Adapting to a new environment

Dealing with a culture shock is part of being an expat. The acclimatistion to local food or weather is not the most difficult aspect during the relocation, but the emotional aspect is. Expats tend to have a mood dip that lasts about the average of six months.

At first everything seems very exciting and you are thrilled to discover as many things as you can of this other country. You meet new interesting people who show you around. After a while you start to notice that things are not really how you thought they were. The persons that helped you in the beginning don’t spend as much time with you as initially. At this moment you feel very frustrated. You deal with this by trying to forget that you are living in a other country. Meeting people or trying more new thing out is not really what you have in mind. But once you get through this phase you will feel at ease in your new environment.

Margarita Wilson

Asian firms will send more workers abroad

According to a recent study, Asian companies are planning to send more workers abroad for the next three years, despite the financial crisis.
This study is linked to a previous study right after 2001. Then 60% of the queried companies said to send more workers overseas. In 2004 appeared that 70% of those companies actually did it.
There are several reasons why it’s necessary for companies to change their policy of overseas assignment regularly. One of them is globalization. Also the falling birth rate in Western and industrialized countries and the retirements of baby boomers makes it necessary to send workers over there.

Jana Jonckheere
source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=422656&publicationSubCategoryId=66

Dubai and its Belgian residents

Dubai, the capital the Emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, has turned from a small dusty dessert city in to a metropolitan city with a booming economy. This new prosperous nation attracts many foreign investors, companies and workers among whom several fellow-countrymen. Today only 15% of Dubai’s population are locals.

The economy of Dubai has changed a lot in the last 50 years. Some of there oil reserves were sold for petrodollars, but luckily these dollars weren’t spent on the Rolls Royce’s of the sheiks or on weapons for war-hungry regimes, the petrodollars were invested in ambitious developing projects and other long term investments. Currently revenues from petroleum and natural gas account for just 6% of the GDP.

Unlike some of its neighbours where the economy still is fully reliant on the oil industry, Dubai has a sustainable economy and Belgian companies are setting up branch stores in every part of this small kingdom. Belgian companies are also being contracted by the government to work on some of its most ambitious structures. The world famous Palm-Islands for example were constructed by the Belgian dredging company Jan de Nul.
We don’t only help making these wonders of engineering we are also living on them: over 100 Belgians have bought a house on one of the Palm-Islands and over a 1000 Belgians live in the city of Dubai.

This economic miracle does have a dark side though. The construction of some of its most ambitious structures would have been impossible without the heavy labour of the Pakistani, Indian and Philippine workers who work for next to nothing in inhumane conditions. But from an economic point of view you could only have respect for the achievements this country has realised in the last decades.

Sources: Several articles of Het Nieuwsblad en De Morgen

Felix Braeckman

Expats in the dredging industry

Despite the financial crisis that’s affecting many other sectors, dredging companies, such as Deme and Jan De Nul, are still recruiting more employees. Many of them are being hired to work overseas because there is worldwide a great demand for complicated dredging projects. For example maintenance works in ports and harbors or treatments of contaminated soils.

Because of the lack of technically skilled personnel, these companies train their new employees during several weeks. They learn how to operate cutter and hopper dredgers using simulators. But this training aims as well to prepare them for the experience of working out of the country. This is very important because they will have to deal will great responsibilities. Many weighty decisions will have to be made quickly.

The company arranges the accommodation abroad. It is often located near the workplace to gain time and to be able to be immediately on the spot in case an emergency occurs. The company takes care of the housework as many expats have longer and more working days per week. Usually they work for one or two months abroad and then they get a month off to visit their family back home.

Margarita Wilson

International carrier

More than 50% of starting employees are tempted for a short or long term assignment abroad. But this motivation declines when getting older. There is also a strong connection with the family life and the partners’ carrier choice.

Especially international operating companies feel this trend. Spouses aren’t eager to end their carrier and follow their partner abroad. But this phenomenon doesn’t cause problems yet. When companies search people to work abroad, they still find them.

But there is also another focus. Companies want to reduces expats because they imply an extra cost to the company. Therefore the interventions are limited and local employees are used. That is why there are more short running projects, where the employee is only gone for a couple of months.

In the past, companies couldn’t guarantee employees they could maintain their job, but nowadays expat assignments are part of an option package offered by the company. This can only be an extra stimulant for employees.

Delphine Pattyn

www.trends.be

Flemish expats are concerned about their children’s education

Being a parent isn't always that easy, especially when you live abroad. Couples that move to foreign countries are very doubtful about the environment in which they will have to raise their kids. Many parents worry about differences in standards and values, social services, social associations and schools. Expats who are planning on coming back to their country of origin and those who still are in close touch with family and friends back home are the ones who worry the most.

School quality abroad is their biggest concern. Sometimes their children intend to go to university or college in their mother country. It’s important that the received the education that is required to qualify for higher education.

Age is a very critical aspect as well. Kids younger than 10 years adapt easily to new environments. But it's a lot harder for those who are older than 12 years.

Most of the expat’s children become an expat themselves when they are older.

Margarita Wilson

4 out of 10 Belgians wants to work abroad

A Belgian survey among 5.856 job-seekers shows that men are more likely to enter into an adventure abroad than women. Also the education level plays an interesting role. 43% of university students consider going abroad, college students 37% and only 28% of the people that finished secondary school have the ambition to take the plunge.

France and Luxemburg maintain number 1 and 2, but also transatlantic countries such as Canada and the United States are in the top five. Fifth place goes to England and no longer to the Netherlands.

One third says the expat journey can last at least take 5 years and even more, short terms are less popular.

The motives to go abroad are: gaining more experience, interest in other cultures, a more interesting job, the opportunity to learn another language, better promotion chances…

Delphine Pattyn

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/957/Belgie/article/detail/292450/2008/05/28/Vier-op-tien-Belgen-willen-in-buitenland-werken.dhtml

The Prince Albert Funds

The Prince Albert Funds is an organization that wants to help young Belgian professionals acquire experience abroad. The Funds helps you to find the right company (established or headquartered in Belgium) that matches your profile. Before you depart you take a intercultural training session and spend a month at the company in Belgium to make preparations. Then you spend at least 11 months abroad and start your project. After your return a feedback session is organised.

This one-in-a-lifetime experience gives you the opportunity to discover a new work environment and has many fiscal advantages.

Testimonials of alumni represent the great success this formula has to offer. Many of them are still working in the company where they started their project or the experience had a great boost for their carrier. Another person even started his own company abroad. 

Delphine Pattyn

http://www.prinsalbertfonds.be/paf/Default.aspx?LangType=1033