Two Chaps - Many Cultures

Planning Your Return: 6 Big Tips for Expats Returning Home

• Christian Höferle and Brett Parry • Season 2 • Episode 20

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In this episode, we dive into the unique challenges expats face when returning to their home country after an international work assignment. We’ll explore why early planning is essential to make the transition smoother and how having a slush fund can help bridge the gap during potentially longer periods without predictable income. We'll also discuss the changing cost of living — what might have shifted while you were away — and why it's crucial to broaden your perspective on career opportunities, possibly even considering a different path. We’ll tackle the question, “Will anyone care?”, addressing the lack of understanding around your experiences and the importance of communicating why your time abroad matters.

Finally, we’ll reflect on what “home” might mean to you now and how your new global perspective will likely influence how you see your old surroundings.
Tune in to gain insights and strategies for navigating this complex, often emotional, journey back home.

𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙨 – 𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨 is the world’s #1 show on the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Höferle and Brett Parry ponder culture in short bursts and deep dives, featuring your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more great content: https://www.youtube.com/@TwoChapsManyCultures

Visit https://theculturemastery.com/ for more information about the skills for working in a global context.

The music on this episode is provided courtesy of Sepalot.
“Duum Diip” - Artist: Sepalot - Label: Eskapaden - Copyright control



Speaker 1:

In a wonderful old song by a gentleman by the name of John McCormick, went keep the home fires burning. It was designed to inspire the people at home and the people that went away to know that back home there was a warmth and a comfort that they could expect if they made it through the hell of war. Well, we're not talking about war today. We're talking about just a simple expat assignment where you might leave and go overseas for a period of time and the importance of maybe keeping those home fires burning and not letting them burn you when you get home. Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to 2Chap's Many Cultures. In an increasingly globally connected world, it is vital to possess the essential skills of cultural intelligence. Listen along as we present the topics, tips and strategies you can use to develop the power of cultural understanding in your personal and professional life. Here are your hosts Christian Huffala and Brett Parry.

Speaker 3:

Christian Huffler and Brett Parry. Welcome back everybody to Two Chaps Mini Culture, the number one show on culture and business and how the two things connect. The show where too much culture is barely enough. This is Brett and Christian. Yeah, those two chaps. So while you're here, make sure you click on that bell-shaped icon and make sure to subscribe to this program. You will get notified when there's a new episode coming out, like this one, and have a good time and share our knowledge, or what we consider to be knowledge, and you don't have to look at us. So it's a podcast without the video. You can get that on Spotify and on all the other premier streaming platforms, so make sure you subscribe to the one that fits your needs best. And today we're talking about returning home from an assignment. What's the technical term for people who return back home from a foreign assignment?

Speaker 1:

Repatriates Repatriation Repats.

Speaker 3:

Yes, hey, repat, yeah, when you repatriate, when you go back to your homeland after you've been gone a while, there is a few things you want to consider. And have you done that, brad? Have you returned home from time?

Speaker 1:

abroad? I have not. After 24 years almost, I'm still to do that process process. However, I've worked with a lot of people and they are sometimes surprised at the advice we give them as to when to prepare or when to start thinking about going home. When might you think that is, and that's what we're talking about today. It might surprise you whether we're talking about the six tips or what we consider, maybe the six tips. It's not exhaustive. It is a list that we have cobbled together in the two of our loosely matched brains, in which we will bloviate about what we think you should prepare for or be ready for, and one of them, the first one, is when to prepare. Well, most people might think under the madness of planning to go away and get to your new host destination and actually go through the process of doing your assignment, working, settling in, getting your family to enjoy the experience. Then, when do you actually think about pointing your boat home? Well, we actually say it should be probably pretty soon after the day that you leave.

Speaker 3:

And that sounds surprising to a lot of people. Why might that be, mate? I would even say, point your boat back home, or know how to point your boat back home before you leave the harbor. A lot of expats, who are at least first-time expats, are easily overwhelmed with the multitude of tasks that they have to complete that they've never done before, and it's perfectly understandable that you get bogged down by the logistics of such a move that you wouldn't even consider the return home at that very point. The opposite is actually what we would advise people to do. If you can.

Speaker 3:

If you are negotiating the terms of your foreign assignment with your employer, with a company or the organization that is sending you, I or we would advise you have a sit down with them and also include your return in that conversation, and that could be for various reasons. One would be, of course, the logistics of it, and those are often part of the planning in any way because of the logistics services that are ordered and planned for your move away, so usually that the return move is factored into that. But it's not only the logistics, it's also what will you be professionally? Who will you be? Where will you be? How will your employer utilize your foreign experience after your return?

Speaker 3:

And a lot of companies that we have worked with over the years seem to struggle with an answer to that question. It is very often a clearly defined requirement or need for you to go away because your employer, your company, has a project abroad where your expertise, where your brain or man or woman power is needed, because you're the best person for that job. Very often these very same organizations do not really pay too much attention or planning on how are we going to use you when you're back and what you will learn abroad. The intercultural competence, the behavioral flexibility you acquire while you're abroad, the broadened horizon, the widening scope of your brain capacity how can that be harnessed in your role back home? A lot of companies have a difficult time in defining that, so it is upon you to help your organization to find that with you so you're not left out upon your return.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so maybe the lack of recognition of the impact, and we know that there are certainly many studies done and statistics recorded about how people often are left to kind of swim in what essentially is assumed to be a comfortable ocean or body of water, and then they find that they're not even able to tread water sufficiently in order to keep themselves afloat. So that's what we're talking about today. So the first one obviously is start thinking about this even before you leave or very soon after you arrive in your new host culture, to kind of forward frame how that return home is going to look like. That would be the first tip.

Speaker 3:

Yep, Also make sure that and this is a logistics tip. I mean, yes, we're talking about culture and we also include in this case the mechanics of such an assignment. So make sure that your funds are in order, that your finances are structured in a way that you can handle the return move without delay, too many hiccups. A lot of long-term assignments find themselves surprised by the changes that happen within a few years in their home markets, whether it be real estate, availability of housing, cost of housing, cost of living, how legislation may have changed, how taxation may have changed.

Speaker 3:

While you were gone, you had an investment vehicle that benefited you when you left. Now rules and regulations may have been slightly modified. You may have not kept in touch with that enough, and now that is catching up with you. So having a slush fund, having some built-in reserves, might be a good thing. It's easier said than done. A lot of expats have a lot of expenses while they're on assignment and I've met plenty of assignments or assignees who barely scraped by on the budget their organization allowed them while abroad, so they weren't really able to squirrel away a slush fund like that. If you're in a position to do that, we would advise you think about that early during your expatriation so it doesn't catch up with you in a negative way when you return back home.

Speaker 1:

Well, some of this can be cultural. When we go through the process of doing training, we obviously encourage people to identify their own style, and some people might be driven by a kind of a short-term thinking style where they might come from a culture where long-term thinking and planning is just a natural part of their upbringing, so it's kind of already built in. But in this case, if you feel that you maybe have not built like that, then perhaps now starting to practice that and adjusting your cultural preference to that would be a good thing.

Speaker 1:

So that kind of goes into the next point. Obviously we've got number one prepare early. Number two do whatever you can to think about the cost. But why would you think about the cost? Well, if you're away for an extended period of time, how much or what are you going to do to stay in touch with the changing dynamics of financial environment? In your home culture? You may go to a culture where things are rather stable, but your culture back home goes through political changes, economic changes, social changes that in that impact the way or the cost of living on a day-to-day basis. So obviously you're keeping in touch with family and you may be traveling home and you might be enjoying family events and things like that, but also build into some time keeping in touch, looking at these dynamics, seeing what's happening, what's changing on the ground while you're away.

Speaker 3:

And it's not only the cost of life back home and abroad that will potentially go through an adjustment period while you're gone. It is also that you and the way you look at your career may change while you're gone. Right, and that leads us to consideration number four. Your perspective of who you are professionally might change because you recognize skills in you or you will recognize what you like about your work or don't like as much about your work compared to when you left, and maybe even like about your company or don't like about your company after you've come back. So your view of your career and how it might continue through such a foreign assignment, through a time abroad, is likely to go through some changes. And we've seen it multiple times that people do change their career when they return or modify it to a certain degree where they say I'm not ready for the career path that my employer has designed for me. I think I want to go in a different direction. That is quite possible. And should that be your reality, Should you recognize in you that, okay, I'm here now for an assignment in country XYZ and I'm fully dedicated and devoted to the project I'm working on and I'm recognizing this is not what I want to continue doing for the rest of my life, then setting those plans in motion can be done while you're abroad.

Speaker 3:

So when you come back and do decide to take a left or right turn in your career path, those tracks have already been at least designed, maybe even built.

Speaker 3:

But it could easily be that you just return back to the role that you've been comfortable in for a long time and you don't want to change your career. Then it means you at least want to negotiate your position within the organization. And if that's not possible, then which competitor might be offering you a position? Because of your global experience we see that frequently that returnees get poached because their organization, their employer, was unable to offer them something compelling and a competitor might pick that up. As, oh, Anita of ABC Company has been doing all this abroad, we could use her here and look at the offer that we're making you. So all of this is quite possible. We would not rule this out when you go away. So as you plan your foreign assignment, keep those things in consideration and have a sit down if you have a life part, and have a sit down with them and discuss these options as early as possible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and as a result, of course, the last two we're going to talk about are probably more rooted in the cultural side of it, and that is when you do arrive back remember, before you left you were kind of swimming. When we're in our own culture, we are kind of in a situation of anonymity where we're speaking the same language as everybody around us. We are working in a style that suits our local environment. When you're in a foreign environment, you have a focus on you and you are different than everybody else, so the expectation changes. You might perform even better than you would perform or in a different way than you would perform back home. And then when you return, you go back into that anonymity and you find yourself surrounded by people who no longer see you as special, no longer see you as a different person, and that can be a confronting thing.

Speaker 1:

We're not talking about an ego. It's just a natural human perception of seeing that I used to be somebody and now I'm kind of just like one of the regular folks, and that's a change that you have to adapt to. You get this perception that people around you don't actually care about where you've been. They care about the languages you've learned or the schools that your kids have been to, the places you've been able to travel. So therefore, it really is a cultural perception that you're, as Christian said before, your mind has expanded, the minds of your family have expanded. You've become different people, you have changed the way you see the world and it is going to impact how you land back in your home culture again by not being burnt, by feeling that you're now not kind of special in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 3:

I had this experience myself. I was a young lad. I was on a foreign exchange program, not a work assignment. I had a school year abroad and, yes, I thought I was special when I returned and I was for about 15 minutes and people wanted to know how was it? Welcome back, tell us what you experienced? And I had to realize quickly that the interest peaked early and faded off quickly. So my, my feeling of being special didn't last very long and that was confronting it.

Speaker 3:

Of course, at my age there was a little bit of ego involved as well. I'm not going to diminish that. And yet it is very similar to fully grown, mature people that you all the perks I wouldn't call them perks, but all the logistics around being an expat, all the the different living scenarios, housing, how you move around, your mobility, much of that changes on a foreign assignment. And then you get used to that and you come back and all that extra that you had goes away and it's almost like being dropped right. It's a feeling of free fall. So where am I now and what is this place in which we return? So which will bring us to our sixth bullet point. So to say, what's the land, what's the home that we return to.

Speaker 3:

So we established Brett just said it you're not the same person, so you're not returning the same person that left, and you're also not returning to the same place that you left, because home, the place that you went away from several years ago, underwent some changes as well, and the people that didn't go away, they had lives too and their storylines maybe went a different way than your storyline.

Speaker 3:

People that you were close with maybe even friends, close colleagues that you had sympathy for, where you maybe even were friends, maybe that diverged a little bit and you find yourself back home, where you thought you belonged, where your root origins are, and you will feel a little unrooted and you will feel is this still the place where I belong? Is this my home? People don't seem to act like it and I don't seem to feel like this is the same home that I left. I don't want to over-dramatize this, or what is that the word Dramatize? Make it a bigger deal than it is for some people. But I've met plenty of repats who struggled more coming back home than they struggled going away, because they anticipated adjustment going abroad.

Speaker 3:

They anticipated behavioral differences as they went away. They did not anticipate having to adjust coming back home and that hit them like a ton of bricks, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So that's kind of six pretty short but, we think, a good start of a list of what people need to think about and what might impact you the most. What's been your experience? Have you had the chance to live and work outside of your culture for an extended period of time? And what has been your experience in returning home? And just let us know, We'd love to hear from you. Of course, as Christian said, you can subscribe to whatever medium you are listening to us through, whether it be here on YouTube, where you can subscribe and hit that bell, but also the podcast where we publish here every week. And you know we like to get back home every week. And let me just reassure you, sir, you are still special, even though you've been back and forth a few times.

Speaker 3:

I am special in a different way, I guess, very, very special, whereas my daughter would say, dad, don't be extra, don't be extra.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's the one. Okay, don't be extra Excellent, no problem. Well, two Chaps, many Cult cultures, another episode in the can. Thank you very much for joining us and enjoy your week. Mate, any big plans.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to keep the fire burning and maybe roll something over that fire. We shall see.

Speaker 1:

That's a good idea. We didn't add that to the list. It's actually, you know, take advantage of some of these fires and do some cooking. And getting back to your home culture, what did you? You know, getting the taste of home, which is one of the important things of understanding your home culture, that's great. Well, we'll see you next time, mate, and thanks again, everybody. Two chaps, many cultures, where too much culture is barely enough, barely enough, ciao for now. We'll see you next time. Yeah, enough ciao for now. We'll see you next time, yeah.