"If you're going somewhere like China or Japan where the language is difficult and the culture completely different, you are going to find it very worrying when you get in a situation where you need emergency backup if you haven't done your groundwork," says Tracey Rosell, managing director of international staff relocation company Expatriate Essentials.
Our four key fieldwork challenges were scarce research capacity, staff relocation tensions, logistical constraints, and difficulties related to community buy-in.
Obtaining trust and buy-in from key gatekeepers, overcoming logistics difficulties, effectively developing local skills and managing staff relocation are some fieldwork aspects that may be particularly trying when working in deep rural settings.
The report found that a total of 894 staff received relocation allowances amounting to £16m, a figure that is expected to rise to £24m.
However, the corporation has come in for criticism from the National Audit Office for offering overly generous relocation packages totalling £24m to entice London staff to move north, with 188 BBC staff receiving £50,000 or more and 11 between £100,000 and £150,000.
"Some relocation allowances that the BBC paid to staff to move to Salford seem excessive and its recording of exceptions, some of which resulted in higher payments, was inadequate," the report said.
The BBC offered overly generous relocation packages potentially totalling £24m to entice London staff to move to its new base in Salford, but the process was generally well handled, the spending watchdog has concluded.
Last year only 13% of those staff earmarked for relocation had indicated they were ready to take on the move, although that figure is said to be increasing.
The sober changes announced by NBC Universal last week, aiming for $750 million in cuts by 2009, included plans for staff reductions, the relocation of some newsrooms and shared reporting by some of its news divisions.
LoisLaw, which has 400 employees, will become part of Aspen Publishing, a unit of Wolters Kluwer North America, based in Gaithersburg, Md. Kyle Parker, chief executive of LoisLaw, said he anticipated no staff cuts or relocation of its Van Buren, Ark., headquarters.
Under a revised clause, all staff who accept relocation support but then choose to leave the BBC within three years will have to pay back a proportion of the money they received.
