Swap beer or coffee for a couple of questions for my BA thesis :)

Maximilian Rabe-Bär wrote:

Hey everyone, my name is Max.
I am currently working on my BA thesis about "evaluation of the assignmentphases of long-term expatriation" (initiated by the company).
Expatriation is very interesting to me and has a great impact on the global market.
I would be more than happy if I could involve experiences of and expert (you) and round up the dry theory with something practical.
You would do me a big favor if you had about 45min of spare time.
Thanks a lot in advance!
(coffee or beer is on me

Maximilian,

I'm wondering a bit if there will not be  substantial variances that needs to be compared (Germany->other country vs other country->Germany):

Two types :

a) There are expats (other nationalities) working in Germany (ie this subforum)
b) then there are Germans working in other countries and sharing their experiences (I'm not sure how many of them actively participate specifically in this subforum - (apart from Beppi )


Last week, I spoke to an Hungarian that  worked  in France (belief it was through Ernst and Young), and he stated how much the corporates had to compensate in holidays (60 days for him in one year due to his long project work hours). This is of course very expensive for any employer.

To bypass this strict protection of EU workers, I know that corporates in Europe / Global players bypass this effectively by 

1) Only issue Short Term assignments (three months) and then force the employee to fly home for 2 days (weekend-Jet Lag horror) so that the long term conditions doesn't apply. Then the clock starts ticking new for the next 3months short term assignment.

Long Term assignments entitlements from Europe->other countries is mostly  done only for VP level and up (as special costly exceptions). Lower ranks are more easily replaceable from resources elsewhere.

2) Alternatively, the global players sources employees with weaker worker conditions (ie like India, Brazil, China, Russia, ...) for the longer assignments and use European experts for short bursts to save overall costs. This was basically the model how Britain became a market leader in the '80s in the Consultancy Service Market on the continent (second largest in the world, at £6.02 billion). Sadly for these businesses, the EU laws are too strict in terms of of fair worker protection/conditions. Hence I can understand their resistance to avoid such strict conditions.
With the Brexit, if the UK can now get same trade conditions/terms with the EU, unilaterally, whilst being lose from such impediments on their obligations, it would herald a booming era for their economy, if they can force their hand in negotiations to get same conditions or delay the formal application to exit as long as possible. To effectively protect their consultancy service industry leadership, best would be for them if the EU parliament is weakened and destabilized (ie demanding that Jean-Claude Juncker to resign)

The benefit of relaxing the employee conditions is that projects have less business continuity but the profits were very large.