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Reproduced with permission from Mobility magazine, November 2003

No Nasty Surprises When Integrating English-speaking Inpats into the United States

Frequently, transferees from an English- speaking country and relocation professionals underestimate the adjustment to living in the United States. Shaw provides a guide on how to set expectations, avoid underestimating the change, and learn the areas of frustration for English-speaking inpats.

By Martin Shaw

I found using my Pocket Oxford Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of American English was invaluable. —British inpat, 2003

The first shock came soon after my arrival in the United States. I applied for a credit card, and was turned down flat. Indignant, I wrote a finely-crafted letter laying out my life's history to which, a few days later, I received a four-word reply on computer print-out paper: NO PRIOR CREDIT HISTORY.

This incident was more than 20 years ago, and I got off relatively light. In the cocoon of the Washington diplomatic corps, to which I belonged as a First Secretary in the British Embassy, my house was provided, and I never had to worry about the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (now the Bureau of Citizen-ship and Immigration Services (BCIS)), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), or the gauntlet of federal and state agencies that most inpats need to run during the period of their relocation to the United States.

I tell the story, not to illustrate a particular problem commonly experienced by inpats to the United States, but because I am from the United Kingdom (UK) and, when I first came to the United States all those years ago, I absolutely did not expect that things could be as different and as frustrating here as they turned out to be.

I had moved internationally several times before—to countries where you needed language training, and were encouraged to read books about history and culture before you left home. Compared to those, I thought to myself, the United States should be easy. 

After all, I had been watching episodes of "Kojak," "Columbo," and "Dallas" for years, and my best friends in more than one foreign capital had been Americans. At some level of the unconscious, I was saying: "same language, same history (at least before 1776, with the period afterwards being covered by Hollywood movies!), closest allies, special relationship, no problem."

Even the embassy in Washington, DC, in the way it was organized to help incoming staffers and their families, seemed to be assuming the same things. In Bucharest, Romania, where I had been assigned previously, the embassy closed around a person in a protective embrace with an elaborate system of mentoring support for new arrivals. By contrast, in Washington, I neither expected nor received this kind of nurturing. It was as if to say: "This is the United States—you can cope on your own."

The Expectation Gap
The importance of "managing expectations" cannot be overstated when it comes to helping inpats adjust to life in the United States. Indeed, the success or failure of a relocation program often can be measured in terms of the gap between an inpat's expectations before arrival and the subsequent reality as he or she goes through the necessary processes and adjustments. The smaller the gap, the more smoothly everything will have gone, and it is an important part of our job in the relocation industry—HR and providers alike-—to try to keep it as small as possible. "No nasty surprises" ought to be our motto.

Seen in this way, it is perfectly possible for a relocation from a country with a culture that is as different from the United States as, say, Japan, to go more smoothly than one from a culture thought to be much closer, such as the UK or Australia. The difference will be in the extent to which inpats are prepared in advance to expect and deal with the differences that surely will exist between their home countries—English-speaking or not—and the United States. 

Perils of Under-expecting
My own experience—both personally, and as a relocation program manager for the last five years-tells me that inpats from the major English-speaking countries tend to "under-expect" the degree of challenge presented by a relocation to the United States; and that as a consequence, quite large numbers of them experience avoidable difficulties and frustrations at some point in the relocation process. These difficulties take up the resources of those assigned to help them, and could be much reduced if expectations were properly in place in the beginning. 

The numbers are not insignificant. According to BCIS statistics for 2002, nearly 30 percent (92,052) of all inter-company transfers into the United States were from the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand—with nearly 18 percent (55,315) from the UK alone. And these figures do not by any means cover all categories of international corporate transfers into the United States.

Our industry is now alive to the idea that the United States is a "foreign" destination, but most of the focus is in support of inpats from the more obviously "different" countries of origin, the ones that do not speak English. It is time now to extend the notion of the United States as a "foreign" destination more seriously to the large numbers of inpats from the English-speaking world as well.

Two to Tango
I put it this way, because expectations are set both by the inpat, and by those who are helping with their relocation. I suspect that many of us at the U.S. end of the relocation process—the HR managers in the destination offices, the managers in the relocation management companies, and the destination consultants providing the face-to-face help on the ground—unconsciously make assumptions about English-speaking inpats, and their ability to cope in America that mirrors and even reinforces the assumptions that the inpats themselves are making. 

So the solution will need some "re-education" on both sides.

An Informal Survey
In preparation for this article, I carried out a small survey among some inpats who have relocated recently to various parts of the United States from Australia, Ireland, and the UK. The numbers are too small to hang great statistical weight on, but some trends seem clear enough to mention. In particular, when asked which of 13 categories of life in the United States they expected in advance to be worse or more difficult than the same in their own countries, respondents put 27 percent of their answers in this category. When asked the same questions after their relocations were completed, this percentage rose to 38 percent. 

Most conspicuous probably was the shift in the number of negative responses on "being understood" in the United States. Twice as many inpats identified this as a problem after arrival than had expected it beforehand.

The responses also hinted at different levels of expectation and response among nationals of the three countries; and possibly, in the case of one group of transferees employed by the same large company, at the results of different corporate cultures and relocation policies. This subject deserves more intensive study, encompassing both English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries of origin, and the results might help quantify the effect of different national and corporate cultures on the expectation of foreign transferees in the United States generally.

Dealing With Questions of Process
Dealing with American bureaucracy has been much worse than expected. —British inpat, New Jersey, 2003

Hollywood does not do too many movies about the bureaucratic process in the United States (a charming exception might be Peter Weir's 1990 film "Green Card"), so inpats have few points of reference when they first encounter institutions such as the SSA, IRS, and BCIS.

Bill Bryson, in his affectionate and hilarious book about returning to the United States after 20 years in England, I'm a Stranger Here Myself (published in the UK as Notes From a Big Country), wonderfully skewers the American love of rules and regulations, especially as practiced by the federal bureaucracy. Read the section titled "Your Tax Form Explained" to see what I mean. 

Inpats unavoidably will have to go through a lot of processes when they first come to America, and will need to cope with a lot of rules, and with the special breed of people who are paid to guard them. If you are "under-expecting," as I argue many English-speaking inpats are, this experience can be quite traumatic.

What can relocation providers do to help in this regard? The general answer is never to assume that inpats will know what the processes are, to make every effort to stay up to speed with the rules ourselves, and to make sure that inpats have the best possible advice ahead of time, so that they do not get nasty surprises. This is easier said than done, since most of the federal and state agencies involved have (understandably) been busy changing the rules since September 11, 2001, and the changes are not always easy to monitor.

Beyond that, service providers should make it their business to have a general idea of how our processes in the United States differ from the equivalent processes in the countries of origin. It certainly helps, for instance, for the destination service consultants on the ground to have themselves experienced a foreign relocation. You need to remember what it is like to come from being a big fish in a small sea, to being a very small fish in a decidedly big one.

But even the best advice and empathy will not stave off every case of shock. For the inpat emerging from a visit to (for example) the local DMV, we always need to be ready to explain that it is the hallmark of the American spirit that, be they high and mighty, or poor and lowly, everyone, repeat everyone, gets the same treatment. It is nothing personal!

Apart from the federal and state agencies, inpats from English-speaking countries will need to deal with unfamiliar processes in many other aspects of their relocation:

Real estate. In my survey, most respondents said that finding a home in the United States was more difficult than they had expected. There certainly are differences in the conventions of real estate in the English-speaking countries, and some frustrations undoubtedly stem from these differences. Inpats, for example, may not be familiar with the Multiple Listing System, and the role of the REALTOR®) in the United States. British inpats, may, unless you gently put them right, expect their service provider to introduce them to multiple REALTORS® in the same market, and then want to negotiate the lease directly with a landlord, because that is what homesearch often requires in the UK. Service providers should be aware of these and other differences, and explain them in advance.

Banking. The biggest challenge for inpats on the financial side, as I found out myself, is to be eligible for credit in the United States from the moment of arrival. The best solution is to take advantage of any special relationship that the inpat's company, or relocation service provider, already may have with a U.S. bank. If these do not exist, holders of personal American Express accounts may be able to transfer their home country credit history to the United States via American Express. Or, in case there is no quick solution, inpats should be advised to keep their home-based credit cards active for a while after arrival.

There are other smaller banking issues, too: For instance, inpats may not be familiar with the practice of some U.S. banks to expect a minimum balance on checking accounts, and to charge a fee if you fall below it. And paying bills by automatic debit, or electronic banking, may not yet be as common in the United States as in their own countries.

Medicine. Most English-speaking countries have universal, "cradle-to-grave," health systems, similar to the National Health Service in the UK. The U.S. system, while superior for those covered by it, will be strange and different to inpats from these countries, and the process for selecting medical and dental providers, for seeing doctors and specialists, and generally for settling medical bills, needs to be spelled out in simple and basic ways.

Schools. Almost everything about the U.S. school system will be new to inpats from English-speaking countries (Canada excepted, in some aspects): the school calendar; the curriculum; teaching the history of liberation from British tyranny; the grade structure; the SAT; the Pledge of Allegiance; the word "sophomore;" football; cheerleaders; yellow school buses (and the rule not to pass them when they stop!); the PTA, and much more.

But the school systems also differ among the English-speaking countries themselves, so the degree of adjustment required will depend on the system in the inpat's country of origin. I do not pretend to have expertise in this field, but would highlight a number of topics for early discussion with in-coming parents: 

• long waiting lists—and early decision-making—for the best international and private schools;
• the recent appearance in several American cities (Washington, DC; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX, at last count) of the British School, a private venture that follows the British curriculum;
• the excellent quality of some American public schools; 
• the crucial relationship between the location of a home and the schools that children attend; and¥ the possibilities offered by the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in some American high schools.

Helping with Questions of Day-to-day Living and Culture
I expected the big things to be different, like the weather and driving on the other side of the road, but there are many little differences, and these are the ones that are most stressful-like going to the supermarket and not recognizing a single product. —Australian inpat, Seattle, WA, 2003

In my survey, much about life in the United States stood up well to my expectation test. For example, most respondents expected "cultural life" (meaning arts, theater, and the like), dining out, recreation, and opportunities for travel and weekends away, to be as good or better than the same things at home; and nearly all of them confirmed that this was the case after they had been here for a while. 

Scoring less well was American TV and radio. The number expecting these aspects of American life to be worse than at home doubled after they had had a chance to experience it first hand! Also commented on was a perceived difficulty in getting to know Americans socially at home. 

Who Moved My Baked Beans?
Surprisingly, one of the larger culture shocks awaiting the English-speaking inpat is found in the great American supermarket. All the English-speaking countries outside the United States, to a greater or lesser extent, share a love of English pub food, of which the piece de resistance (to borrow a phrase from another culture) is the meat pie. You will look in vain in all the vastness of the American supermarket for the Cornish pasty, the pork pie, or (except miniaturized as a frozen "cocktail" item) the sausage roll. At the risk of betraying my own taste in food—my UK family still does not understand when, after all these years, and fresh off the plane from Heathrow, I head straight for the pie and sausage section of the local food store!

It is not just the absence of beloved staples, but also an excess of choice of some others, that can be bewildering. For example, I was brought up on Heinz baked beans—indeed, I cut my teeth (can-opener) as a chef on them. Imagine the confusion of the inpat from the UK or Ireland or Australia when first coming on the baked bean section in a local U.S. supermarket. There are baked beans with molasses; baked beans with bacon; baked beans with honey mustard; old-fashioned baked beans; vegetarian baked beans—and a dozen more varieties—but where are the baked beans that we know and love?

Food is not, of course, the only cause of perplexity. There are other important behavioral and cultural differences that English-speakers notice soon enough in the United States and may find irritating before they come to accept them. What can be done to prepare them better for these?

The answer is both simple and complex. Tell the inpat as much as possible about the ways in which American culture differs from his or her own before arrival—offer cross-cultural training, in other words—and then reinforce with carefully-crafted destination services after arrival. 

Helping With Questions of Language and Communication
When a person can be seen to have English as a new language there is an expectation that communication may take more effort and time-but quite naturally when we both speak the same parent language, we are not allowing for miscommunication. —British inpat, Indianapolis, IN, 2003

George Bernard Shaw famously said that Britain and America "are two countries divided by a common language." Most inpats from English-speaking countries will know what he meant. Nothing is as disorienting as to discover that the meaning one has given to ordinary words—not just words, but gestures and body language, too—all of one's life can send sometimes quite different messages to listeners in the United States—and vice versa.

Even small differences in pronunciation can become quite large obstacles.

For example, after more than 20 years, I still hardly can bring myself to say the word tomato without self-consciousness, as if I was doing a bad imitation of someone; nor can I drop the "H" in the word herb (as in 'erbs and spices) as if I was playing Eliza Doolittle (I have been told that herb had once been pronounced without the "H" in England, too. The two pronunciations diverged during the Napoleonic Wars, when the British set about Anglicizing words of French origin, and the Americans left things as they were—which, if true, would account for the American pronunciation today of other words like Bernard, garage and brochure, where the stress is on the last syllable, in the French manner.).

Even simple, well-intended greetings can cause confusion, as in the common American "How are you doing?" or, more specifically "How are you doing today?" The inpat from the UK will feel compelled to seriously answer this question, beginning with what he had for breakfast, and may be taken aback when the greeter does not stay around to listen.

Differences in English usage between the United States and the other major English-speaking countries has been the subject of numerous books and even whole dictionaries, and I will not presume to try to add to that literature here. Suffice it to say that the differences are real and can affect the quality of an inpat's relocation to the United States just as surely as a bad day at the Social Security office. 

The fact is that the United States, in many important practical ways, is a foreign destination, even for its nearest linguistic and cultural cousins. If transitions here are to be truly smooth for English-speaking inpats—and that surely should be the goal—then it is incumbent on companies and service providers to see that they receive the full range of support, including intercultural support, appropriate for any foreign assignment. "No nasty surprises" should be everybody's motto.

Martin Shaw is director of program development, Full Circle International Relocations, McLean, VA. He can be reached at 703/448-1902 or e-mail martin.shaw@fullcircle.com.