Migrants need help adjusting if their move is to succeed, says Diana Clement
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Pure New Zealand's reputation makes it a desirable destination for migrants. But once they get here, many migrants are less than happy with their experience - especially highly skilled or executive migrants.
And despite what the women's magazines portray about these migrants finding utopia, many pack their bags and head home after a year or two. Disappointed.
That's because getting the candidate to sign on the dotted line of an employment contract seated at a desk isn't the entire story. Retaining them offers a whole new set of challenges.
Philip Schunk is a man who knows more than most about corporate relocations. He has been transferred by employers to the UK and The Netherlands as well as five employment-related moves within the US. But when the family made the decision to emigrate to New Zealand last year without the help of an employer, Schunk decided to employ a resettlement service on the ground here.
One of the biggest problems isn't the employee him or herself, says Schunk, but the family - especially if there are school-age children involved. He saw several cases in The Netherlands where the wife was unhappy and the family moved back to where it had come from. "The spouse is probably 10 times more important than the person being moved," say Schunk. "Your spouse and children need to be grounded."
In the case of New Zealand, because it was not a corporate move, Schunk used the services of The Emigration Group, a consultancy that provides migration assistance, job search and resettlement services for British and other English-speaking migrants to Australia and New Zealand.
The Schunk family didn't know Auckland and nor did it know where the good schools or other facilities it needed could be found.
By using a resettlement service, they prearranged the rental of furnished accommodation in Albany, the children were enrolled at the nearby Kristin school, and contacts had been made for music lessons and other activities that would make the family feel part of the community.
"When we got here on January 11, the bank accounts were open with money in them, someone picked us up at the airport and there were groceries and a bottle of wine in the fridge."
Schunk describes The Emigration Group's service as having ready-made friends on the ground. Instead of trawling 20 shops to find a suitable bed to buy, he was able to call the resettlement staff for advice about where to go. Likewise The Emigration Group made the calls to track down the Cathedral Choir Auckland, which his daughter, Hannah, 13, has joined and a climbing wall in Birkenhead to suit son Matt's needs.
One organisation that is good at retaining migrant workers once they've arrived is Beca Transportation, which won an Equal Employment Opportunities Trust cultural diversity award for its efforts.
In 2002, the division had one Asian engineer. Now the majority of employees were born overseas (26 staff from 13 countries).
The transformation hasn't been seamless and there were definite growing pains. In 2003/4, a number of staff members left and the organisation realised that even emigrants who spoke English as their first language needed assistance with going through the workplace and cultural changes of moving to another country. Their expectations also needed managing.
The division, which employs traffic engineers from around the world, found that to keep its highly-sought-after staff it needed to change its workplace culture.
Beca Transportation technical director and section manager of the transportation group Matt Ensor said having a friendly team wasn't the entire story and it was clear in the early days that some new staff weren't participating in social activities put on for them and paid for by the company.
The problem turned out to be that social gatherings involving alcohol and Kiwi banter didn't appeal to some of the cultures employed at Beca Transportation.
Beer and wine were pushed to one side of the fridge to make way for soft drinks and team lunches were moved from pubs to yum cha restaurants.
What's more, instead of closing over the Christmas-New Year period, the division now gives staff the option to work so that they can use their holidays to go home for important festivals such as Chinese New Year.
Beca Transportation has also changed the way it recruits immigrants from the United Kingdom and South Africa, building realistic expectations of what to expect in New Zealand when they get here, including the challenges such as buying a home.
Staff from those countries often expect that they will "get out of the rat race" by coming to New Zealand and are shocked when they find themselves working just as hard, says Ensor.
"But the most likely reason the families will move back is because of the spouse's homesickness, especially when they have young families. We will talk directly to them about this during the recruitment process," says Ensor.
As a result, Beca Transportation runs family events and sends out emails to families with suggestions of what to do at the weekend.
Likewise Schunk attended barbecues, picnics and other social events for new migrants run by The Emigration Group, which helped his family feel part of the community.
All new employees at Beca Transportation are given a buddy, often from the same culture but, at times, because they have similar personalities. The buddy job lasts for six months and can give advice on anything from company procedures to the best shopping malls. Buddies are required to report the amount of time spent in this role to ensure that it is happening.
Once on board, Beca Transportation knows it has 18 months to deliver on its promises if it wants staff to stay. There is also a difficult period about three months into the move when the rose-tinted glasses pale and the reality of not seeing friends and family sets in. Managers sit staff down then and give suggestions.
Geoff Taylor, director of The Emigration Group, describes the resettlement process as being the equivalent of a job offer for the spouse.
Taylor has come across instances where migrants have returned home quickly because they weren't grounded here.
"Migrants underestimate the trauma of arriving in a new country, especially with young children, and getting settled. They don't realise that they need a helping hand."
Ensor says his company is quite forthright at the interview stage, giving potential employees a clear and honest picture of what it costs to live here and some of the challenges they will face.
And, as Schunk points out, some of those challenges can be quite unexpected: in his case the cost of broadband internet access for two teenage children and a mother-in-law who tunes in all day, every day, to her hometown radio station from the United States.
Beca Transportation accepts that while being upfront about the downside of New Zealand might lose a few potential recruits, it has learned that without realistic expectations, "they'll soon be [unhappy] and move back home," says Ensor.
Taylor says it's a particularly good idea for new migrants to plan a trip back to their country of origin before they get here or as soon as they arrive.
Programmes such as Beca Transportation's cost money - in fact $50,000 per annum in that company's case. But in terms of retention of offshore staff, says Ensor, it pays for itself. For smaller companies spending money on a resettlement service, such as that provided by The Emigration Group or companies such as Crown Relocation can make sense - especially if they only employ migrant workers from time to time.
Ensor says employers can't rely completely on resettlement services and if they want employees to stay, need to provide assistance as well.
But nor are employers necessarily clued up with the intricacies of issues such as bringing the family pet over (Schunk brought four with him), school searches or cross border tax issues, which agencies might be.
