What is an impatriation ? In the professional context, an impatriation is a situation where a company has foreign employees come and worked in France.

Before deciding to impatriate someone to France, you must ask yourself a full range of questions, often similar to those you ask yourself when expatriating someone, which will allow you to make the right decision : should I impatriate or not ?

Why impatriating someone? Why not hiring a French local employee, which would allow you to forget about all the costs, risks and constraints tied to the international mobility of an employee to France ? Why expatriating an entire family when you can send a single person ? 

You must find an answer, a justification to all these answers and many others, prior to making a final decision, because you must remember that having a foreign employee come and work in France is a choice. However, having someone from abroad come and worked in France can also be due to a need for certain skills that you can not find in France.

Impatriating an employee is by definition "expensive", if not "very expensive", but you cannot forget that it is also about the "employee", the "family that joins the experience", the "carrier" and the "life style".

Therefore, and even if it is difficult to be certain of having made the right choice, you must reduce risks to the minimum. Errors can have expensive consequences in an international context.

What are the rules that can help you start a successful impatriation to France ? 

1 - First, you must determine your needs. Do we need a person qualified whom we can not find in France ? Are you the one making the decision or is this decision being imposed by headquarters ? Answering these questions will allow you to determine what your responsibilities are, and the actions to be undertaken.

2 - The choice of the candidate by the HR and management is essential to reaching the goal of this assignment abroad.

3 - The candidate (and his family, eventually) must be convinced that coming to France is a good choice.

4 - You will need to familiarize yourself with the needs and the legal obligations of the impatriate in France : do I need to follow a special procedure for immigration purposes ? How about labor laws ? Are there any housing constraints ? What type of school for the children ?

5 - Finally, you will have to follow the employee throughout his/her assignment. Do not forget about him or her !