Reference no: EM132946355

You work for a very large American multinational company (headquartered in Delaware) that has subsidiaries in more than 100 countries. You are based in headquarters. About ten years ago, the company initiated a 'Country Manager Program' (CMP). The program seeks to take appropriately identified employees (the company calls them high-potential employees or high-pots for short) and to then fast track them through the training process to eventually become country managers of the various subsidiaries. The program has seen some good results. Before the CMP it would take about ten to 15 years before someone could gather enough exposure and training to become a country manager but the CMP has seen a number of people attain the positions of country manager within the space of eight years.

One of the components of the CMP is that selected candidates have to be posted to a reasonably senior position in overseas subsidiaries. These high-potential candidates are selected from various international subsidiaries as well as from headquarters and are subsequently posted to the company's subsidiaries around the world. These postings are usually for a period of three years. It is here that some problems have been noted. Of late there have been a number of requests from employees posted overseas to be returned home quickly (sometimes as early as within six months of having been posted out). Some have even threatened to resign from the company if their requests were not met immediately. These requests have created new problems. It is costly to send these expatriates to their new postings and the jobs that they vacated when they went for their overseas postings have already been filled by someone else.

Your company has now gathered a task force to address this situation. You have been invited to join this task force which has been directed to look for answers for the following areas of concern. What advice would you give to the following questions?

a. Considering the cost and time that your company has to invest in the CMP, as well as the problems and challenges that have arisen, an important question has emerged. The company is now asking whether it is strategically necessary to have high-potential employees go for these overseas postings? What is the rationale for continuing to do so and it it really worth the company's time and financial investment to maintain the CMP?

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