By Biju Balendran, MD & CEO, Renault Nissan Automotive India Pvt. Ltd., and Tojo Eapen, Partner, Stanton Chase
Expats are the crucial wheel in Indian Business
With COVID-19 impact hitting India Inc., one area that may not have been very visible would be the professional expat support for the multinational corporations and its impact on business operations. India has thousands of expats supporting various sectors like automotive, auto components, technology, white goods, electronics, chemicals, etc., spread across various cities and towns.
The fast spread of COVID-19 raised concerns amongst the expats living in India and brought a wave of repatriation. The sudden movements of expats from the country created a temporary setback to the global business operations. While the risk of infection was rising, the expats were looking towards the respective governing bodies of their countries to come forward to their rescue and relief.
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According to a report, around 60,000 foreign nationals, including working expats and tourists, from 72 countries have been repatriated after the covid-19 lockdown started.
After the lockdown was introduced in India in March 2020, commercial international flights were banned restricting the influx of foreign expats into the country. Seeing no sign of settling this crisis soon, there are many executives from Japan, South Korea, and other countries waiting to enter India to resume the business the way it was. According to Euy Don Park, President, Korean Association in India, this is the opportune time for India to draw advantage out of the new world economic order emerging in post-COVID-19 pandemic scenario and therefore should allow foreign nationals to come to India.
Extended lockdown in India has vexed the expats business community whose executives and engineers are stuck in their countries of origin and are unable to join work in India because of closed aviation borders for foreigners.
Becoming Preferred Expat Destination
Depending on which list one would look at, it may be safe to assume that India does not fall under the top preferred destinations for expats. According to expat survey results, the main reasons fall around quality of life, ease of settling in, working life/balance, safety and security, road traffic discipline, environmental aspects like air quality, weather, and availability of great medical facilities outside cities. As per the HSBC expat 2019 Expat Explore Survey list, India is in the 18th place in a list of 33 countries.
As increasing number of companies in India (domestic as well as global multinationals) setting up businesses in small cities and towns, hiring and onboarding expats has become a herculean task. With more opportunities arising globally, negotiating India location with expats seems to have gotten tougher and more expensive.
During recent years, most businesses in India have had small, selected numbers of expat leaders or professionals. With a larger pool of competent talent available locally, companies have been critically selective and primarily focused on hiring expats into specialized jobs. They have been focused on areas where:
- Very limited leadership or technical skills, and experiences are available in India.
- To set up greenfield operations and ensure efficient take-off.
- Provide multi geography exposure for senior leadership talent, as part of leadership development and succession planning.
As a result of COVID-19, many expat professionals chose to return to their home countries. Key reasons were the fear and concerns about:
- Undergoing treatment in government quarantine hospitals (which was the initial guideline for COVID-19 patients).
- The imposition of bureaucratic approach for basic healthcare
- Fast spread of COVID-19 due to high population density in main cities.
- Health & hygiene practices followed across the board to minimize or stop the spread.
The obstruction caused due to the current pandemic brought businesses near halt. Since business continuity was key, all companies had to figure out ways to deliver work seamlessly while maintaining expat’s safety.
Evolving Future of Expat Life
Until we come out of the current crisis fully, companies will need to start exploring innovative approaches to manage through this scenario.
A leading auto MNC in India is exploring an entirely new approach for the expat environment. As many companies around the world shifted to a work from home approach, this organization currently has dedicated expats continue to support virtually from their home country on specific assignments. These expats are available and support in the Indian time zone through virtual communication tools. This approach demands sacrificing many of their personal commitments in home country and demonstrates their dedication to the organization and its operation.
This approach may eventually turn out to be cost efficient and effective for specific jobs that can be worked with digital technologies and time zones with healthy overlap. This is working very well currently for this MNC because these professionals already have a strong understanding of the local work environment and culture. Most of them have worked in India previously and supported the India plant for many years.
At the same time, this approach has also given opportunities for the local leaders to take more responsibilities and lead the activities meticulously, with timely guidance and support from the expats working from home-country. This is turning out to be a win for all stakeholders.
On the flip side, few specific skills like die modification in stamping are developed over long periods of experience by the expat specialist. Such skill transfer demands many years of shadow training and hands-on work. This is one of the areas where the local operations struggle. Currently, virtual communication and digital technology have helped to minimize this handicap. This area of improvement has been identified and further efforts are on to prepare new strategies to develop and strengthen the capability.
While few technology and software organization may have tried similar approaches, in our observation, they have been rare across other sectors.
Need for Continuous Improvement and Open Mindset
Overall, this pandemic has led to almost zero business travels, face-to face seminars and conferences. While this may have helped organizations in terms of cost saving and flexibility, questions remain whether the elimination of face-to-face interaction is sustainable and effective for the long run?
This could be challenging to expats in developing rapport with their team as face-to-face interaction helps them to adapt and accept new culture of different countries. The impact on trust and depth of understanding of complex topics are also debatable and we are starting to see varying opinions. Questions also remain regarding the impact on teamwork and productivity.
We are of the opinion working together in an office environment, attending face-to-face meetings and seminars hold key ingredients for teamwork, motivation, confidence building, and self-discipline. This shift to virtual business needs to be approached with an open and continuous improvement mindset.
Other Factors Influencing Expat life
Another general interesting COVID-19 impact could be the movement of expats from certain regions like the middle east. As economies start to recover, some countries may realize that talent pools deplete locally, and specialized knowledge and expertise can’t be developed in short timeframes. We wonder if that may lead to more opportunities for experienced talent from nearer regions like Asia, either as expats or in the form of work moving across borders. At Stanton Chase India, we think that some of these senior expat opportunities may shift from the west to the east, to those countries with larger, skilled talent pools, culture connects and better comparative cost propositions.
We also observed a huge migration of Indian expats returning to India from various countries thus enlarging the local talent pool. It would be interesting to see if the India Inc. reaches out to these talents to fulfill their talent needs or remains apprehensive in their approach.
Another related perspective is how the return of expats from India has impacted local businesses, especially in the leisure and entertainment sector. Golf course slots were blocked weeks in advance but now the caddies are eagerly waiting for their return. Expats used to spend more time to learn about the local culture and also keep their lifestyle active by engaging with options like theaters, events, etc. Most of these activities have come to a grinding halt.
As organizations tries to work through the current challenges with limited expat support, we are left pondering with couple of questions:
As part of the larger digital shift, would the future of expat life involve more full time or part time virtual assignments? What other major changes will impact expat lives? Will work from home-country become the common norm? We are also curious to hear comments about other organizations who may have adopted new approaches in this area.