Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511250008
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: G-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANA KUNDE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
A lawyer moves with his wife to Singapore and finds out that in that country, spouse is defined as female for purposes of getting a work permit.
If you think it's tough to balance two careers within one country, try doing it internationally.
The problem isn't as esoteric as it seems. With more corporations doing business around the world and more couples in dual-career relationships, moving two careers across international boundaries is a growing concern, says Catherine Shearer, manager of compensation for Irving, Texas-based Caltex Petroleum Corp.
Shearer has wrestled with the issue herself. Partly as a result of her experiences, she designed a program at Caltex to assist the working partners of engineers and executives sent from the Dallas area to Africa and the Pacific Rim, or from Africa and the Pacific Rim to Caltex headquarters in Irving.
It's a key recruitment and retention issue for the company, Shearer said. ``Last year in college recruiting on campuses, one of the frequent questions asked was `What can Caltex do for spouses?' Ten years ago, I don't think anyone asked that question,'' she said.
The Washington, D.C.-based Employee Relocation Council says about one-fourth of its member companies provide some form of employment assistance to the spouses of U.S. employees transferred overseas. It's easy to see why: The most frequently cited reason for failure of an overseas transfer is the family's inability to adjust, the council's research says.
Caltex reimburses a relocating spouse up to $5,000 a year for expenses in getting work or for career-related education and travel. Because the program is less than a year old, it's too early to see its effect on employee retention, but initial reaction has been favorable, Shearer said.
Among other things, Caltex spouses used the funds this year for legal costs of work permits, which can run $2,000 to $5,000; for tuition at Britain's Open University; and for travel so a spouse who is a real estate agent could return from Thailand for a professional meeting in California.
But money is only part of the solution, Shearer said.
Many countries, including the United States, have restrictive work permits. It can be virtually impossible to get work in the host country, regardless of the company's best intentions. Shearer and Dallas consultant Deborah K. Grieco, whose firm Summit Inc. International advises companies on cross-cultural issues, are working through the United Nations and with individual countries in hopes of gradually easing restrictions.
More immediately promising, the women said, is a U.N.-sponsored program called Working Partners, which links technical expertise of expatriate spouses with needs in developing countries.
In Belize, spouses with administrative, computer and nutritional skills set up a school lunch program that has since been adopted nationwide. The U.N. organization is working with the government of Indonesia to launch a similar project.
Meanwhile, Shearer and her staff informally try whatever works.
``I literally have phone books from around the world. Whenever I travel, I buy the Yellow Pages, in English,'' she said. With her Yellow Page library, she can more easily locate other U.S. firms abroad for traveling spouses to contact.
For the pediatrician, as well as for two spouses who are nurse-midwives, Shearer is negotiating with a Thai orphanage and a new hospital. Even if the expatriate medical personnel can't pass the Thai language test and be certified, perhaps they can train local personnel, she said.
``These people have a skill to transfer, and it's a skill that's needed,'' she said.
Shearer and Grieco recommend that transferring spouses learn beforehand about the difficulties they're likely to face in adjusting not only to a new place, but also to a career interruption or change.
Shearer and her late husband didn't do that when he followed her to Dallas from New York, she said. He was a criminal defense attorney who found it tougher to get established in Texas than either of them had imagined. He had even more trouble finding work when he went with her overseas.
``If you come here [or to any country] believing you can do it, and you can't, it's actually harder'' than taking a more realistic view, she said.
Still, tough as it is, it's important for corporate management and governments to ease the way for dual-career international couples, Shearer said.
``If the world is truly going to be a global village, these issues have to be faced,'' she said.
by CNB