Intra-regional collaboration is important for long-term career success.

Mentoring

By David Thatcher

Regional hype, the desire to attract talent, a commodity hiring mentality and intra-regional rivalry throws up many barriers to advancement. On the face of it you may very well think that in the spirit of harmony, there would be ample opportunity for moving throughout the region taking up new roles that offer challenge and satisfaction.

Although there are collaborative alliances driving growth and expansion, this region does not behave in a similar way to the EU for there is no common platform for intra-country transfer and each country still applies its own restrictions on freedom of movement. When you consider that the majority of pay-rolled senior decision makers are expatriates, then we have a problem.

The tenure of an expatriate manager will be ephemeral, either by choice or by situation but nevertheless, their roles are of finite duration. Often, career path planning is influenced and subject to external factors that quite often cannot be controlled, often without remedy. Having a contract prematurely terminated because there has been a change of mind or a switch to a lower cost base alternative can happen unexpectedly. A career path is cut short, the company says it is making the person redundant and yet replaces them with someone else. Who said back luck comes in threes?

Piece by piece we complete a somewhat amorphous jigsaw puzzle, where each component represents the manifold components that represent: the individual, their career related matters, personal issues that have an impact on career path planning such as family commitments, choice in companies, business environment, local barriers such as hiring legislation. Add to this the ever increasing combinations of factors called market conditions and it is clear that many unrelated factors conspire to make career transitions so difficult.

In the past we described an analogy that helped demonstrate the enabling components that allow transition strategies to be successful. This comparable drew in the concept of “dualities”, where diverse systems such as mechanical, fluid, thermodynamic, electronic etc are related through the differential equations that govern their behavior

Experience developed within one functional role has components that are transferable and of relevance to others and this is the “duality” that makes career transitions workable.

It becomes increasingly difficult when attempting to move within a market where many companies do not recognise what it is that the individual has to offer and, are unable to align available talent with business needs. This “conflict dichotomy”, often drives the desire to recruit people that have the wrong experience.

Over the past 18 months the region has drastically transformed to create a trading bloc that one day will compete with the EU and Asia. If it aspires to this then change is needed to ensure that a spirit of fair play for itinerant staff and, most importantly, domestic legislation underpins the employment market laying down and defending a code of practice for expatriates.

Turbulence from within the region creates openings and also throws up barriers for many expatriates. Often, messaging about flag-ship projects implies a level of maturity that attracts talent. Sadly, the actual status often lags perception and this illusion inadvertently misleads the career seeker into believing there are senior opportunities. This can quite unnecessarily drive people into job-hunt mode and, waste a lot of everyone’s time in the process.

Uncertainty within a market that is in expansion mode stimulates rumour. If the rumours are negative then this has a counter effect on things as word spreads that things are illusory.

For some involved in complex deal structures, their tenure and opportunity to advance seems certain, and often they are able to negotiate a career package that supports their level of accountability. Their experience is required, a lot depends on making the right caliber hire and companies are willing to pay for talent. However, there are some issues outside the control of the new incumbent and the employer and they are affecting career decisions and influencing the ability to attract talent.

Sadly, good talent has left the Middle East and not only because of security scares. Often the many difficulties faced on a daily basis including: package erosion, a continuing increase in the cost of living resulting in less liquidity, uncertain career prospects, intra-regional rivalry often creating barriers to movement, lack of legislative protection for the individual and domestic barriers that prevent transfers, has made it very difficult for families to justify remaining here.

If this region is going to be successful in securing the right talent, talent necessary to drive the many initiatives and complex business alliances over the next decade, then the Middle East has to be seen as a natural path through which one would traverse. There needs to be passion to want to come to this region, people need to feel that this place has a lot to offer and that time spent here is considered an investment in the overall career strategy.

Importantly, we need to recognise that keeping what you already have and allowing it to flourish is the first step in the process.

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Based in Dubai, David Thatcher, (CareerPartners@ameinfo.com) is the principal of career management and mentoring specialists Career Partners in the Middle East.