Role of Expatriates in International Hrm

An expatriate is basically a person living in a different country from where he/she resides. In common usage, an expatriate is a professional who is sent abroad on a work assignment. Over the years, with the increase in the globalization of companies, international assignments have increased, basically for organizational purposes. The contracts for these assignments are usually time based, varying over 2-5 years, could be even more or less than that time, depending the length of the assignment or project. In olden days, there used to be a traditional outlook of expatriate assignments to just get the job done. But that has changed in recent years. Today, expatriates are expected to engage in local staff development and support skills transfer from the HQ. The main strategic targets for an expatriate include, developing top talent and future leaders of the company, improving the trust and commitment of the subsidiary, training local employees in order to improve their individual and team skills, implementing knowledge practices, developing, sharing, and transferring best practices, and developing international leadership. In Dubai, most of the population consists of expatriates, from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines,