As a human resource director there are many areas to take into consideration when beginning international posts for the organization. One needs to do research on the type of positions to be filled, the skills and knowledge needed in order to fill those assignments, methods of finding your talent, as well as the compensation and training needed to secure the success of those posts. Follow all of those tasks with the debriefing and support that is needed upon the return of the assignee and their family members to help with career path, knowledge transfer and just getting comfortable again in the home country. Although this sounds simple enough it is by far more involved and the support of hr can make a big difference between failure and success. As defined by dowling, festing amp engle, pre departure training is a set of training program provided before expatriate depart for their overseas assignment, designed to increase the success of expatriate's in their international assignments training might include, cross cultural and language training, business etiquettes, etc. The critical step after an employee has been selected for an international assignment pre departure training begins to ensure the expatriate's effectiveness and success abroad. The components of a pre departure training cover the country of assignment, duration, purpose of the transfer and the provider of such programs mendenhall et al.

1987 distinguished three types of pre departure training, information giving approaches, affective approaches which will address people's feelings and immersion approaches which are in depth methods covering a broad range of topics and methods. Training is described as the process of altering employee behavior and attitudes to increase the probability of goal attainment hodgetts 1993. Managing performance of individual expatriate employees creates a challenge for multinational companies in the context of the traditional expatriate assignment cycle this is due to the expatriate having to meet conflicting expectations of the home country management and subsidiary colleagues as well.

Factors that need to be included are technical knowledge, personal and family adjustment to the differences in culture and environment political and labor force stability and distance from home country cascio, 2006 oddou and mendenhall, 20. Designing performance management systems for international assignees involves considering a number of key factors including: the impact of factors such as foreign exchange fluctuations on the performance of business operations black et al. 19 insuring that there is a clear understanding of performance objectives of the assignee and ensuring that the appraisal is measured the same in varying countries and identifying the persons best placed to evaluate the performance of the assignee. The key to the success of managing the performance of expatriate is recognizing the need to adapt the appraisal system to account for the host context, and demonstrating the limitations of using standardized systems. Recruiting and selection strategy recruitment and selection for the success of expatriate assignments and ability to enable international firms to compete in the global market is one of the most important elements of human resources.

According to ronen 1989 , there are five categories of attributes for successful expatriate assignments are job factors, relational dimensions, motivational state, family situations and language skill. Ronen believed that when these five selection attributes contributed to greater expatriate success when compared to the customary selection based solely on technical abilities. Determination of which type of alternative form of international assignments organizations need to take into consideration the level of usage and identifying operational issues that may emerge in the context of managing these alternative forms on assignments.

Short term assignments are the most popular form of a non standard assignment, and the key characteristics that are associated with these types of assignments are the duration being longer than a business trip but shorter than a year long, the assignee's family often remains in the home country, and the salary, pension and social security benefits are handled by the home country. Short term assignments are used in mncs for problem solving or skills transfer such as in implementing a project or establishing a new process or troubleshooting for control purposes and for managerial development reasons. Advantages associated with short term international assignments include increased flexibility, simplicity and cost effectiveness.

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Some disadvantages include taxation issues in assignments over six month durations , potential for side effects marital problems and personal issues , failure to build effective relationships with local colleagues and customers and work visas and permits tahvaninen et al. Another alternative form of an international assignment would be frequent flyer assignments, or international business travelers ibt. The ibt has the advantage of not having to relocate the expatriate and their family to a foreign country. Ibts provide the advantage of face to face interaction in conducting business transactions without the requirement for the physical relocation.

Ibts offer face to face interaction with subsidiary employees, without the need for the physical location and help to minimize interruptions to an individual's career and reduce cost to the multinational company. Commuter and rotational assignments have grown over recent years scullion and collings, 2006c. This type of alternative international assignment is defined as one where an assignee commutes from their home base to another country to a post in another country, generally on a weekly or bi weekly basis pricewaterhousecoopers, 2005.