Expatriate Turnover and Recruitment Process of Projects-Abroad Sri Lanka: A Case Study

Abstract

Volun-tourism is a relatively a modern concept which combines the volunteering and tourism. Projects Abroad is the world’s leading global organizer of volunteer work placements where Gap year volunteers and recent graduates are the main market segments. The main role of Expatriate is to “work with volunteers, so they become more likely to tell the world how they had a good and worthwhile time”. Since most of expatriates were from Western countries, the recruitment costs are at a higher level. The main problem identified was the higher labor turnover/premature return. It caused a cycle of negative consequences including low customer service and decline of organizational performance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the current recruitment process and to find out causes for higher labor turnover of expatriates. Literature review was carried out to explore the international best practices and the causes underlying the problem in the study area. The research design was built on the integrated policy framework of recruitment aimed at increasing person-position fit, person-organisation fit and person-culture fit, and the satisfaction that ultimately lead to decreased expatriate premature returns. The data collection methods used in this study were the questionnaires, discussions and observations. Completed questionnaires were processed mainly through quantitative approach of data analysis. Findings revealed that majority of the expatriates were sourced outside the organization and more than a half of the respondents (67%) believed that they didn’t have a clear and adequate job description and a job specification. It was found that lack of centralised and well-defined human resources (HR) function as the main reason for not having structured, well-built and tested practices in HR Planning and recruitment of expatriates. It was further observed that the company doesn’t have documented procedure for recruitments. Inconsistency of the practices was the next major issue as there was no clarity in terms of the conditions and the procedural sequence of the prevailing guidelines. Hence, it was concluded that gaps in the recruitment process lead to the higher labor turnover among expatriates