In Real Life – A story of choosing to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission

A real life story where choosing to go against my N+2 instructions meant saving the company over 1.5 times my annual salary.

IRL – Lessons from my first expatriation

How my first expatriation turned out to be a more difficult life experience than I anticipated, and what HR can do to provide holistic support to expats

As an expat, do I long for my home country ?

This instance of Reader Question will give you a very personal interpretation of the answer. I hope to encourage you to think about the meaning of home, origins/roots and sense of belonging, as we are nearing a time of the year where many of us reconnect (or long to) with our families for Christmas and…

Relocations : do you offer cash or services ?

In essence, this question was recently asked on LinkedIn and addressed corporate relocation policies for candidates from one part of the USA to another, and whether companies provide money or support services. I’ll transfer it to the situation that a lot of us are faced with in the GCC : dealing with middle to high…

Essential considerations for managing international careers

Today’s question is one that I answered about a year ago from one of my contacts on LinkedIn, who wanted some background information on what to think about when designing their first policy for sending employees abroad. I think there are a number of things that need to be checked when designing this kind of…

3 tips to help attract expat candidates

In my previous two posts, I examined the financial and traditional reasons why it is becoming more difficult in attracting educated expats to the GCC first, as well as some current reasons related to the regional instability and renewed focus on hiring local Nationals. I am still convinced that the region is a great one…

The other reason why expats are less attracted to the GCC

My previous post covered the traditional reasons why people may be reluctant to relocate to the Gulf, as well as some financial negative impacts that make the local market less attractive than it used to be. On top of that, there are currently a number of other reasons making it more difficult for companies to…