Day 10 | Reflection

What a ride! The past two weeks have been characterized by great conversations, incredible people, and a cultural experience that broadened my perspective and got me to start thinking about some very challenging questions.

I thought it'd be appropriate for my final journal to reflect on my pre-departure essay. I established four key takeaways that I was hoping to achieve from the trip: (1) understanding cultural context; (2) understanding structural context; (3) foundation in functional elements of International HR; and (4) understanding how organizations in the UAE are applying data-driven techniques for HR management. Overall, I'd say I achieved a majority of these outcomes, as well as gaining additional insights that I hadn't considered as part of my pre-trip preparation.

The first--cultural context--emerged quickly over the first 2-3 days and continued to be reinforced throughout the course of the trip. I believe the culture of the UAE has two foundational components: trust and respect. Trust in the visionary leadership of the country and trust among the 120-130 nationalities living within it have sown the seeds for what the UAE has become. That trust, however, only functions alongside respect. As Raffa and Miriam at McKinsey told us, "the people of the UAE let go of many cultural traits to welcome us." Given the tolerance that he UAE has shown for its foreign nationals, expats living there understand the importance of respecting the rules that do remain in place.

The second--structural context--was well-framed by Brad Boyson's PESTLE analysis. In brief, the UAE is a politically stable macro economy that's economically dependent on oil and attempting to diversify. While significant social diversity exists, inclusion remains an issue in a society that remains relatively tribal. While technology is highly adapted, there's little tech that's indigenous to the region. The legal system is potentially the biggest variable impacting businesses, as an absolute monarchy operates with the latitude to quickly change laws to impact the direction of the country--which the leadership has seemed to largely use for positive change and progress to this point. Lastly, the country lags in environmental impact, having been built on oil & gas and having a significant amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That said, strides are being made to become more sustainable.

The final two--functional HR & data analytics--were a little more of a mixed bag. While there were elements of functional HR (expatriation, compensation, etc.) that were weaved into our conversations, my key takeaway is that the complexity of international HR makes it difficult to reduce it to key takeaways. Countries operate in very different manners and companies often need to leverage third parties to help manage this complexity. Regarding data analytics, it was interesting to find that in such an advanced society, analytics are being lightly used from a human capital management perspective. As Emily Hoole of the Creative Center for Leadership told us, HR is not very advanced in the region. Conversations throughout the two weeks confirmed that data is not factoring in very heavily to people management practices in the UAE (with the exception being multinational organizations that are based elsewhere).

A key takeaway that I didn't anticipate was invigorating discussion around the future of work, primarily with Accenture & McKinsey. The conversations were tangible, data-based, and provided great--and terrifying--insights into the challenges organizations will face over the next decade and beyond. As a result of these conversations, I decided to pivot my research slightly from organizational planning & analysis to strategic work planning for the future of work. This research will not be the end for me; I hope to utilize my HCAT degree to do this type of work full-time in the future. It's an exciting time to be studying human capital and the past two weeks provided an incredible platform on which to do so.