I Want To Go Back
By Maryori Vivas
New corporate structures and policies commonly involve virtual work teams. However, sometimes they’re not enough, and personnel need to be moved into a new location. For companies, this represents a recruiting challenge as they select potential candidates that at the end of the process are destined for the new location.
At the beginning of the process, one could easily underestimate the cultural challenge of adapting to a new environment, or more importantly, the ability of the individual to adapt to the new post. Most of the time, past performance and skills, language abilities, whether they’ve lived abroad (or another region), age, and marital status are the only factors considered in candidates.
We would all agree to the importance of all above-mentioned aspects, but it’s also important to spend time examining candidates’ abilities to adapt to new environments. Despite corporate culture and values, an expat will face changes in most areas of his or her life. For example, How will he or she spend free time, make new friends, participate in new local activities (i.e. theater, outdoor options, etc)? For people married with children, this also involves school scheduling and the spouse’s adaptation as well.
In either case, careful preparation and counseling needs to be offered; otherwise the new assignment could likely be a failure. After a few months, the expat may be asking to move back, as many of them do.
When recruiting personnel willing to relocate, focusing just on previous experiences is no guarantee for success. Someone that’s lived in Spain and learned Spanish is not necessarily adapted to Latin America. A previous assignment in Mexico does not mean a successful experience in Colombia.
Each country and culture has its own way of life, and within the same country things can change dramatically from one city to another. In some cases, the way of life represents changes of values or beliefs, such as the case of employees from the West who are moved to Dubai. He or she will face different customs with people on the street, such as no demonstrations of physical affection. In fact public displays of affection are not allowed and may be legally punished.
So how we can understand our own ability to adapt to new environments and cultures? We could start by spending some time getting to know what we can and cannot tolerate. We should spend time developing cultural awareness that will prepare us for different environments and cultural understanding.
Maryori Vivas can be contacted at: mv@gugin.com
