 Hi students, we are talking about performance management in the international context. In the previous topics, we have discussed about the constraints that are on performance management process of an international organization. And in this topic, we are going to start talking about the actual performance management aspect of people that are working in international organizations. The type of people who are working in international organizations, they are three types of people. And one are the expatriates. The second one are the non-standard assignment holders. And the third one, they are the non-expatriates. This is something that we have discussed in detail in previous topics. But just to remind you, just going through it briefly. A major chunk of assignments which are given to people in the international context are those that are given to the expatriates. Those people are who actually relocate to a foreign location from the home country to a foreign country. And those people, they are called the expatriates. The expatriates are then of three types. One are the parent country nationals, those who move from the parent country of the company to other foreign locations. Then there are third country nationals who move from some other country than the parent country to another foreign country, which is not a country of their own nationality. And then there are home country nationals which are relocated to the headquarters. So home country nationals in which the subsidiary is working, people from that country they are sent from the home country to the parent country for some assignments in the headquarters. So these are the three types of people who are then called expatriates, people who relocate from one location from their home country to a foreign country. These are the basic and major chunk of employees for which we will be concerned about talking about whose performance management has to be managed. But however, there are other types of employees in the international context as well. We discussed about the non-standard assignments in which a person is an international traveler. The person is a commuter who the person could be a virtual assignee. So these are the ones who are which are given these non-standard assignments. And then there are non expatriates who are working in the international context, but they are not relocating from the home country to the foreign country. So they are the non expatriates. However, we will be more concerned about and discussing about the performance management of people who are expatriates because that is a traditional form of international employment and holds the major chunk of employment in the international arena. Now, coming to discuss the aspect of expatriate performance management, in this topic we will particularly talk about the various aspects or factors that affect the performance of a person who is an expatriate. So there are five factors, five important factors which affect the performance of an expatriate working on an international assignment. So what can be the things that will affect someone's performance? Why would a person be ready to perform? Why a person would be motivated to perform? First thing is the compensation package. So the compensation package we have talked in detail about international compensation and what are the various pros and cons of different compensation packages. So if the right compensation package is provided to the employee, then it is more possible that the employee is going to perform better. But if the employee thinks that the compensation package is not fair enough, it is not good enough, then the performance of the employee is going to decline. So this is the first and major aspect which affects performance management of an expatriate. The second aspect which affect the performance of an expatriate is the task itself. Because no matter how much you are being paid for, it is the job which makes you motivated to work. And the job, it involves number of aspects. The job involves the tasks which have to be performed. The job involves the roles which have to be played. The job involves the types of assignments which have to be conducted. So if the tasks, the roles and assignments which are given to the person in that particular job, they are not compatible with the knowledge, skills and abilities as well as the motivation level of that person, then the performance of that person is going to be affected. We are going to discuss the tasks, roles and a type of assignments in detail in the coming topics. Then a very important factor which affects your performance is the support that you get from the headquarters. And the support from the headquarters starts from pre-departure training, pre-departure negotiations. So if the headquarter is involved in the expatriate program, in expatriate management, if they are concerned about people who are going on international assignments and they start providing them support starting from the process of relocation starting from the pre-departure training. And we have discussed in detail that that support has to extend up to the process of relocation when the person is repatriated. So it starts from the process of expatriation and it keeps going on until after the process of repatriation. And the headquarter has to be involved in keeping the motivation level of the person high. It has to be involved in keeping the person comfortable enough to manage the process of the transfer, the adjustment. We have discussed all these things, the culture shock and the culture reshock and all these things which affect a person in the entire process. So performance is something which is going to be affected at various different stages of this process of expatriation. And the headquarter needs to be vigilant and it needs to be involved in order to keep the performance at the satisfactory level. Then another very important aspect which affects performance is the environment in which the person, in which the performance occurs. So no matter how much the compensation is right, the task is described accurately. The headquarter is giving the support. But if the environment in which the person is working in the foreign country, if that is not supportive, if that is not congenial, if that is very much different in terms of culture, in terms of that person's personality, then it would be difficult for that person to maintain performance. So the environment at the subsidiary or the foreign location that also plays a very important role in determining how well that person will be able to perform. So it is the job of the multinational organization to make sure that the right kind of environment is provided for performance in the foreign location. That is something which can be taken an example from the colonial rule. You would see that in the subcontinent, people who were sent from UK, from Britain to work in the subcontinent with all these, with the very warm weather, with all the conditions which were not compatible with people who were living in the Britain, what the British Empire did, they provided, they developed the infrastructure, they developed the architecture, they made buildings, they made educational institutions, they made the railway network, the irrigation network, all these things were done, they were not done for the people of the subcontinent. They were done for the people who were coming from Britain to rule over here in the subcontinent to make the environment good enough for those people who were coming to work over here and coming to rule over here to make it congenial enough to make it comfortable enough for those people. So we also, the people who were being ruled, they also got the benefit of it and we are still getting the benefit of it. But the intention of doing that was to make it a comfortable environment for the British people. So this is an example of how you make the environment comfortable for people that you are sending to work in other countries and now multinationals are the new rulers of the world. So you need to make your rulers more comfortable. That was on the lighter note. And finally is the cultural adjustment. That is also very important for the employee to be culturally adjusted in the environment. So the cultural adjustment is not that of the person only, it is that of the individual as well as the family. So we have also discussed the aspects of cultural adjustment in quite detail. So all those factors which affect cultural adjustment and adjustment of the families, spouse and children, all those affect the performance of the person. If the person is not at peace, if he is worried about his children, worried about their education, worried about their security, then all these things are part of cultural adjustment. And if the multinationals don't make the cultural adjustment, then that is something which is going to affect the performance of the person who is taking up the international assignment. So that is something which needs to be taken care of. So all these five factors, they have to be aligned, they have to be provided for, and they have to be kept in mind by the human resource managers who are taking care of these international employees.