Should we talk about this? Investigating the potential impact of counseling on relocation satisfaction in expatriate employees

Organizations do little to facilitate an expatriate employee’s relocation, leaving employees and their trailing spouse dissatisfied with their move, and further dissatisfied with the employee’s organization. This study will investigate counseling around the time of their move as a means of organizational support for the employee and their trailing spouse. This paper hypothesizes that six weeks of counseling both before and after employee’s relocation will improve relocation satisfaction as measured by organizational commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and relationship satisfaction. This paper also hypothesizes that six weeks of counseling only after relocating will still be effective in improving relocation satisfaction. Finally, this paper hypothesizes that a total lack of counseling will result in significantly worse relocation satisfaction. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of these levels of counseling and will assess their relocation satisfaction upon exit of their intervention. This investigation is important as it could highlight the importance of counseling as a form of organizational support for relocated employees, which could lead to improved organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and reducing turnover intentions. Feedback form: https://forms.gle/wTAhuZDwwPGwBjpR