Every Nigerian business owner knows the specific sinking feeling that accompanies the “Japa” resignation letter. It usually arrives just after you have invested heavily in training a star employee, and the destination is almost always the UK, Canada, or the US. For the average SME founder, this feels like a hemorrhage of intellectual capital, a personal betrayal, and a disaster to be mourned. However, as a management consultant looking at the global landscape, I urge you to pause the panic and change your lens. What you are experiencing is not necessarily a “Brain Drain”, that is an outdated, industrial-age fear. In the hyper-connected digital economy, we are witnessing “Global Talent Circulation,” and if you play your cards right, that resignation letter is not a loss of talent, but a massive expansion of your network’s footprint.
We need to borrow a playbook from the world’s top professional services firms. Companies like McKinsey or Bain do not treat departing employees as defectors; they treat them as “Alumni.” This is a profound psychological and strategic shift that Nigerian MSMEs must adopt. When a top-performing manager leaves your Lagos office for a role in London or Toronto, they are not vanishing into the ether; they are entering a market with stronger currency, new networks, and advanced methodologies. If you maintain the relationship rather than burning the bridge in frustration, that former employee transforms from a payroll expense into a high-value node in your external network. They become a remote consultant who already understands your specific organizational DNA but now possesses global exposure that you didn’t have to pay for.
The strategic imperative, therefore, is to formalize these exits. Instead of a somber goodbye, intelligent organizations are building “Alumni Networks” that turn former staff into brand ambassadors. A former marketing lead now working in a Fortune 500 company abroad can be the bridge that facilitates your next international partnership, provides fractional advisory services, or refers diaspora clients back to your business. The organizations that will win in the next decade are not the ones that try to hoard talent, because talent is naturally fluid, but the ones that build an ecosystem where talent can leave, grow, and contribute back. “Japa” is inevitable, but losing the relationship is a choice. It is time to stop counting the empty seats in your office and start counting the new doors opening for you around the world.
I hope you consider this perspective as 2026 draws near
Happy New Month!
#Internationalization #ManagementConsulting #InternationalHR #EmployeeTurnover
