Flightster

Traveling Rough, and Getting Paid for it

• by Alan Perlman
• on November 9th, 2010
• 5 Comments

I’m writing this from Dhaka, Bangladesh, the eighth largest city in the world, one of the densest, most polluted places I’ve ever visited. The traffic here is remarkable, the poverty stark and striking. Just this morning, idled in the cramped, diesel-fumed heat of Gulshan, one of Dhaka’s newer neighborhoods, I was approached by beggars—some frail, others deformed, some asking for money, others pushing their seemingly lifeless babies against the car window, moaning for help.

It’s a scene that’s hard to describe, and even after years of travel, it still makes me queasy.

A couple of nights ago, I had dinner with one of our clients. He moved to Dhaka just over a year ago with his wife and two boys. Among other things, we talked about typhoid, hepatitis, violent mobs, raw sewage, hidden mold, and the extremely high cost of expatriate-quality homes and apartments.

This client contact is in charge of operations and handles the housing accommodations for all incoming employees. Just a few months ago, one of his staff had to move to another apartment due to a deadly mold situation. That’s right. During the monsoon season, the walls slowly deteriorated and bubbled over in toxic pockets of mold. This happens often, apparently.

Also, a few months ago, an email was sent around the office suggesting people to not buy meat for a while. The reason? Oh, just that some of the meat circulating Bangladesh was infected with Anthrax. No big deal.

At one point during the conversation, somewhere between the smelly description of street-level sewage and the getting-held-up-at-gun-point story, I thought to myself, Why would anyone in their right mind choose to live in such a place? I mean, I’ll travel just about anywhere in the world, but choosing to live and work in a place like this..full-time?

Then I remembered–these guys are getting paid really well.

When companies move employees around the world, there are several different types of packages and support systems in place. From a standard cost-of-living adjustment to spousal and familial support, supplemental housing allowances, R&R leaves and medical evacuation policies, companies have many things to work out with their employee transfer.

One of my favorite considerations to think about is the hardship allowance.

In places like Dhaka, living conditions are difficult. Sure, companies can factor in cost-of-living adjustments, but employees need a bigger incentive if they’re going to pick up and move halfway around the world with their families for two, three or four years. Especially to a city where expatriates get de-wormed twice a year.

A hardship allowance is an extra sum of money based on the level of physical threat, discomfort, and inconvenience to expatriate families in any given location. The level of hardship in a particular location is not easily defined. There are many elements to consider—medical care, the quality and availability of goods and services, education, housing, climate, political stability, violence and hostility, cultural and geographic isolation, the list goes on. Assigning a dollar value to a set of beliefs and value systems can be quite a difficult task for companies, so objective, third-party companies like mine step in to help consult.

So how much money are we talking about? United States Foreign Service workers, for example, may get anywhere between an extra ten to thirty-five percent of their salary. Some organizations will pay even more. I met with one of our clients in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan who brings in a hardship allowance equal to fifty percent of his salary. I wish I would have known this before our meeting. He grilled my research for nearly two hours, complaining about how difficult his life was an expatriate. That’s why you’re getting paid, guy!

It is hard to live anywhere. When an expatriate gives up comfort, safety, and their general living standards, they deserve to be compensated beyond their normal employment parameters. I think about our clients in Dhaka and Ashgabat, in Soyo, Angola and Harare, Zimbabwe and Astana, Kazakhstan. I don’t know about you, but I’d have to be making quite a lot of money to justify a long-term move to any of these places.

Then again, send me to a place like Singapore, Hong Kong or Istanbul, and you probably wouldn’t have to pay me an extra cent. My company doesn’t have to know that, of course. Bring on the hardship!

photo from IFPRI

Alan Perlman

Alan Perlman travels the world as an international cost-of-living surveyor. When he's not hunting for the price of female undergarments in places like Syria, Rwanda and Turkmenistan, he's hanging out in Boston, MA, staying active, meeting people and brainstorming business models. You can read more about Alan and his plans to conquer life at his blog, The 9 to 5 Alternative.