Opinions | Editorials
Better to work to full potential
Talent and ability of many expatriates is not exploited adequately by employers.
- Gulf News
- Published: 00:44 February 3, 2008
It is probably a truism to say that most people are not working to their full potential. Whether through choice, or through mere laziness, it is likely that greater output could be gained through various means, and it is not always finance that creates the main motivator. There are still people, admittedly of an increasing minority, who look for job satisfaction in their work - the knowledge that what they are doing, they are doing well, to the best of their ability and incorporating all their experience and qualifications. Sadly, though, such people are few and far between.
The tendency to take whatever is on offer, regardless of the compensation paid, increases dramatically with expatriate workers. Having made the decision, and often taken the risk, of leaving home to work in another country, unless there is a job lined up for the person (and sometimes the promises of work are not fulfilled upon arrival), necessitates the job-seeker taking anything that comes along, that can pay the bills - or most of them, anyway.
Too often, therefore, expatriates with good qualifications and/or experience end up in dead-end, lower category jobs than their qualifications entitle them to. And as so many expatriates find, it is the rare individual who is able to pull himself/herself out of the mire and take advantage of those hard-fought qualifications because labour restrictions are just that - restrictions keeping the lower paid workers in the same category of employment for which they were first hired.
There is no magic wand that can be waved to rectify the plight of these persons who, to say the least, are working well below potential. All they can hope for is that the Human Resource Department of the company they work for recognises ability and acts accordingly, to the advantage of both the employee and employer.
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