| Kippreport.com

Irreconcilable differences?

March 20, 2011 5:01 by Precious de Leon

While the same can’t be said for this region just yet, there are hundreds of new national graduates from universities here every year and the changing realities of doing business and working in the region should be forcing mindsets to change about nationalisation—both from the governing bodies on national employment and the private sector.

And perhaps the way to do this is to get passed the blame game and start creating equal opportunity rights in the job market—for everyone. There’s no better lesson, for example, like earning your way to the top and companies must open positions from every level to all applications—local or otherwise. By the same token, it’s important to manage expectations among the national workforce about the office environment, starting at the academic level through on-the-job training and education on corporate cultures.

Regardless, pointing fingers at companies not hiring enough locals while another set of fingers pointing the opposite direction saying there aren’t enough qualified local applicants is, frankly, getting a little bit boring. So let’s pack it in and move on.

Realistically, authorities may also look at raising incentives for hiring qualified local resources—across any sector and at any position (managerial or otherwise), instead of creating percentage quotas for hiring. This ensures the companies have the control of the quality of their staff and gives national employees a chance to be trained internally.

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Tags: Bahrain, business, emiratization, employment, gcc, government, HR, nationalization, Oman, private sector, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, unemployment