I’ve been trying to get on the expat circuit since I hired on. It was THE REASON I joined the company. Thoughts on if this will even be an opportunity for North American employees in the future? Any ideas of other companies or industries which still offer expat circuit opportunities?
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After 5 years rotating, 10 years expat resident, and now retired, i suggest that anybody wanting to do either should: (1) talk to recently returned expats about how EM screwed them, and how to get around it. (2) NEVER trust HR, who are lying ba----ds. (3) be aware that EM can and will change the expat policy, allowances, location-specific details, any time they want to and you have to accept it (4) always go in with lots of spare cash, as you will need it until EM gets around to reimbursing you (5) enjoy the experience - you’ll work your a-s off, and have some great experiences. Just be aware that as soon as you are deemed to be of reduced value, you’ll be shitcanned.
Now that company hires en-masse engineers from low cost country, will that mean an end to North American employee expat assignment opportunities?
It is all about meritocracy in order to get the expat assignment :p
Surprisingly in such a big company they never advertised open position for expat assignment...everything is done behind closed doors, and if you are lucky to be the favorite, then you will get one...
Only people with powerful sponsors get expat assignments now.
Just saw a person get an absolutely unneeded expat assignment so I called someone and asked about it. Was told the person is “being taken care of” by a powerful sponsor and that my assessment of that job being unneeded was very correct.
What other benefits will get cut in 2022?
Home sale and assistance to those on assignment for homes they kept or are renting out are being reviewed currently to find ways to cut. Options being considered including a total dollar cap are quite detrimental financially to employees. Changes coming.
Anyone in a TDA know how they are screwing us now on those? What have they done to change TDAs?
Across the board benefits are being cut. Company is beginning to nickel and dime us. I moved in the US last year and was shocked to learn the moving benefit is no longer tax assisted. Huge drop in the value to employees as you are on the hook for a big tax bill. Oh how things have changed in the past year. Was a big surprise to me as I don’t remember this change being shared with employees. Just found out as I was doing my taxes. Good luck getting people to leave Houston once they find out about this and also the cancellation of cost of living adjustments.
Mgmt if you are reading this please consider all the lost time incurred by having to do most of the "life setup" ourselves. It is very distracting from the job we were sent to do. We are expensive, we know this, please try to make it as easy as possible so we can focus on bringing the value you're paying for.
Yes in many countries apartments and houses do not come with anything other than four walls and a door so you are responsible for providing light fixtures, appliances, air conditioning units, deposits, repair and plumbing services. You also having building expenses for things like security and maintenance that you are responsible for monthly. g-d help you if you have kids and you must pay the school deposits. You have to buy cars also. So yes make sure you have some liquid cash and good luck selling the stuff when you leave if there are no other expats coming in (hint: there aren't). You can't sell to locals because they usually can't afford it and you don't want their worthless currency anyways.
Yep. They have cut so much they now talk about the “experience” you will have and gain as the selling point rather than being compensated properly.
If you are going to a location that doesn’t provide compound you have to have significant cash liquidity to buy cars, rent houses, buy appliances, pay school deposits, etc etc and then wait months for the company to reimburse you.
I was told at the time when I accepted the offer that the expat package was only meant to be break even. I guess maybe my boss was a realist. After having been on the assignment for over 2 years now I know that this is a truth. The BA expat advisors look to sc–w you hard any chance they get and their service level is abysmal. Don't think they will respond when you email them. This became such a problem that they moved the initial service contact to cartus although I'm not sure why since cartus has to ask permission from tmo for everything so they're really just kind of a middle man that doesn't really provide any value.
I think the Golden days of expating are most likely over. Now you're just an employee that traded the first world for the third. It's kinda cool for a bit if you're the adventurous type but after a year or so it's a struggle.
If you live in a high inflation country (most of these broke a-s third world countries are) xom doesn't update their currency conversion numbers nearly enough to keep up and you end up loosing money throughout the year depending on the circumstances. The reimbursement they give you for travel is based on costs from I guess 15 years ago because I've never seen a ticket available for the amount they give you. The housing allowance they give you is enough for a tiny apt where you will worry about being robbed each time you go out or if you leave for the weekend, so you will have to come out of pocket a little to live in a place more on par with basic US standards. we all know costs in oil towns are higher than other cities in the country yet they pay you on a country aggregate cost structure.
I think the real value is that you get better/more direct work experiences being on the front line and you start to meet other people on the expat system that can help you maybe eventually reach one of those assignments in a first world nation. At this point, I think it's probably not worth it. Especially after the recent reductions in the uplift, thst really hurt.
Some positives are that you become aware of the privilege of living in the first world and you get some cool stories about how you lived in the field for 60 days because of some circumstance out of your control while your family was hold up in the apt. Or because the locals blocked traffic for a week or so you town ran out of basic foods and fuel. You form a pretty tight bond with the few other expats in your area and you commiserate together. You would be amazed at how you can become friends with people you wouldn't normally hang out with back home. You start lending each other tools and goods that each person needs because there's no where to buy them in town. Maybe someone finds an imported food somewhere in town and buys it and shares with everyone.
Ideally you want to be set in a country with good road and air infrastructure so I could actually see the country in which you're living.
So true: At best, packages keep you whole. At worst, you take a lot of personal financial risk with some of these decisions....and ExxonMobil is free to change your package at any time.
What frustrates me: 99% of managers still remember the expat package as a golden goose egg. So as you are stressing that you and your family may need to make significant financial cuts, the people around and above you just won’t understand. They will think you are whining about not making an extra $20k...when in fact, you are looking at taking a $20k pay CUT, while also looking at putting your family in a small apartment for 6 months because assignment-bridging benefits were also cut. ...again, maybe not a show stopper....but tell me you don’t dislike the company a little more when your family is sharing cramped, smelly accommodations on your own dime because some BA HR manager realized they could save the company $200k by subjecting 5 family’s to this ‘treat’ every year.
Prior to agreeing, interview the most recent expat to your assignment location and pepper them with questions. It’s the only way you will get a realistic view.
OP here. Thanks. Good sharing. I’d heard rotation was hard on marriages. What’s your take?
@2cec sounds like KL. That was my favorite assignment so far in spite of the motorbike sn—h thieves and the acid splashes. Rotating to cold environs was cool, but, KL back in the day was special.
Yeah I can assure you there were no expats "getting paid for months while staying in the states"... The tmo invented a 30 guideline to cut off your benefits but failed to tell anyone until right before they cut them off. I knew several people that were stuck in the states because they just happened to be in Houston for business when their work country was locked down. The company didn't care the reason. Xom is also hard as–s about cutting off your benefits on the first day you're over the limit but it takes them two months to turn them back on and reactivation time doesn't start until the month you returned in was over. Many people missed out on a good portion of their income. Xom expects you to jump through your own a-s to get something done but when I comes to them doing something in a timely manner it's "complicated".
Of course the tmo people are third world nationals that can't wait to take something away from the expats. I'm fairly certain they had the guidance of the company to do anything possible to deny benefits to employees. Really being an expat now feels like your own company is fighting against you.
Yall people complaining should try living somewhere where your wife can't wear her wedding ring outside or carry a purse because two as—s on a motorcycle might drag her down the street by her arm. Or where you risk your own life to go to the bank because the tellers tip off robbers waiting outside as to who just got 100 dollars worth of monopoly money out of the bank.
Rotational is where it's at. You get to get all the good parts and you get a solid 6 months of the year to enjoy your family while your relief takes care of all the bs back at the worksite. Youre only there for a month so by the time you are mentally drained by all the bs in your work country you get a chance to return to the US and have all those comforts. You're free to do whatever you want in that time, travel during your off time because you won't get any as an expat.
So to the OP you want to shoot for rotation, not live in country expat. Take it from me... I learned so you don't have to.
@2goh+1ajsKEFE COVID certainly has revealed that constant business travel and relocation are not needed.
@2goh Expat policy is if back in US for more than 30 days your expat premium and components except utilities for housing are terminated until you return. We all just went through that for the Covid crisis. Exceptions may buy you an extra week or two to accommodate travel schedules, that's about it.
Expats working in the U.S. from cheaper countries has been the norm for at least the last 10 years. For U.S. employees, we get screwed because the expats are always ranked at the top and are immune to PIP. I was in a group of 10 where I was one of two U.S. employees (8 are expats). The other US employee is 53. I'm 49. You can guess who got set up for PIP! Per management guidance, one employee per group had to be PIP'd (or NSI'd) in last year's rank. It could not be an expat. And 52-54 years old is bulletproof.
If only one could be so lucky to be an expat on the Guyana project. Bounce your family back and forth between the Netherlands and Singapore for design and fabrication. Or if you go in country, you could hang out in Houston getting expat pay for 6 months until it’s ‘safe’ to go in given COVID concerns. Talk about the company hemorrhaging money. Since people did these jobs remotely from Houston for 6 months they obviously didn’t need to be expats, especially in disciplines like Procurement.
Hit the nail on the head. There was a time when EXPAT was a good gig. That ship has sailed. Now you are much better off just staying in Houston. They keep cutting benefits and piling on more work by reducing staff.
Expat assignments will be very limited for those with less than 15 years service and those less the CL 28. We can hire much of our needs locally. There are plenty of well educated non-Americans on local payroll that make 1/5 what an expat US citizen makes. A very few experienced managers and seasoned specialists will get expat assignments. We will also non-operate other projects...so only operated projects will require special skills. Need to repatriate anyone with less than 15 years experience.
@1zrs is a real expat. He or she knows the score. F all the rest of you id--ts.
How to know someone has never worked expat? I felt the same way before going expat, this going to be awesome, I can travel every weekend, I'm going to be part of another culture, I'm going to make bank, I can make a real difference.
The reality is much different. Now your expat advisor trys to f–kyou out of every benefit allowed to you by company policy. You work 24/7 without any sort of backfill for you to ever enjoy your vacation time (you maybe have 4 or 5 expats to run an entire business unit) . You work with people who hate you because you drive them to improve where in their culture mediocrity is the norm. You make more money than them in a more desirable currency and they're jealous. In covid times most of these third world countries don't have their act together and don't allow you to leave your house and vaccines are a distant vision. Your friends at home say "just get a vaccine" "just fly home and visit". You guys don't understand the disconnect between the US and the rest of the world.
Conditions in these countries is much worse yet the company claims things are better to justify the reduction in the uplift. Yet in reality things are much worse. Insecurity is rising and business conditions are much worse.
So if you want to work 24/7 with all the declining benefits (if not more) as the rest of the company expat work is great. We got all the same reductions in benefits and cuts in uplift, housing allowance, and etc. You might be in the field and some locals block the roads for days at a time. Go back to the field and sleep in a dirty bed other people have slept in and eat a goat for dinner.
Maybe it might be better if you got assigned to a first world country?
I think the best gig is the rotators, it's like being an expat but you get days off and still get all the uplifts. Live in country expats do all the work of a rotational person but they do it every single day.
Expat addicts trying to justify their value? Just accept it that you are nothing a but a Freddy m–o
OP - The expat circuit is now biased toward clear value added employees and employees with clear HR development plan. I'm RE and have been on the circuit for well over 15 years straight with only time back in the Function (now "UIS") for transitional periods. I spend my days mostly on knowledge transfer and ensuring we hit our Production numbers. I've been asked to commit to several more years if I can. It's too bad more younger employees cant participate because the learning curve is 100x steeper than hanging around UIS with all the BS talking about 3rd hand info from people doing the real work. In regards to the other comments, they are from people who obviously have never worked in the field or on a real project. The extra pay doesn't really cover the personal sacrifices made. It's just all part of the job with more satisfaction doing the real work.
There are plenty of North American employees who speak more than one language
I wanted to be one of those people on the circuit for ten years. I’ve always wondered how they did it. Any idea which groups have the best chance of going expat and staying on the circuit long term? Drilling maybe?
Even if you somehow manage to get an expat role they have cut all the financial reward. The golden days are gone.
Don’t listen to these cubicle dwellers. For them, a trip to the coffee p-tis an adventure. Would never survive an expat assignment. LOL
Expats are the best employees at: drinking the kool aid, managing upwards, b–tkissing, yes men/women, will do anything they are asked to do by management, spy on their peers and others for management, milk the system to pad their own pockets. A despicable creature, always with a smile on their face, a kind word and stabbing you in the back at the same time. That is why you find so many on the circuit for so long as they are a useful tool for management, but hardly value added for where they work. They spend half their day working and the other half reporting back to Houston their findings. None are to be trusted, sorry, but it is the truth, their the spies for this centrally controlled organization. And of course, an expat will deny this as all spies do.
Expat opportunities are still there but of course shrinking with the downturn. One annoying factor are those who have literarily spent their entire career on the circuit. I’ve always felt the company should limit and rotate people out of these positions. I personally know multiple people who have spent 10 plus years at the same business unit as an expat.
Folks on expat assignments are the greedy ones. The worst and most incompetent ones begged for expats assignments with a lot of vigor. Folks who had expat assignments in the last 15 years should be public ally shamed for draining the company and stock investors money, and then unceremoniously fired.
@zgo+1ajsKEFE - Lol I never made any comment about the difficulty of working expat? I know it’s hard. If you could read you wouldn’t make st—dcomments like that.
You could join the Army if you're interested in expat assignments.
Why would EM go with native U.S. employees as expats overseas when there are so many South American, European, African, and Asian/Australian employees on the payroll? They are less than 1/2 the payroll burden too! And many were educated at the same schools as the U.S. counterparts. Plus, so many of them already live overseas and know the languages.
You obviously wouldn’t know because you were never worth being put on an expat assignment. If you had, you wouldn’t make st—dcomments like this. There are a few nice expat locations, but most require significant sacrifices of the employee and their family. You work the normal 10 hours or so local time, then spend another 5 or 6 on the phone with Houston. Nothing easy about it.
Of course it is dead. And thankfully so, one of the contributors to our company's downfall was expats milking the system for their own bank account and not adding any value to the company. However, if you must go to other countries, the BTC need employees to train them so the company can terminate you faster.
Why do you really want an expat assignment at EM? Honest question.
Most of the expats I know are in developing/third world countries. I’m all for getting to experience new cultures on the companies dime, but I think I’d rather travel there than full on live there. The more developed countries are near impossible to get.
Ok, what type of expat experience do you think you are going to get in the middle of COVID? Just chill for a couple of years.