The Hidden Cost of Assignment Failure: Why Family Support Is No Longer Optional

The business case for international assignments has always been clear: develop global talent, transfer critical knowledge, and expand organizational reach. Yet new research reveals that even the most strategically valuable placements are ending prematurely for a reason many mobility programs have overlooked, the toll on families.

AXA Global Healthcare's 2025 World of Work Report surveyed 641 international assignees and 689 HR decision-makers across ten countries, delivering a message that should resonate with every mobility leader: family pressures have emerged as a leading cause of early assignment termination. With assignment costs rising 58% on average since 2017, the financial impact of these failures demands attention.

The Support Gap

While most organizations excel at operational support—healthcare, visas, relocation logistics—they're falling short where it matters most to assignee success. Only 38% of families receive universal support for their emotional and personal adjustment. Another 28% receive help on a case-by-case basis, and 24% must meet minimum tenure requirements before accessing family benefits.

Perhaps more troubling is the communication breakdown: even when support exists, only 40% of assignees know it's available. Extended leave to visit loved ones, travel subsidies for family connections, counseling services—these benefits sit unused while families struggle.

The consequences are measurable. When assignees relocate with partners or children, 67% report feeling mentally well. That drops to just 42% for those living apart from family and 48% for solo movers. The data is unequivocal: family wellbeing directly predicts assignment success.

The Reality of Family Challenges

Even among families who relocate together, significant obstacles persist. Thirty-five percent report their partners struggle to find employment in the host country. Thirty-one percent experience strain on family relationships. Twenty-eight percent say their partner or family would prefer to return home. These aren't minor inconveniences—they're the friction that leads to early termination.

For assignees separated from families, the challenges intensify despite technology enabling daily connection. Ninety-three percent use digital tools to stay in touch, and 80% feel their employer supports these efforts. Yet 35% report negative impacts on their wellbeing, 46% experience relationship strain, and 27% note declining physical health. Distance extracts a real cost.

The flexibility to address these challenges remains limited. Only 29% of employers offer assignees the ability to adapt their benefits packages to cover partners or family members—a missed opportunity to customize support for individual circumstances.

The Repatriation Blind Spot

The challenges don't end when assignees return home. Many mobility programs treat repatriation as a simple transition, yet the research reveals it as perhaps the most psychologically complex phase of the assignment journey.

Nine in ten assignees report experiencing mental health challenges during their international posting. Yet only 40% receive psychological support upon return. While over half secure promotions or guaranteed roles, personal wellbeing and cultural readjustment lag behind professional reintegration. Only three in five HR leaders provide reverse culture shock training, despite this transition requiring as much—if not more—support as the initial move abroad.

Connecting to the ROI Challenge

These findings take on even greater significance when viewed alongside the findings we recently reported from the 2025 KPMG Global Mobility Benchmarking Report, which revealed that demonstrating return on investment has become the number one challenge for 31% of mobility leaders. Here's the connection: every assignment that ends early due to inadequate family support directly undermines your program's ROI.

When an assignment fails—particularly one where costs have risen 58% since 2017—the financial impact is immediate and measurable. But the strategic costs are even more damaging: lost productivity during the assignment, disrupted business continuity, delayed project deliverables, and damaged employee confidence in the mobility program.

This creates a vicious cycle. Mobility leaders struggle to demonstrate ROI while preventable assignment failures continue to erode program performance. Meanwhile, KPMG found that 62% of mobility functions report being "not at all involved" in candidate selection, limiting their ability to influence the factors that determine assignment success.

What Success Looks Like Now

Both reports point to the same conclusion: assignment success criteria have fundamentally shifted. Salary and logistics remain table stakes, but sustainable global mobility strategy now requires three additional pillars—wellbeing, cultural integration, and family inclusion.

Mobility leaders are starting to realize that international placements succeed or fail based on human factors traditionally relegated to "soft" support. The assignee struggling with a depressed spouse isn't delivering their best work. The professional worried about elderly parents back home isn't focused on the strategic objective that justified the assignment. The family considering early return isn't building the cross-cultural capabilities the organization needs.

For mobility leaders seeking to demonstrate ROI—KPMG's number one challenge—preventing assignment failures through comprehensive family support provides a clear, measurable impact on program performance.

Moving Forward

Making family support a core pillar of global mobility policy means more than adding benefits. It requires reviewing support packages with the same frequency we review compensation, treating repatriation as a distinct phase requiring active intervention, and prioritizing mental health throughout the assignment lifecycle.

As KPMG noted, mobility leaders expect the strategic value of their programs to increase from 6.0 to 7.1 out of 10 in the next 12-18 months. Achieving that increase requires moving beyond operational efficiency to demonstrate measurable business impact. Reducing assignment failures through better family support is one of the most direct paths to that goal.

The opportunity is significant. When families settle successfully, assignments thrive. When they don't, even the most carefully designed mobility programs falter. In an environment where assignment costs have increased nearly 60% and proving ROI has become mobility's top challenge, the question isn't whether we can afford to invest in family support—it's whether we can afford not to.