At a recent gathering of key HR industry stakeholders for a ‘Qatarisation’ forum hosted by Bayt.com – the Middle East’s number one job site – it was agreed that employee retention is a critical enabler for organisations to maintain competitive advantage. The assembled forum members furthermore agreed that engineering customised training and development programs is an essential trigger for optimising local participation in industry; while diversification from ‘safe’ jobs in the public sector and from traditional sectors like oil and gas should be encouraged.
The issue of localisation, a main driver of HR policy and a topic of national importance in Qatar, was the focus of the Bayt.com forum. Participants included key decision makers from human resource departments and key influencers in the region, who aired their opinions and shared insights on the economic, social and political drivers that influence human capital and that define HR strategies in regional corporations.
The forum found that there are a number of challenges facing the move to localisation in Qatar and shaping the attitude toward jobs in Qatar from the point of view of local talent. The supply of well-educated and well-trained Qatari nationals is widely acknowledged to be insufficient to meet the demand, which is contributing to certain types of job vacancies not being filled, while the preferences of the national workforce in terms of hours and working practices is often not being met in the types of vacancies available in the private sector.
“One of the main challenges faced by private enterprises aside from competition is the problem of maintaining, engaging and developing their most vital asset – their personnel,” explained Amer Zureikat, Bayt.com. “This is particularly true of Qatar, where competition for top talent is fierce to fill the jobs in Qatar’s booming growth sectors, yet training and mentoring for careers is often insufficient and unsystematic, and doesn’t always match the needs or demands of the local job market,” he added.
The importance of staff training and development was reflected recently in independent research commissioned by Bayt.com and YouGovSiraj on the region’s Consumer Confidence, which is used to understand and measure the attitudes of Middle Eastern consumers to the economy and their job situation, and to the employment market in general.
The May 2008 Bayt.com and YouGovSiraj Consumer Confidence Index report (CCI) clearly shows a strong lack of satisfaction with career opportunities in Qatar. Only 26% of respondents cited that satisfaction with their current job and career prospects was high, with43% citing them as neutral.
A fifth of Qatar’s respondents to the survey at 20% stated that satisfaction with career growth was low, with36% citing it as neutral. Against this backdrop, Qatar’s respondents remained the most optimistic of all the surveyed countries for the future, with58% citing there will be more jobs available next year, compared to the16% who believe there will be fewer jobs available.
Findings of Bayt.com’s 2008 Loyalty Survey conducted in conjunction with YouGovSiraj show that Qatar’s employees are largely neutral in terms of job satisfaction. Just35% of workers in Qatar agreed that their organizations manage to engage employees so that they perform well, and only34% agree that their organisations manage to keep the best talent.
“As supported by the findings of previous research, and in light of the issues discussed during the forum, setting a strategic cohesive training and development agenda is the key to empowering Qatar locals to enter and create a positive impact on the local Qatar job market,” Amer Zureikat said.
Forum participants agreed that students and fresh graduates should be familiarized with available training and development methods, by meeting, hearing- and learning- from employed and retired locals who are ‘success stories,’ and can provide solid insights and expectations into the real world of work and the unique particulars of jobs in Qatar. In turn, private companies in Qatar would benefit from doing more to ‘sell their employment brand’ and make employment and the subsequent development opportunities within their organisation an attractive option. Tying up with educational institutions it was agreed would improve the relationship between private enterprises and young national students, and would help to attract them to their businesses on graduation.
Repeated Bayt.com online HR polls have shown that opportunities for career growth and development are even more important for professionals considering a career move than immediate short-term remuneration considerations. In a May 2008 Bayt.com online poll, over36% of all respondents indicated that opportunities for growth and advancement were the most important aspect they look for in a job versus 31% selecting an attractive salary. Despite this, the forum agreed that salaries in a number of industries did not correlate to the high inflation rate, thus limiting interest in such industries. A dichotomy occurs however, where despite the relatively lower salaries of the public sector, Qataris are more inclined to seek work in its employ.
Other factors have a role to play in increasing the drive towards Qatarization forum participants agreed. Increasing the number of women in the workforce will augment the overall percentage of Qatari nationals in any sector, and if Qatarization is no longer restricted to certain sectors and becomes universal – with more active recruitment to these sectors, the corollary will likely be much stronger local participation and localisation success.
“The case for localisation is compelling, and while the general consensus was that the adoption of the localization mandate is in the interests of everyone doing business in the region, it was felt that the best outcome would be for organisations to focus on ‘quality localisation,’ which can be achieved through the implementation of effective training from the university/ graduate level coupled with customized and proactive staff training and development programs at the corporate level including ‘career path planning’ tailored for the needs of the individual and the organisation. This drive includes harnessing the power of the internet, communicating with universities and institutions and increasing the attractiveness of the private sector to attract local talent,” concluded Amer Zureikat, Bayt.com.
Bayt.com is committed to bringing about a paradigm shift in the HR and recruitment industry through researched, audited and empowered HR perspectives. The forum provided the ideal enviro nment for these key industry players to share in some of the valuable data that Bayt.com researches, and to use it as a catalyst for seeking answers to some of the most pressing issues in the industry today.