear picture of how their performance abroad will be evaluated, and how their performance abroad will relate to the position that they move into when they repatriate. This creates a challenge for the expatriate who needs to make business decisions about competing demands within the business or between the local business and the home office. Recently an expatriate was about to go abroad to manage two new corporate acquisitions in the United Kingdom.