Seven years into a three-year assignment in Singapore. How do we localise?

Schooling is the part that breaks deals. Our rule is that children already enrolled are supported until the end of their current school stage, primary or secondary, capped at the fee level on the localisation date. Nothing for children who start later. People will accept losing housing far more readily than moving a 14-year-old.

Before you design the phase-out, fix the base salary. Most of the pain comes from localising someone onto a home-based salary converted at whatever the rate is that day. Price the role properly in the Singapore structure first. In about half our cases the local market rate for a director was well above the converted home salary, which paid for a good part of the lost housing.

Then offer a choice with a deadline: localise on the step-down terms, or repatriate to a real role at home within six months. Also check pension, since leaving the home scheme after seven years needs handling. We took advice case by case.

Do all 12 at once with the same terms. We did ours one at a time over two years, each negotiated by a different managing partner, and ended up with 12 different deals that everyone compared over dinner.

For the future, put the localisation terms in the original assignment letter. Ours now says that at five years the assignment either ends or converts to local terms on a published schedule. It has not been tested by many cases yet but nobody can say they were surprised.

This is very helpful. We are going to reprice all 12 roles locally first, then go out with a single three-year schedule and the repatriation alternative. The point about schooling by stage is going straight into the proposal.