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Repatriation Jobs: Where do you find the experience and skill set?
When I’m talking to companies in the repatriation business, more times than not, they tell me one of their greatest challenges is finding experienced/skilled talent. I would argue that another major issue is what kind of people they are looking to hire…but that is a topic for another day. Finding case managers who have extensive international repatriation experience can be a challenge for assistance or other repatriation companies. In the US there are a handful of assistance companies with very few overlapping cities where you might find international repatriation experience for manning operations departments. Given the nature of European business and holiday travel, international experience is not hard to come by and the EU work rights makes it easy to employ citizens of other EU countries. Regardless of qualifications, I’ve found that the larger the country, the more difficult it is to find the right talent. The U.S., China and India in particular, e.g. the populations travel patterns are very country centric so international experience is not as widely available.
There needs to be a separate post regarding the ideal skill set for international case management but I’m more interested in the challenge finding experienced/skilled talent creates for a repatriation company. I cannot count the number of gripes I’ve had with operations departments over the years but I now stand in retrospect having full appreciation for the challenge in finding the right staff not only from a corporate culture perspective but for having the right skill set.
You may know, a lot of my comments/positions are based on my experience in the assistance business. Assistance companies employ a whole host of skills related to repatriation but finding the ‘right’ candidate can sometimes be a challenge. From an operational perspective, a great skill to have in repatriation is international flight nurse experience. The demand from HEMS and Fixed wing creates competition for these jobs and many times working an operational logistics job from a desk can be less appealing for those flight nurses who still need the adrenaline associated within HEMS/Fixed Wing missions.
Needless to say, employee turnover and recruitment is an expensive and challenging task for any company. I would argue that one of the most important components associated with finding and keeping repatriation staff is to be known as a great employer who values their employees and have a very robust training program. Naturally, if you look after your employees and provide a great work environment you are going to have lower turnover. People are generally the most expensive cost a company has. Look after your employees and you’ll have a healthier bottom line in the long run. Secondly, if you can’t quite master the retention strategy you better have a great training program. Experience may be hard to come by but there is no substitute for having a professional training program. You can always sculpt your ideal candidate.
Thanks for tris interesting information! I found it very useful =)