What is Re-Entry Shock?

Repatriation is the process of returning home from a job abroad. It can be a

traumatic experience, often rivaling the move to another country for the potential

upheaval it can cause in one's personal and professional lives. Expatriate executives

returning from overseas assignments often find it quite difficult, if not near impossible to

readapt themselves to home country environment due to reverse culture shock. Reverse

culture shock is the physical and mental adjustment of returning to one's home country

after spending an extended period of time abroad. Relocation experts say that as many as

40-50% of professionals leave their companies in the two or so years following a long-

term international assignment.

Why is Repatriation often traumatic?

Repatriation is often traumatic for the following reasons:

* Cuts in perks and pay: Compensation packages often include allowances for housing

and children's education, along with "hardship pay." Upon returning, the perks vanish.

* Loss of buying power: Simply put, the cost of living is significantly lower in some

regions, allowing an international employee to spend more. Loss of such buying power

can unnerve the best of us.

* Lack of appreciation: Like someone returning from a life-changing trip, expatriates-

including employees and their families-want to share their newfound experiences

and knowledge. On the family side of things, or the personal side of things, when

one returns with experiences that one is desperate to share, to tell friends and

family members about, it's often a rude shock for people to find out that attention

levels for this can be remarkably short.

Common reactions to Re-Entry Shock.

• Boredom and Restlessness: After an exciting and stimulating time abroad,

returning to family, friends, and old routines can seem dull. It is natural to miss

the excitement and challenges, which characterize the experiences abroad.

• Reverse Homesickness: Home is supposed to be familiar and comfortable.

However, after spending a substantial amount of time in another country, it is

natural to miss the people, places, attitudes or lifestyles that you grew accustomed

to in your host country.

• Relationships Have Changed: After a long period of separation, people often

need to renegotiate relationships and adjust to being together again. Flexibility

and openness are important qualities in successfully developing "new"

relationships with relatives and old friends.

• Identity Issues: Some people feel unsure of how to integrate their "old" and

"new" selves. Feeling frustrated about the lack of opportunities to apply recently

acquired social, linguistic and practical coping skills is also common.

• Compartmentalization of Experience: Returnees often worry that they will

"lose" their international experiences.

Coping with Reverse Culture Shock

The primary motive for any overseas assignment is to

develop knowledge and skills to take home, to become an

agent to transfer technology for national development.

Different ways of communicating and doing things, new

ways of thinking, and an altered hierarchy of values all

contribute to the stress of reverse culture shock which, in

turn, interferes with the transfer of technology. How to

minimize this stress and its duration so as to maximize the

effectiveness of readapting and the transfer of technology?

Among the suggestions are the following:

Anticipate reverse culture shock. Before returning home,

almost everyone claims they will never experience it yet

nearly all returnees do in fact, experience it and report that

it was more stressful than culture shock. Anticipating this

new transition period will greatly minimize its severity.

Prepare for leaving the host country. Taking time to say

good-bye. Organize going-away parties. Abruptly ending

relationships and leaving a social and physical environment

is much more stressful than slowly letting go.

Suggest mentors who have successfully readapted. They

can suggest ways of overcoming reverse culture shock and

they understand how the returnee initially feels. These

mentors can form a good support group and be of great

help during these testing times.

Employ coping strategies developed overseas. The

returnee learned how to be self-reliant and would have

developed many coping skills as he went through culture

shock. Encourage him to apply those skills as he goes

through reverse culture shock.

Lastly, realize that both culture shock and reverse

culture shock are normal and beneficial. The old saying,

“that which does not kill us, will make us stronger” could

not be more appropriate . Most people return home more

self-confident, flexible, tolerant, creative, and with a

widened worldview. More important, most return home

with greater awareness of their home culture.

The pain of adapting and readapting brings about enormous

personal growth. But no one grows without experiencing

some pain. We cannot, and should not, avoid culture shock

and reverse culture shock. Instead, we must minimize its

duration and severity by developing effective coping

strategies. In years to come the returnees will look back

upon these transitions as periods of positive growth. The

experiences would have enabled them to understand their

own culture better. They also would have developed the

ability to be tolerant of cultural differences. They would

have become more flexible, as an individual and as an

employee.