When the Finance Professional Works Abroad

by Cesar Bacani, 03 October 2011

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topics:
Human Capital Management

tags:
career progression Professional Development promotion recruitment talent management

As a 24-year-old chartered accountant, Vic Tan had the opportunity to work in Papua New Guinea. “I just jumped at it,” he recalls. “I felt if you worked in another market, you were going to get a lot more experience and responsibility in your career.”

Today, Tan is Vice President, Finance & Operations Asia, at global luxury brand Ralph Lauren. So far, he has been stationed in six markets in addition to Papua New Guinea and Singapore: Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Myanmar, Indonesia and Hong Kong, a recent assignment that included responsibility over Greater China and Southeast Asia.

Tan’s story is included in a new study, “International Talent Mobility,” by executive recruiter Robert Half and ACCA. (He holds an FCCA designation – Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.)

The survey of 1,438 finance professionals and HR practitioners in Hong Kong and Singapore found strong interest to work overseas – 67% in Hong Kong and 73% in Singapore expressed a desire to be assigned abroad. Other markets such as China, Malaysia and the Philippines were not included, but the level of interest in these jurisdictions is almost certain to be comparable – or even higher.

The survey provides useful insights “into what employers are looking for and how to increase your chances of landing an overseas assignment,” said the report (5% of respondents in Hong Kong and 7% in Singapore were HR professionals). These include possession of the following attributes:

Appropriate skills and job knowledge
Adaptability
Collaboration skills
Cultural sensitivity
Leadership skills

Wanted: Assignments Abroad

There are two routes open to the finance professional who is interested to work abroad: ask the company to post him or her to another unit overseas or leave the company altogether and join another one in the foreign market.

In Hong Kong and Singapore, the survey found, the first option is limited: only 8% of Hong Kong companies and 13% of Singapore firms provide regular secondments. “Employees may need to look to a new company in another market to gain the international or regional experience they want,” the report concludes.

This should be a concern for companies that are fretting about finding and retaining the right finance talent, which the survey says include 93% of Hong Kong employers and 97% of those in Singapore. “Companies concerned about turnover may want to consider offering secondment programmes, as this can be a useful retention tool,” advises Pallavi Anand, Director of Robert Half Hong Kong.

The pressure is on for companies to do every little thing to help in recruiting and retaining finance talent. Asked what their career plans are over the next two years, 44% of finance professionals in Hong Kong and 47% of those in Singapore say they will move on to a new employer. Fewer people (43% in Hong Kong; 40% in Singapore) plan to stay on.

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