Initial, a leading FM service provider in Saudi Arabia, has launched ‘Workforce,’ a solution for the labour challenges facing several sectors, including oil and gas.
‘Workforce’ was launched three months ago and is expected to start operations by the end of 2015.
From construction to IT and the telecom sector, ‘Workforce’ is the newest trend of providing turnkey ‘managed services’ that many in the kingdom are embarking on.
Despite having a distinct advantage in the labour supply market, the company is not alone in its efforts.
Mohammed Bundakji, group managing director at Initial, said: “One of the reasons these manpower companies were established in the first place was to both solve the labour shortage in domestic and commercial sectors and help stymie cases of unregulated abuses there.
“Today, the onus is on companies, and not individual sponsors, to prevent such cases and regulate the market.”
The oil and gas industry in the Kingdom increasingly faces issues of skilled labour shortages and an ever-widening talent gap. With half of the oil and gas workforce expected to retire over the next decade, the challenges of attracting fresh skilled workers will increase.
And while Initial can’t find skilled or semi-skilled Saudi workers willing to work in the field, it can provide foreign help at will.
“Our clients need only focus on their business and we provide them with the qualifications they need,” Bundakji added.
‘Workforce’ takes charge of securing work permits and government related documentation, paying salaries, accommodations, dress and food.
“We just need to be specified the skillsets that the client needs, like General Labour, Technical Staff, Foremen, Architects and Engineers and even CEOs, and we will source it from our associations spread around the GCC region and into Asia,” explained Bundakji.
Construction companies deal with a wide variety of orders as well as ad hoc jobs, which makes it hard to have extra and readily available manpower.
“Workforce solves the costly procedure adopted by construction companies of keeping essential staff floating on the books for situations like that,” Bundakji concluded.
It also assists in the process of Saudisation or work permit fees. Construction companies still need to maintain a 7% Saudisation rate in order to acquire labour from manpower companies like Initial.
