YOUR 5-YEAR-OLD has been bitten by a spider and can barely move his foot, which has swelled to twice its normal size. Fearing the worst, you reach for the phone to consult a physician. But who do you call? You’re 4,000 miles from home. When you call a clinic, you connect with someone speaking a language you can’t understand.

“We didn’t know what to do or where to go,” says Johnson, ’88, who moved his family to Heidelberg to take a new position with Becton Dickinson.

Increasingly, companies are moving their employees abroad with families in tow. The already complicated task of moving an employee to another country–securing a visa and work permit, negotiating a compensation package, finding housing and transportation in the new country–becomes even more difficult when families are factored in.

Spouses who have given up a job in the United States may find themselves struggling to secure a post abroad or adjusting to a stay-at-home life. Some may start families far from the supportive circle of family and friends, hunting to find health care and schooling for their children.

A smart company helps their employees’ families overcome those struggles. Cornelius Grove of Cornelius Grove & Associates, a Brooklyn, New York-based firm that helps people with international adjustment, told the Wall Street Journal in January 1997 that dissatisfaction among spouses is the number one reason for early returns from international assignments. And early returns translate into extra expense to retrain and relocate a replacement...