‘Brain drain’ has become a household term in Sri Lanka today but it is neither a new phenomenon nor something that is unique to this country. The Director of Group Human Resources at MAS Holdings Dinali Peiris highlighted how brain drain has been an ongoing phenomenon since the early 1900s with the numbers rising notably in the 2000s.

“This is not something that is happening only in Sri Lanka but all over the world,” she asserted on a recent airing of LMDtv while noting that globally, the average rate of brain drain rate was 47 percent in 2021.

Peiris explained: “This has been happening for quite a while but the reason it’s a household term now is because we are associating brain drain as a consequence of the sociopolitical and economic hardships the country is going through.”

As she pointed out, “we’re losing critical talent but we also need to ask ourselves two very important questions: what are we doing to prevent or reduce this? And what are we doing to retain, recognise and value those who are staying back?”

“I think it’s time we realise that with the mobilisation of talent and skills, countries gain and lose talent,” she averred, adding that “as a nation, we need to understand and work towards ensuring that organisations are ready for such situations, by focussing on critical talent and succession pipelines, as well as being able to attract global talent.”

Peiris noted that Sri Lanka is losing talent across multiple sectors and categories: “We’re talking about the overall loss of talent and this could be the loss of technical skills, tacit knowledge or leadership.”

“It’s important to dig a little deeper to really understand and analyse the reasons why employees and workers migrate,” she said.

Peiris elaborated: “What’s the reason prompting Sri Lankans to leave the country and migrate? Is it for higher education or because there’s a perception that they can get a better job with better pay? Are they following the trend? Are they migrating because they don’t believe Sri Lanka is moving forward?”

“Migration is not cheap; it’s a costly matter,” she mentioned, adding: “You need to make sure that whatever path you choose, it pays off and you’ll be able to sustain your standard of living if not improve it, and you’re mentally, physically and emotionally strong enough to make such a move – because it’s not easy.”

Looking at it from an organisational point of view, she asserted that sometimes “you just have to let natural attrition take its course” but emphasised the need to ensure that you retain those who have the right balance of agility, talent, skills and attitude. MAS Holdings’ Director of Group Human Resources also discussed global mobility, and how organisations must look at having an international footprint by “moving and rotating their talent” around the world.

She explained that global mobility policies enable organisations to provide opportunities to their staff to experience working overseas, “which may prevent them from migrating or leaving.”

“Building succession pipelines is really important to ensure that there’s continuity of talent within an organisation and the impact of brain drain is mitigated,” Peiris urged.

“Organisations should also look at things like mentorship programmes and flexible work arrangements, and offer opportunities for meaningful work so that everyone can contribute and feel good,” she emphasised, adding that “a combination of all this will help retain employees.”

Balancing brain drain and gain is also important for a country. Peiris noted that the pandemic gave rise to the possibility of working remotely. “The talent from across the world becomes your talent pool if you want to engage differently” she maintained.

And she surmised that the experience during the pandemic “has given us new tools that we can look at in terms of mitigating some of this [talent] loss and bringing talent to Sri Lanka.”