Nothing beats first-hand experience when your job is advising expats on moving abroad. That is the conclusion one could draw from interviews in the upcoming Global Connection Magazine with two HR officials, who went through the motions themselves.
Bursting the expat bubble
First, there is Yap Bee Leng. A native of Singapore, she had worked for Philips for years, helping expats and their families. Then, in 2010, she was offered a posting herself to the Netherlands, where she worked for 28 months. Back in Singapore, she says the experience really helped her: “I’m now better able to explain the cultural values here to people from abroad. And I’ve seen first-hand how important it is not to live in an ‘expat bubble’ in your host country.”
Difficult time for newly-weds
Hadewych Dautzenberg also has a remarkable story to tell. She is a coordinator in the Partners and Children Office at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When they first went abroad, she and her husband went through a very difficult time, and almost threw in the towel. It was only when she followed Global Connection’s Cycles of Change workshop, 20 years later, that she finally realised what had happened: “We had just met, married, and we moved overseas… Plus, we relocated at different times, so our cycles of change were in different phases. I now know that that’s asking for trouble.”
Photo: Hadewych Dautzenberg (left)
