The end of the expat – the end of an era?

First things first, this article is not a reflection of thorough research. It is a reflection of conversations I had recently, combined with some observations on social media. And let’s start with that. A connection on LinkedIn this week shared that she was leaving her employer, Shell, after spending a couple of decades with the major. She explicitly mentioned that the expat role is disappearing, whilst reminiscing on her years spent in various countries.

It also reminded me of another conversation with a geologist who was looking for his next posting. He explicitly said that the pool of expat opportunities with his company was shrinking rapidly. To the point where I could suddenly see the stress that this may cause.

I have never been an expat myself. In the street where I grew up, an older couple had two sons who were expats; one for Shell and the other for Nestle. They came “home” once a year to do work in their parent’s garden, telling stories of how quickly your ice-cream would melt away in the heat of KL or Singapore. I could only guess how it was to be in those Asian places; we went on holiday once a year to one of the Dutch Wadden Islands – if we went at all.

Yet, the notion that the expat species is disappearing fills me with a feeling that something is lost. Why? Because in my current role, I so often speak to people who have spent some years here and some years there. And I think the network that connects all these people is still a fabric that keeps the industry as connected as it is. It also means that experience from working in different basins is shared more easily. Will that all disappear now that becoming an expat seems to be less likely? And is that a bad thing?

In a way, it is not a bad thing. Because with the decline of the number of expat roles, which seems to have been dominated by Western men, a much more diverse group of well-educated people from all over the world emerges. The role traditionally filled by expats will hopefully be taken up by people from the host countries themselves. And whilst expat roles may be on the decline, travelling has surely become more commonplace, which hopefully means that people can at least visit satellite offices more.

But still, I do believe that only fully immersing yourself in a new country and a new office – for longer than a few days – enables you to really see how other places work, and how other basins work. Coming back to the conversations I have for the magazine; it is remarkable how easy it sometimes is to find someone with experience in a place that is so far from home. And how often that is through an old expat network. I hope that the industry will not become more insular now that the old-fashioned expat role seems to slowly fade away. Because even today, I believe that a lot of knowledge is still passed on from one person to another through just having a chat.