GCC Companies building for the future with continued efforts on recruitment and training

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The fourth annual Human Assets Middle East Expansion Summit, organized by naseba, concluded on the 17^th of June at the One & Only Royal Mirage in Dubai. Leading Human Resources professionals from the Middle East region gathered to discuss the latest trends and issues related to their profession in light of the current global economic situation. The Summit featured two significant panel discussions on how the credit crunch crisis affected the regional talent pool and how HR leaders can minimize the ongoing impact of the credit crisis and prepare their organizations for recovery.
 
Commenting on talent retention, Ibrahim Al-Suleimany, GM HR, Haya Water- Oman said: “Good talent remains in an organization when it has incentives. Haya Water has developed a clear HR Strategy which is linked to one of our company’s objectives “To be one of the top 5 Employers in Oman” and this strategy based on four focus areas namely: Attract Talent, Retain Talent, Talent Management, and Occupational Health and Safety. Each of these areas have a projects and key performance indicator. Therefore, Haya managed to maintain less than 3% staff turnover and less the 1% of sickness leaves”, he added.
 
“However from my experience,” he said, “last year there was a scarcity of talent in the GCC and other part of the world due to the economy booming, I only met a few talented individuals in most of the countries we went to, resource engineering and other professionalsin India and UK, but this year I was flooded with requests. So it mainly depends on where you are targeting. The employees that companies take care of will remain.”
 
But are companies following a specific strategy this year in view of the global crisis?
As far as Haya Water is concerned, Mr Al-Suleimany commented: “We have to be transparent and emphasize on our communication in terms of carrier planning, competency management, leadership development, motivation, training, and development as it is important to Haya Water to retain its talent. We have a recovery plan and a risk assessment plan for all in all our units. This recession is good for learning and reviewing ourselves.”
 
Ali Al Sinan, HR Manager, Saudi Chevron Phillips Company commented: “We are in the mood of increasing staff and trying to attract a big number of people as we have not reached the stage of running and maintaining yet. We are expanding with large mega projects. We strategically decided that we may slow down on non-discretionary training but will allow all hiring to continue because we cannot live without that. I am a strong believer that HR is all about attracting, developing and maintainingtalent.”
 
Azzah Al Shahran, HR Director, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, winner of the 2009 HR Director of the year award, stated: “[This year] our challenge is to build a new culture for the organization therefore we’ve been doing a lot of recruitment. During the financial crisis, we have been one of the few organizations to recruit for key positions at the Chamber. Our strategy has been: if there is talent out there, let’s go and get it right now while it’s available.” The benefit for the DCCI was to diversify its workforce, which represents 26 nationalities. “Emiratization continues however to be one of our top priorities. Today we have 50% emirates. 75% of our top management positions are UAE Nationals, 40% are women.” The DCCI took the decision not to freeze training and development as they need to think in advance about retention. “Once the huge wave of financial crisis is over, the fight for talent is going to be even worse than it was before. Retaining the good people we have can only be done by building loyalty.”
 
Fauzia Al Araimi, Assistant General Manager and Head of HR, Oman International Bank will also be focusing on the retention of talent because “they are multifunctional and are ready to change things in the organization.”
 
Ms Al Shahran also emphasized on the necessity to build proper knowledge management systems within the organization to make sure that implicit and explicit knowledge is transferred between employees. This way they ensure people are skilled with the right competencies and there is a proper manpower planning in place. She advised HR professionals “to be closer to the business than ever before. You need to know what is exactly happening in the organization and be aware of the economic transit indicators.”
She concluded that smart organizations are going to maintain and work very hard on their employer brand. Communications, whether internally with the employees or externally with the job market, will be very important in the near future.
 
Prachi Dawar, event project director at naseba, wrapped up the 4^th Annual Human Assets Middle East Congress:
“On behalf of naseba I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to all the speakers, sponsors, delegates, partners, and press who have graciously supported the 4^th Annual Human Assets Middle East Congress and the inaugural GCC Human Resource Excellence Awards 2009. During these three days we took a realistic look at the economy and heard from leading experts from cross industry on the strategies, insights and case studies to weather the economic storm, and come out ahead, stronger and more agile.”
 
For more information, visit www.humanassetsmideast.com
 

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