Whether you’ll be working or relocating to Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo or anywhere in the world, you must be aware that expatriation is a costly matter. Overlooking issue about Housing might cost you almost $90,000 a year ! How ?
For example, let's say you have to pay a house-morgage loan back home around $40,000 a year and at the same time the overseas job offer won't grant you any housing allowances, meaning you have to spend another $50,000 a year renting a house in the host country. In other words you have to pay a "double commitment" for the unattended house back home and housing rental in the host country. You are losing money that shouldn't occur in the first place if you aware what the options you have in your expat package during expatriation.
That's only one example, the bad thing there's more..
Maybe the above example is not applicable to your situation, but there's lot of other "double commitment" scenario in other issues that is highly likely exist in your situation during expatriation.
In other case and other scenario, issues about Healthcare not only cause you money but might cause your life and death!
Issues about your children.... you don’t want anything bad happen to your children, such as kidnapping !
If you are excited about the attractive base salary without thinking deep about issues during expatriation and what the options you have in your expat package, you are leaving money on the table or miss to recoup back your money on something that belongs to you and worse you risk the security of your family and chilldren!
1. The employer will start with a minimum generic offer
if you ‘feel’ that your expat package is below from what you deserve, you definitely right. Why? Because, most companies simply withhold the benefits, unless you bring it up in the next negotiation. In other words, the employer may purposely hide, or had “forgotten” to tell you!
Most companies simply don't exactly know what your needs in detail. In other words they offer you a typical standard generic pacakage. The fact is, your needs are different when working abroad from other people. Your job rank, nationality, family status, lifestyle determine your different needs such as house, car, international school, spouse etc. is totally different from other expats.
Purposely, the employer will start with a low offer as they expect you to negotiate. They assume that the offer is best enough for you, and leave you to ask or negotiate more.
This is common in any negotiation and a basic bargain technique. In fact, they like it when you negotiate, when you show some self-respect.
Always ask for the benefits you want, as companies often won't include everything they're willing to offer unless you bring them up at the negotiation table. You need to be ready to be proactive during the negotiation process.
2. BEWARE....You probably leaving money on the table
There are lot of issues related to different components of expatriation benefit/compensation i.e; Incentives, Premium, Relocation, Housing, Car, Healthcare, Spouse, School and Holiday/Leave/ Repatriation.
You should take caution, all these issues before sign the job contract. Otherwise, you might spend more than you bargained for such as ;
- Simply leaving money on the table…
- Paying unnecessary things that shouldn't occur in first place
- Miss to recoup back your money on something that belong to you
- Paying something that could be free
- Hidden cost that slowly eat up your overall income
3. You need to diagnose and assess your own situation thoroughly
The real answer is always in you. You need to diagnose and assess your own unique situation thoroughly. Your needs such as house, car, international school, spouse etc. is totally different from other expats. Your job rank, nationality, family status, lifestyle are different. Therefore it is essential you need to diagnose and assess your own situation thoroughly.
Do not underestimate your ‘decent’ unique lifestyle won’t cost you while in foreign country. Have an exact idea of what you want to earn and be able to back that up with cold hard facts about why you think you're worth that much.
4. You need a tool, a comprehensive checklist.
In order to avoid overlooking any costly issues during expatriation, you need a comprehensive checklist. As we all know a checklist is a perfect tool that eliminates the chances of forgetting to check something important by guiding you to step through a sequence and make sure you don’t miss anything out.
Most profesional such as surgeons, pilots or even astrotnauts use checklist in order to prevent them from making a mistake. In their line of duty, a smallest tiny mistake can cause disaster.
by ADAM ANZ
plus supplementary tool : Expat Checklist Self-Assessor
Expat Checklist Self-Assessor ( The Self-Assessor ) is a supplementary tool to assess expatriation issues you need to consider for negotiation. Basically, The Self-Assessor is The Checklist Action Guide in spreadsheet version. The Self-Assessor is both a reporting tool and an assessment tool. You’ll be able to “check” for errors, completion and content of the report back your performance (Assessment). This makes you (the user) accountable for your accomplishments. There are steps and no randomness. You can go back and check what you did correctly and where you went wrong. The Self-Assessor can help to make your job easier by saving time and by providing simple, straightforward assessment tools.
The Self-Assessor in general reduce the tendency to allow the presence of some highly valued feature to overinfluence one's judgment of merit and vice versa. The Self-Assessor does this by forcing you to consider separately and allocate appropriate value to each of the relevant expatriation issues.
How good is your Expat Salary Package ?
The Self-Assessor produces a final score in a "report-card" format as a means of assessment indicator to the area of strengths and weaknesses during your expatriation. The rating will help you gauge the worthiness of the offer against best practice standards. You will be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the expat benefits and identify areas for improvement.
Introducing : The Expat Salary Package Checklist Action Guide
The Expat Package Checklist Action Guide will highlight issues which may impact expatriation cost and financial. Even if you are an experienced expat, you need a quick list to check when inspecting an overseas job offer. The checklist eliminates the chances of forgetting to check something important by guiding you to step through a sequence and make sure you don’t miss anything out.
The Expat Package Checklist Action Guide consists 93 issues that should be considered in an expatriate contract/ agreement, on assessing an expat benefits and compensation.
The checklist is designed in a Question and Answer (Q&A) format, which means the action guide is jam-packed with tips presented in digestible, easy-to-understand doses. This is the shortcut solution and the tool to combat the increasingly complex nature of information overload.
By using the action guide, you will walk away with actionable steps information that you can implement right away and see measurable results. It will guide you step-by-step through specific cue that you need to maximize your expat package. It definitely help you to think of things you would've forgotten until it was too late.
The brevity of the guide is a plus point – the 50 pages solid actionable how-to information focused on the specific problem you want to solve; not some general information combined into a traditional 250 page ebook along with other topics.
Here is the vital tool to shortcut the solution to your problem ,
Expat Package : Forget to ask the right questions might cost you $1,000 and up to $100,000!
