GROWING up in the diaspora, I was always made aware of how hard we, as immigrants, were and are expected to work in the western world. For many immigrants who leave their home countries seeking a better life, the main goal is almost always to find employment, work hard and earn a living for your family who might be with you or for those left at home, here in Guyana. For most Guyanese, the reality is that many of us have families who chose to migrate because Guyana is simply a third world country with poor development and lack of opportunities to progress financially. For decades, Guyanese have been leaving Guyana in droves, seeking a better life and although they have been successful in achieving that, certainly, in terms of job security and wealth accumulation, Guyana has remained stagnant in its development overall.

The vast under-development of many key sectors and the unavailability of well-paid roles has all but forced many Guyanese to migrate in order to earn a decent living. The migration pipeline has undoubtedly contributed to the continuing under-development of key sectors, institutions and the overall levels of productivity which consequently affect the rate of economic growth and development in Guyana. The consequent ‘brain drain’ has all but maintained the status quo along the years.

Aside from working professionals like doctors and nurses who are routinely poached from Guyana by organizations in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom, many untrained and service workers also emigrate to these countries in order to find better terms of employment. The effect is that there is an obvious deficit here in Guyana. And in a crisis like the current COVID-19 global health pandemic, we can see the obvious issue with having a health sector that is so severely understaffed and unequipped to deal with any large-scale health crisis.

As a young person in the UK, I received my National Insurance number at 16 years old and was deemed ready for work. I found my first job in a sports store but that did not work out and I got sacked after a month. I then found another job in a shoe store, which I adored and stayed there for almost 2 years, following which, I went off to University. At 18 years old, as part of my LLB undergraduate Law degree, I found a work placement with the Treasury Solicitors Department and worked with the Ministry of Defense Private Law team as a Legal Assistant. Whilst there, I worked with a Grenadian Senior Solicitor, who, much like me, moved to the UK as a child and grew up there. I learnt so much from my dear friend Helen and owe a great debt of gratitude as she was hugely influential on the work ethic I developed under her tutelage.

As a professional black woman in the UK, Helen was no stranger to the intricacies and discrimination that came along with her status. She helped to instill many of the qualities that I continue to hold close to my heart and which have helped me to achieve almost all of my professional goals to date. Her work ethic was awe-inspiring and under her tutelage I learnt the importance of integrity, attention to detail and a steadfast and unwavering desire to always do my best in everything that I do. For Helen, work was not just work, but a representation of who you are. As immigrants and ‘the other’, we were always painfully aware of the expectations that were placed upon us and our precarious position in the companies we worked for.

Since moving to Guyana, I can see the effect that mass migration and the brain-drain has had on the development of our human capital and overall economy, institutions and society. It is marked. The Guyanese work ethic at home is markedly different from the Guyanese work ethic in the diaspora. Ask anyone in the diaspora, they will attest to the veracity of my argument. But why is that?

When I first moved back to Guyana last April, I had to undertake certain official activities in order to stay here legally, obtain documents and ingratiate myself into the society. This entailed having to make several visits to the official channels to obtain a passport, driver’s licence and TIN. I was taken aback by the laissez faire approach that Guyanese workers have with almost everything. The complete disregard for time management, poor customer service and general confusion as to official steps was astounding. I surely was not the first person to re-migrate to this country, so I could not understand why the process was so laborious and frustrating.

What I have come to realize, a year later, is that the lazy, sluggish and lethargic work ethic in Guyana is a direct result of the lazy, sluggish and lethargic response to human capital development. It was only last year that, through the Guyana Tourism Authority, we started to introduce customer service training for frontline and hospitality workers! The importance of developing our workforce is now more necessary than ever before. We are already seeing the effects of the brain drain in our inability to meet the manpower needs of the emerging oil and gas sector. As a result, foreign workers are filling roles that Guyanese should be filling.

Despite being pegged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world due to our recently acquired oil wealth, Guyana is still in desperate need of human capital development strategies in order to fully enjoy all of the benefits that come with a growing economy.