As employee retention in the Middle East becomes increasingly difficult, employers are faced with a serious challenge to retain their talent in the critical, high-potential and top-performing employee categories, especially with the increased mobility and a tight labour market where critical skills are scarce.
To overcome this challenge, companies must realise that they need to act fast and refocus their training efforts and initiatives on what is most critical to the business in the immediate and long-term. There needs to be a complete shift in their training philosophy and strategy.
For starters, companies need to increase their investment in developing their human capital. Such investment must be strategically planned and deployed to ensure the desired and immediate impact on the employees and the high return on the investment. Rather than spending training money equally and across the board, companies must focus the training and development investment on their key talent in critical/ pivotal roles, thus, increase the levels of loyalty and retention of such key talent as well as build their bench strength and pipeline of future leaders to ensure business continuity and growth from within. This approach will ensure a high level of engagement and retention among the employees who are critical to the business.
Training is a key business-driven HR process that when strategically planned by HR and taken seriously by employees, managers and leadership alike, will have a very positive impact on the company’s overall performance and its bottom line.
Needless to say, a training strategy can only be effective when it is derived from the people strategy and is fully aligned with the company’s business objectives and priorities at any phase during its business lifecycle.HR’s role, and specifically the training and development unit, is key in setting up an effective training strategy – with its related initiatives and programs – that will specifically address and focus on the key business priorities and people challenges, current and future. Nowadays, training can no longer be seen as an obligation or a reward to employees. Rather, it is an integral and key aspect of the business strategy that will help the business grow and sustain its competitive advantage in a highly competitive landscape.
This can be achieved by targeting the identified skill gaps or shortages that need to be nurtured and grown internally, as well as the identified key skill sets that need to be acquired by the company going forward, in order to cope with the planned future business growth or diversification.
Only then, a training strategy will be effective and have direct impact on the company’s overall performance and the achievement of its business objectives.
Our recent Global Talent & Rewards Survey and Global Workforce Study have revealed that the element of ‘training and development’ ranks among the top five retention drivers from the employer’s view. Furthermore, these studies have also shown a direct relationship between the availability of training programs – whether traditional training, online and on-the-job learning – and staff productivity levels.
Similar to the challenges that companies in the region are facing in retaining the right talent, our studies also show that employers in the Middle East are experiencing more problems attracting critical employees than those globally. Specifically, attracting employees in the Middle East in the critical-skill, high-potential and top-performing segments is becoming increasingly difficult as reported by the respondents (at 69%, 72% and 67% respectively).
Accordingly, the studies also show that employers are indeed engaging in accelerated hiring activity, in a desperate attempt to source the required talent. It is, therefore, critical for companies to build a strong Employer Brand in their markets. Our recent studies have confirmed that the ‘Organisation’s reputation as good employer’ element has been ranked among the top 5 attraction drives across all age groups and from the employer and employee views alike.
Once the employer brand is built or revamped, it must be reinforced by a highly evolved Employment Deal that lays out the ‘Give and Get’ in a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Most importantly, such employment deal must be clearly communicated and promoted, internally and externally, to raise the level of awareness and drive higher levels of talent attraction. As part of the Employment Deal, employers must aim to present critical talent with career development and continuous learning opportunities to ensure they attract the desired talent and skill sets to close the existing skill gaps.
Young employees nowadays have completely different needs and expectations that are far from being conventional. They are more mobile, highly networked, technology savvy and very open and ready to explore new and emerging trends. What attracts them to employment, today and tomorrow, is very different from what we are used to so far. In the Middle East, as an example, young employees no longer see base pay as a top attraction driver, as shown in our recent studies. Their mind set is shifting towards building their career, and are prepared to go for it, no matter what it takes or where the opportunities present themselves.
This may be the main reason why attracting such a dynamic and mature calibre of employees is proving to be more challenging than ever, especially in this region. Employers and recruiters, in general, still resort to traditional and mechanical ways of recruitment, not realising that the landscape has changed significantly.
This also stands true with respect to the other HR processes, systems and strategies that are currently in place. Employers and recruiters need to realise that young prospects come out of universities ready and fully equipped to enter the world of work with high enthusiasm and the right outlook and tools to hit the ground running. We need to tap into this new age pool of talent with a totally new outlook, if we are serious in turning our businesses around and injecting new blood that will elongate our lifecycle.
In this context, HR also needs to start thinking seriously of new ways to train and develop this new generation of talent in order to guarantee their engagement and loyalty, hence, their retention. The use of mobile technology and introduction of blended and just-in-time learning solutions, as well as on-the-job learning and mentoring are not options anymore. They are strategic requirements of today’s work environment.
The recent drop in oil prices has had its considerable impact on the sector. And as an immediate reaction to this drop, companies tend to resort to drastic measures such as downsizing, salary freezing and cost-cutting, where the latter primarily hits the area of training and development, thus forcing companies to block any current and new investments in this area.
Recent regional surveys conducted in the sector have shown that while over a third of the sector’s workforce is ageing and approaching retirement, and, as a result of the falling oil prices, the sector is currently suffering serious shortage of skilled young generation. Companies already operating in the sector, as well as new entrants, tend to compete on a talent pool that is already limited.
On the other hand, the current workforce, especially the young segment, still lacks the required advanced technical and leadership skills to enable them to develop and grow and eventually drive future progress in the sector. Accordingly, the lack of strategic focus on industry-specific training to up-skill or re-skill existing employees presents a serious challenge towards building the much-needed capabilities and growing the local talent pools, whether technical experts of high potential leaders, from within to offset any market shortages and close current skill gaps.
Furthermore, the underlining issues of aging workforce, talent shortages and localisation, in addition to the attraction and retention challenges that face the sector in particular and the region in general, must act as a trigger to the HR and Training & Development Functions to start thinking strategically about training and development and take immediate actions to introduce training solutions and interventions that focus on the identified skill gaps and the new skills that will be required for future growth in the industry. As well, HR must drive and support these necessary actions through the use of data to secure top management’s buy-in and commitment to invest in staff training and development.
With the current workforce coming mostly from outside the region, it becomes necessary for companies operating in the sector to introduce new strategies for innovative training and development programmes and solutions to ensure that going forward, talent is home-grown and skills and knowledge are retained in the region.
Compared to 12 months ago, the region has recently seen an improvement in the areas of training and development, as reported by 50% of the employers covered in our studies, where employers are realising the high value of training and development programs and career advancement opportunities to their business. However, we still have a long way to go and a lot more to do with respect to attracting, developing and retaining our critical talent and keeping them highly engaged and motivated.
