Too often fans treat a player’s move to their team like buying an electronic device for their home. Open the box, plug in, and it should work and upgrade their team instantly. However, out of more than 10,000 transfers of professional footballers a year, every year, few give rise to immediate excellence. In team sports, when excellence depends more on the combination of individual abilities and less on individual abilities, it takes time for a player to be at his best.
For years, the attitude in football was that a foreign player comes as a reinforcement player. He gets more money than his teammates, usually, and has to fend for himself. Senior groups had club members who helped with technical matters such as a work permit, finding an apartment and perhaps furnishing. However, even in big clubs they didn’t always know how to take care of the person who came to them. In Chelsea, for example, they may have invested hundreds of millions in strikers, but according to what former players said, the club did not really take care of them properly. Hernan Crespo, for example, suffered from family problems. His wife had two miscarriages during his time in London, and he found it difficult to organize basic things in his home. Stars, usually, arrive in a new place with an “entourage” that helps with technical as well as social matters, but usually the footballer who moves a team and a country does so alone or with his family only.
In world football in general and Israeli football in particular, “relocation” is not seen as a dramatic event in the professional life of a footballer, and they certainly do not invest too much resources to make the player feel at home. When a foreign player is picked up in Israel or when an Israeli player signs with a team abroad, the event usually ends in the professional failure of the player and his return to the Premier League.
“In the last decade, the processes of absorbing new employees into organizations have received a significant volume in the work of human resources departments,” says Shari Raz, director of the Career Development Center from the Ono Academic College. “Numerous studies in the field of work have proven that the more accurate and adapted the process of absorbing an employee into the organization is to the company’s values, the more quickly the output from those new employees is obtained and their efficiency increases by tens of percent compared to employees who did not receive guidance upon entering the organization.
“The absorption begins from the moment the contract is signed, maintaining contact, even minimally, until the first practice, which includes using the time to get to know the system and the topics of the roles in it. The player must be connected to the history and development of the club. There must be a pre-structured conversation that reflects the club’s values and the club’s story We have known for years that the success of the absorption of a new employee depends entirely on both the direct manager and the colleagues in the department, therefore even in sports there is a place for the transfer of information and the training of the receiving players and coaches regarding the best way to do this. If it is foreign players, we must remember that the relocation does not begin and end In technical dimensions such as housing, a car, etc. The cultural dimensions of changing one’s place of residence can play a decisive role in the success of assimilation into the group.”
“Relocation is an operationally and emotionally complex event and has many points of uncertainty,” says Ricky Harel, HR and talent recruitment at At-Bay (a cyber defense solutions company). “Usually the goal is to improve the quality of life, so the first questions will be about housing, costs versus salary and education, assuming they are family members, any information that will create certainty.” Harel, who, among other things, managed the human resources system of start-up companies in New York and Israel and is a graduate of the SHRM, Essentials of Human Resources course, adds: “When relocating, people often imagine life as a world full of possibilities compared to the Israeli province, and tend to assume that the improvement of their economic situation will become compare all the effort, and the other things will be less significant. In practice, most of the people who will relocate excel in their field in Israel, are valued at their place of work and earn well. In a new place, they will be required to go through an immigration experience and arrive at a disadvantage – the culture is foreign, the language gaps, there are no anchors of support like there are in Israel , and if they come with a family, then the responsibility for the transition rests on their shoulders. A high level of motivation is required for the transition to be successful, and the emotional aspect is of great significance. In addition, workers do not always understand the costs of living in the destination country and the bureaucratic procedures there.”
“The composition of the family is very much related to the needs of the person doing the relocation,” says Michal Gutelzon from the people operations team of the Augury company. “That’s why the questions are basic – where to live, rating of schools in the neighborhood and community houses around, how to buy the first car, how much budget is required to maintain the standard of living to which they have become accustomed, questions about interstate taxation and the like.”
Ricky Harel: “From my personal experience, the more support circles an employee has – a family that moves with him, a relative in the destination or a strong Israeli community – the higher his chances of maintaining a sense of security, ability and motivation to succeed. People who are used to adapting to changes and know how to create a new community for themselves, will be able to acclimate more quickly and enjoy the benefits of the new country. To be successful in relocation, on the one hand, you have to be willing to put your ego aside, and start from scratch, build a new reputation, new networking, etc.; and on the other hand, have a backbone and high self-confidence to believe in yourself even when it’s terribly difficult and Certainty of success”.
Shari Raz: “The treatment of absorption is measured in terms of ‘user experience’, starting with the accessibility of the resume submission interfaces, to the treatment given to the interviewees for the position and also, and perhaps mainly, to those who were not accepted, to, of course, the investment in arranged overlap procedures throughout the first three months of absorption. These are combined with ’employer branding’, which means the externalization of the company’s activities for its employees on social networks. The understanding is that the contribution of employees who are satisfied with the workplace is critical to the recruitment of the employees who follow them. Competitive team sports is a world that sets a standard of immediate and easily measurable outputs, therefore the importance of Proper absorption is huge. A player who moves between countries and between teams in the same country is required to adapt quickly regarding the professional side and no less, the cultural and personal side. Precisely at the beginning of the season when the spotlight is on the player, the player as a person is in an area that is far from being a comfort zone for him and the degree of pressure in the many areas of life High. Our expectation is that the player will play ‘for the symbol’, and precisely for this we need to create a work process that brings meaning to the symbol and makes it easier to adapt to the new framework.”
Michal Gutelzon: “You need to get to know the place you’re going to, the costs, understand if you can live on a single salary and for how long, coordinate expectations with your partner about the sacrifice and what the consequences and impact of the move are, to help and be helped, because most of us don’t have family here. We need to encompass the We have new friends with whom we have fun and become a family in everything. We celebrate the holidays with them, we help them in times of need, they are in fact the support during the more challenging times and in general. To understand the culture, learn the customs, the holidays, wake up in the community, try to volunteer in the community, if in the schools of The children and mother are in different non-profit organizations and thus start to create networking, and also contribute to the community. Be open to learning and trying new things.”
Shari Raz: “A healthy locker room, just like a healthy business, results from a systematic treatment of all the people who make up the locker room. Players, just like workers in an organization, will be able to increase their effectiveness if their absorption processes are treated, just as is customary in the world of work in general and high-tech in particular. The spillover that exists From the worlds of high-tech to sports is present both in the levels of advanced measurement means, both in management and in marketing, but for some reason precisely when we look at the most critical resource of a sports team, which are its players, we don’t see these routines taking place.”
Efrat: “I strongly recommend looking for acquaintances who live in the same area, try to get as much information from them as possible about the expenses, the required processes, the possibilities in the area, etc. firsthand. You need to understand that relocation is not a vacation abroad, but building a life in a new place.
“It is important to arrive at the destination open to listening to the local team. Those who fail to read between the lines and re-coordinate expectations will significantly reduce the chances of success.”