Expat Women May 2010 Home Page

Hi Everyone, We have just uploaded our Expat Women May 2010 home page. Please take a look, share it with your friends and tweet about it for us. Thank you!

Success Story
Lynda Armstrong OBE FEI
Technical VP, Shell International
Lynda Armstrong OBE FEI, awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003, has worked for Shell for more than 35 years in a variety of assignments around the world. Lynda’s current position is Technical Vice President with Shell International, based in the Netherlands...
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Business Idea
Masha Malka
Success Coaching
Masha Malka is a former Soviet refugee who has gone from living life with little clarity and focus to becoming a successful entrepreneur, best-selling author, international speaker and a mentor to many. She is a resident coach for the national radio station Talk Radio Europe in Spain and has done over 200 radio interviews...
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Motivational
Embracing the Pain and Power of Change
Nona Jordan
Living overseas can be a constant barrage of new and exciting experiences. However, even the most savvy and confident of women can get thrown off balance during the unexpected changes that life throws their way, resulting in painful body aches and/or emotions...
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Expat Confession
My Kids Are My All
Expat Women Girlfriend
I am a lawyer who gave up my own very successful practice to move abroad with my husband over 14 years ago. My husband travels extensively for work and I am worried that I am too attached to my children... my days revolve around my kids entirely and I willingly turn down social functions...
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Starting A Business
Got A Million Dollar Dream?
Learn From Tamara Monosoff
Former expat Tamara Monosoff is a mother and businesswoman who knows all about making dreams come true. Tamara made her own dreams come true when she invented and successfully sold her product in thousands of stores nationwide. She has also made the dreams of thousands of other mothers come true...
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Worldwide ERC® Event 
Insights From Asia Pacific Conference
Andrea Martins
Have you ever made a last-minute decision to attend a conference and then found yourself having such a wonderful time you wondered why you had never attended before? Well, that happened to me recently at the Worldwide ERC® conference in Hong Kong...
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Not A Member Yet?
Just a reminder that our blog is separate from our main site, so if you are reading this blog post online or you are only subscribed to our blog, you will not automatically receive our Expat Women monthly newsletters. To receive our newsletter this month (which will hopefully be sent next week) and to go in the running to win our monthly prize of a complete set of Explorer Publishing's Mini-Guides, please sign up today to our main site ExpatWomen.com, and also receive your link to our free e-book of Winning Stories!

Amazon Kindle Competition
We will be closing this competition today, 5pm NY time.  The winner be announced on this blog next week.

Thank you very much and have a fabulous May!  Andrea

Upcoming Worldwide ERC® Events

Hi Everyone, If you work in the mobility field, you might be interested in some of the upcoming Worldwide ERC® Events on offer...

Global Mobility Specialist (GMS™) Training
May 17-19, 2010
Orlando, Florida

National Relocation Conference
May 19-21, 2010
Orlando, Florida

Global Mobility Specialist (GMS™) Training
June 7-9, 2010
Frankfurt, Germany

Global Workforce Summit: Focus on Europe, Middle East & Africa
June 10-11, 2010
Frankfurt, Germany

Global Mobility Specialist (GMS™) Training
October 25-27, 2010
Seattle, Washington

National Relocation Conference
May 18-20, 2011
Las Vegas, Nevada

Global Workforce Symposium
October 12-14, 2011
Denver, Colorado

For more details, please visit the Worldwide ERC® website. Thanks.

Report from ERC Global Mobility Conference in Hong Kong, March 10-11

Hi Everyone, I made a last-minute decision to attend the Worldwide ERC Conference (last week in Hong Kong. To my surprise, it was a very warm and friendly conference, I knew more people than I had expected, and the networking was wonderful. If you work in the global mobility and/or relocations industry, it’s a great, fun conference to be involved in and I encourage you to consider attending the upcoming conferences this year in Frankfurt, Germany (June) and Seattle, Washington (October).

Conference Sessions

To get an idea about what transpired at the conference, here is a list of the main sessions held:

• The New China (Opening Plenary)
• Managing Talent in the New Economy
• The HR Discipline of Measuring ROI
• The Effect of Global Economics on Workforce Mobility and Mobility Benefits
• Survive and Thrive in the ‘New Normal’ – Policy Trends Update and Interactive Workshop
• Global Mobility Benchmarking Workshop for Corporate HR Professionals
• Global Thought Leaders: Senior Strategists Dialogue
• Solutions Workshop: Alignment of Talent, Mobility, and Business Strategies
• Focus on Assignments in Indonesia
• Mobility Compensation Issues and Practices in Asia
• Understanding Localization and ‘Local Plus’
• India: Trends in Workforce Mobility
• Exploring Commuter and Short-Term Assignments
• The War for Talent in China: Benefits, Challenges
• Schooling Solutions for the Assignee’s Family
• Legal Update: Labor and Immigration Hot Issues
• Turn Obstacles into Opportunities Through Hope and Humor (Closing Plenary)

Insights

I am going to write up a conference report for our Expat Women April or May newsletter. But in the meantime, here are some interesting insights that I heard during the sessions:

• Last year, US$560 billion of residential property sold in China – which was an 80% increase from the year before – and clearly demonstrates the heightened activity in China at the moment

• The wealth of most of the richest residents in China is property-related, versus only 7 out of 100 on the US’s rich list being property-related.

• Martin Leese, HR manager for Citigroup (48,000 employees), commented that he is seeing a decrease in the acceptance rate of job offers – including for graduate jobs (which he noted was a general financial services trend in the United States right now).

• HR issue regarding expatriates: offering incentives that are ‘sustainable’. Various HR managers commented on their push to make expat job offers more consistent and their need to stop throwing incentives to expatriate employees that are not sustainable in the long-term.

• There was a general trend that ‘local plus’ packages (that is, local packages with some, but not all, extra/expat benefits).

• Brendan Ryan, MD Operations for Fragomen Global, said that in his twenty years of working in the field of immigration law and visas, he had never seen such a worldwide trend to both tighten and enforce immigration policies.

• Tax equalisation: Talk of more and more companies providing expat packages that are ‘tax neutral’ – that is, you don’t lose if you move to a higher-tax country with your employer, but you don’t win either (on the tax aspect... this discussion talked about 'other' benefits separately), if you move to a lower-tax country.

It goes without saying that not everyone agreed with everything (me included), but it was interesting to hear HR trends and listen to the perspectives of HR managers, who, it should be remembered, are constantly under pressure to reduce resource expenditure yet improve their company’s bottom line.

If you are not already an Expat Women member, please sign up so you don’t miss my full report in one of our upcoming newsletters. Thanks for your support, Andrea.

Global Workforce Symposium, Chicago, October 7-9

Hi Everyone, If you are in or around Chicago and have not already registered for Worldwide ERC's Global Workforce Symposium, their main sessions start Thursday morning, October 8, so it's not too late to change your mind...

Worldwide ERC's 2008 Global Workforce Symposium, October

Hi Everyone, If you are involved in the workforce mobility field, or servicing those that are, you might like to consider a Worldwide ERC© (Employee Relocation Council) conference.

This year's Global Workforce Symposium will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park, Washington DC, October 29-31. More details available here.

To see Jill's account from her attendance last year at the same conference in Denver, Colorado, just click here.

FYI, Worldwide ERC© is also running the following events:

2009 Global Workforce Summit
March 4-5, 2009: Singapore

2009 National Relocation Conference
May 13-15, 2009: San Diego, California

2009 Global Workforce Symposium
October 7-9, 2009: Chicago, Illinois

2010 National Relocation Conference
May 19-21, 2010: Orlando, Florida

2010 Global Workforce Symposium
October 27-29, 2010: Seattle, Washington