Time to get back to basics and develop local talent instead of bringing these expensive expats to pontificate their “been there, done that”. SLB can’t afford them, not now not next year!
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Excuse me all. We are all expats. This is a French company. I have seen the writing on the wall for a while. Eventually they will pull out of the US. Hopefully I can survive until then. Just a few more years.
There are lazy useless locals and expats alike. Not an expat problem. If you don't think people should be paid a bit extra to continuously move around the world with no home base and constantly uprooting their life, then why don't you do it for the same pay? It isn't worth the marginal benefits. Trust me as someone who's done it for 20 years. I worked twice as hard as most locals and got the axe in a foreign country where SLB won't help me, I'm not eligible for unemployment, have no where to go at the end of it. Definitely not the problem overall. Agree that most of SLB issues are due to poor management and lack of focus on results/customers instead of managers always kissing a– upwards.
The EX-pat Latino Manager team has a total of nine members, six ex-pats. She cuts two Americans.
@5mon+14Ba5pop you are talking about Free Market at this circumstance! Remarkable !!!
That's my point. In a free country and free market, everyone is free to change job or employer whenever s/he wants. Think about it ...
@5swt+14Ba5pop - US is free country. we aren't from despotic countries.
If you do not like Schlumberger, why don't you leave the company? No one forces you to work for Schlumberger. If you are good, you should be able to find a job that you like. Think about it ...
3vjm+14Ba5pop nailed it.
Back to the basics? What, like... Move the company back to France? Turn back time to when oil was king and Texas and Oklahoma ruled?
This is when the pitchforks and torches come out.
Bottom line, irrespective of ex-pats or locals, this is the value add to the company. Unfortunately SLB is a top-heavy company. if you carefully look and talk to your friends, it's the 80-20 rule that works. 20% people work and 80% are taking undue credit at the cost of SLB's payroll. This is nothing unusual for an old economy company. But other companies are relatively better managed in terms of outcome and meritocracy. SLB is manged, whom do you know, not what you bring to the table. Unless they fix this with an objective of meritocracy, then it will keep sliding downwards till it fixes or faces ultimate demise. Many companies have written off or obliterated in the past due to their own mistakes. Never blame external forces. SLB is not the only company facing external forces. All its competitors are facing the same forces.
Another key aspect, majority of the middle management onwards are 15+ years in teh company. Just to hold on to the job, they downgrade themselves. This is a bad precedence. Typical Pyramid of meritocracy doesnt work here. That is teh primary reason why even bare minimum meriticracy is compromised.
Blame the expats and their expenses instead of years of useless projects and activities (from 6-sigma Overdrive to many other failed attempts at standardization taken from aerospace, automotive or other supposedely better run industries like GE....) A drove of managers whose only deliverable is generating reports and paper savings for the company instead of adding value for customers and making something that can be sold, and a lot of talent and countless hours and late nights spent on those admin activities instead of pushing technology or products or services against competition. Of course it is riskier to try try something useful rather than doing reports and reorganization projects..... But SLB culture in the last 10 years has shifted to self protection rather than business protection.
Expat is not the only cost for the allowance. The major disadvantage is that opportunities.
First, does SLB NAM have to need Expats. Do they worth it? How much they can generate revenue? Can we find some experts in North America?
Second,
@uwp+14Ba5pop : Yes Expats in slb don't get that much as it used to be past 2014 . Their salary here is very less compared to another companies in the US. For education they said it is free in private schools where there are good public schools . yes they were getting a decent amount, not much for housing and travel was the big thing which was taken off last year only . So what they come in hand is not that much which is savings .. all these perks they have to show the receipt ,
Third, it is the worst part. Expat’s family members took American jobs. The housewives and househusbands of Expat work at HFH. Do they qualify? Some of them don’t even know how to use email much. Moreover, one team has 80% of the visa holder, most of them are L2 which are Expat’s housewives and househusbands. When their jobs transferred to South America, the YB-God Mother of Expats and her Latino manager layoff Americans. Let those housewives and househusbands replaced it.
That's great of Expats for Big Blue!
If you think ex-pats and their associated cost are even one of the minor drivers to the problems SLB are having, you need to have a long think about the business you are in, the drivers the drag along service companies and pull them down where you find yourselves now. You are clueless. These things do not happen over night and are more complicated and the culmination of a myriad of issues over time, i.e., poor business decisions in the M&A realm, a fundamental lack of understanding in cost structure, being risk adverse as opposed to being risk aware, targeting strategic accounts instead of chasing after every job out there and overall poor management at the mid to high levels, to name a few.
These moans about ex-pats are the result of nothing more than petty jealousy and are not conducive to anything but divisiveness when you should be seeking cohesiveness.
Lol, loved reading this. I interned at SLB this summer and I am an international student who had no intention of returning full-time and hence I have the advantage of an unbiased opinion. I found a!@-ki@#ing everywhere, expat or local, everywhere. There might be a long discussion about organizational culture overdue at SLB, urgent!
ONLY if they are truly needed, send them back to their countries while calling them Inpats and virtualizing them. After all, if they have managed to deliver results using the great IT technologies we have developed, their value should not be affected. Everybody wins...SLB keeps the relevant talent while getting real and reducing unnecessary costs, these talented employees get to continue to be part of the SLB family and locals get opportunities in their own venues. Oh, and the bragging will stop, forever and ever, ever ever, ever ever.
To all those ex-pats who are Jerks using their a—kissing technique to show strength. please shut up. look back what u have contributed beyond kissing a–. otherwise slb would not have been what it is today. stop your chest-thumping. show some tangible credibility.
now only for now. but lets wat and see in next this quarter , next quarter and beyond. and look for survival after that.
Funny thing is half you mumble-trons couldn't carry the jock strap of the expats you condemn. There is a reason they are there an you are not. Humble yourself children.
Wondering if some of you high-minded simpletons would turn down a job offering IM status if it was offered to you? Of course you wouldn't. Sit down and shut up.
Majority of the SMEs are fit only for SLB. Not for outside world. That’s the reason they practice everything possible to cling to it because outside is very scary.
The time has come to see if these so called subject matter experts can survive in the outside world. If all they know is the SLB legacy "been there, done that" chit chat, they will certainly struggle adapting. Buying the cake and pinata for the boss' birthday will no longer save them. SLB is and will continue to do what it needs to be done to remain relevant in the market (whatever that will be), and that expat's Opex savings fat is always at the top of the target list.
We, the new generation, are paying close attention to what management is doing.
Yes Expats in slb don't get that much as it used to be past 2014 . Their salary here is very less compared to another companies in the US. For education they said it is free in private schools where there are good public schools . yes they were getting a decent amount, not much for housing and travel was the big thing which was taken off last year only . So what they come in hand is not that much which is savings .. all these perks they have to show the receipt ,
I have done my fair share of expat work with SLB when it made business sense. Now, actually already after 2014 slowdown, the conditions have changed drastically and expats are still needed in some positions (many geomarkets do not have local technical or business expertise) but to a much reduced extent. In the good days expat benefits swell to an unsustainable extent and some people were taking advantage. Those times are long gone. The mood in the industry is very grim, everyone is aware that we are in a dying sector, SLB will be around for a while as a name but it's not gonna be comparable to what we had in the good old days of 100$/bbl oil.....
Their travel has already been cancelled last year .
Hilarious, the wives leading the change!!! OF COURSE, why should SLB keep paying for private schools, plus travel allowances, plus the rest of the perks in an environment where SLB can't and will not make a profit? If SLB has done a good job in succession planning and in talent development, give your bench a chance!!! The expats can perfectly go back to where they came from and still add virtual value without having to incur in these unsustainable expenses. The problem with this normalized sense of entitlement is that is does not align with SLB's business purpose, is that simple.
I agree with OP, these so called “SME’s” are experts in the art of a*s kissing, volunteering to every parade they see while always throwing their hands up in the air to highlight what is “wrong” with this company. They protect each other by placing a lid on peers development so they can boots their own interests. Well, it worked, until now...The new normal? Be a virtual expat, no allowances, etc...let’s see what you really have. We work too hard to advance our careers to watch them earn the buck that our education and experience could provide here.
All the companies medium and big size , they do moving for free only . That is the package of moving ppl otherwise why would ppl move their stuff for money for company
I heard that these expats wives signing a petition among themselves to waive off their privAte school fees for next year so that it is not a burden for the company and their salary not reduced
I know one expat ( moved from UK to Canada to Katy, TX then moved to Sugarland as an IIOT architect. who proudly boasts, i just enjoy life SLb takes care of me. They move my stuff free. I ahve sop much of boxes whoch i even dont know whats in it. we keep buying new stuff at diffrent places and pack them in boxes. We know that SLb will move all of those free of cost. we havent even open lot of them in last 8-10 years. we even dont know which box has what items.
This is the boast of priveleged expat.
More on this individual. He doesnt work. You will never find him in his office. you cant book him for a meeting because he blocks his calendar with fictitious meetings and appointments. Oen or two days in a week, he has a doctor's appointment of someone because of which he is away for half On skype, he is always AWAY even his calendar says busy. But always available before 8 AM and after 6 PM. so if you want to tralk to him, then u have to stay late or come early. He is most probably running his own side business or helping his family member in getting established etc etc.
Now all SLB locals, think how SLB operates. and how u can fool them.
"Time to get back to basics and develop local talent instead of bringing these expensive expats to pontificate their “been there, done that”. SLB can’t afford them, not now not next year! "
- In order to do that, you can start addressing your broken education system from today and in 20 years from now you won't need expats. Until then, live with them and keep complaining.