Great experience mixed with bureaucratic decision-making
Pros
Global exposure with multicultural colleagues with incredible skillsets and insights to share. Lots of travel (pre-COVID) and great opportunities to grow, learn and engage with colleagues from a global organization. Compensation was fair and wages always came on time. Benefits were fairly generous when compared to alternative career options in the region. The colleagues were often the reason why people stayed as long as they did, along with the opportunity to relocate to new markets within the organization.
Cons
Politics, dependency on government funding, the pace of change (which ends up being a HUGE cost center). For instance, a project that should have taken 6 months took more than 2 years and still didn't take off. Most of the leadership roles are occupied by colleagues, many of whom started their careers as part-time teachers (in emerging markets) who became business leaders without requisite experience or understanding of how to run and manage organizational strategy or growth. This frustrated many new recruits from private and consulting roles who came with the mandate of affecting change management. And the commonwealth soft power agenda flag flies high above the pure intent of bringing positive change. Blatant discrimination between UK nationals staff benefits. For instance, relocation was meager for non-UK nationals (if any), while for UK nationals, relocation was covered completely, including logistics and transport of house furniture, as well as rent. Kids school fees were covered for UK nationals, while for non-UK nationals it was not. Compensation was about 35%-40% higher for UK nationals (even those employed by the local country office).
