Culture Shock Essay

2014 Words9 Pages
Assignment 2 – 114.241 Rachel Whaanga Student # 03414272 rmwhaanga@hotmail.com Culture shock is experienced by many expatriates living overseas (Stone, 2010, p. 614). Discuss how human resources managers can prepare staff for working in overseas locations. Expatriates experience culture shock when on overseas assignments and this is a major issue for many companies with increasing globalization. It is very costly to send staff on overseas assignments and businesses cannot afford for them to fail because of expatriates not adapting to the culture. Human resource managers need to look at the best ways they can prepare staff for working in overseas locations to help increase the success rates of assignments and remain competitive in a global environment. Cross-cultural training programs, language skills, assistance with relocation, housing, healthcare, education and including spouses and family in the process are some of the ways that human resources managers can assist in preparing staff for overseas assignments. An important focus for human resource managers is developing and implementing relevant cross-cultural training and including spouses and families in preparation of expatriates for overseas assignments to minimize the effects of culture shock. Culture shock is when anxiety from the loss of familiar signs and symbols is experienced and this results in adjustment difficulties and trouble functioning in the host country culture (Pires, Stanton & Stenfeld, 2006). When adjusting to a new culture expatriates go through stages the first being the honeymoon stage followed by culture shock then some improvement and adjustment to the host culture then finally a mastery stage (Pires et al., 2006). Black has stated that signs of culture shock are exhibited in the first few months of expatriation and this is why pre-departure training is so important (as
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