Ximena Hoffmann· VP, Total Rewards, Meridian Health Systems
Asked in Global & Mobility ·
Professional services firm, about 4,200 people. We have a partner-track director who went from London to Singapore in 2019 on a three-year assignment and is still there on full expatriate terms: housing at around SGD 9,500 a month, school fees for two children, home leave, tax equalisation. Total cost is roughly 2.6 times a local peer.
There are 11 more cases like this across Asia. The business agrees they should be localised but nobody wants to have the conversation.
For those who have done this, what phase-out did you use and how did you treat schooling for children already in international schools?
7 helpful · 3 insightful · 3 agree · 6 replies · 210 views · 2 following
Accepted answer· by Elif Alvarez
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.
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HR Business Partner, Meridian Health Systems
Three-year step-down, written into a letter with dates. Housing at 100% in year one, 66% in year two, 33% in year three, then nothing. Tax equalisation ends on the localisation date, with tax advice paid for that year and the next. Home leave stops immediately. We did 19 people this way and lost two.
People Analytics Lead, Steinbach Industrie
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.
Elif AlvarezCRP
Director, Total Rewards, Kestrel Aerospace
Accepted answer
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.
Compensation Consultant, Tidewater Utilities
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.
Tessa IversenCBS, CEP
Compensation Manager, Lumen Biosciences
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.
VP, Total Rewards, Meridian Health Systems
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.
