Effect of Emiratisation Implementation to Training & Development Programs

Building up and reinforcing human capital either through further education or training programs have been the key objectives of public sector development. These policies are in alignment with public sector development and economic rejuvenation models that accentuate the role of public servants’ proficiency and competent bureaucracies as the primary movers of development (Hood and Lodge 2004).

The fundamental conjecture of this approach is that “once capabilities are in place, the various entities in the public sector will be endowed with the ability to undertake the developmental tasks that government requires, to use resources efficiently, to solve fresh problems as they arise, and to sustain increasingly complex and sophisticated activities over time” (Esman 1991, p. 19).

Addressing the unequal composition of the workforce is a major consequence of Emiratisation which resulted to business organizations’ embarking on training and development programmes to prop up the employability of nationals in the labour market (Khalaf and Alkobaisi 1999); this went along with government authorized nationalisation policies with mechanisms to stop the influx of foreign workers.

A settled objective of training programs is to afford public and private sector administrators/professionals with the awareness, proficiencies and constructive mind-sets essential in enhancing organizational work processes and assuming effective management and leadership techniques in an effort to smooth the progress of organizational reform and perk up the performance of business organizations and government service.

The study’s findings revealed that with the implementation of the Emiratisation policy, companies started launching attractive incentives for Emiratis despite the concomitant increase in their operational budgets. These companies made considerable investments in educational and training initiatives, hiring specialists in curriculum development and instructional design of training programmes for staff workers who are employed in bigger business firms.

Unfortunately, workers commonly leave an organisation after a training programme’s completion which makes these programmes expensive to set up and execute, which consequently has a considerable impact on return on investment for the organisation concerned. Luckily though, trainings can be conducted in several locations and are for the most part dependent on the nature of the skills and knowledge being instructed to the participant.

Likewise, in support of the Emiratisation strategy, the development of European style apprenticeship schemes is generally common, mandatory in house training cycles and local or regional training or retraining events. Another is the scholarship offers from employers which allow nationals to seek qualifications over an extended period of study abroad; however, these are habitually accompanied with a conditional contract of employment to make sure that the employee stays for the minimum predetermined period of employment.

Principally, skills and knowledge transfer from emigrants to UAE nationals is an issue that needs to be addressed. Employees and expatriate residents have the apprehension of sharing their knowledge with their Emirati counterpart or subordinate, as the latter will be viewed as a threat to the former’s job solidity. Another aspect that the policy is trying to address which in turn will have bearing on how business organizations will go about with their training and development programs is the existence of knowledge gaps.

Organization managers are well aware that because of this gap, planning and managing the workforce can be tricky and complicated. There is a strong need for evidence-based guidelines in order to develop policies that will deal with problems in areas where these challenges exist. To add to the problems of labour force shortage, skill-mix, underemployment and mal-distribution of workers, the entire work force scenario is beleaguered with other challenges. For instance, health workforce migration is observed to be a dilemma in some nations, yet there is very little evidence accessible to calculate its enormity and impact.

Moreover, the aptitude of these professionals is open to discussion because of insufficient and unsuitable professional training. As a consequence of the current shortages, doctors or engineers usually end up doing tasks that they did not have training for or are doing jobs of which they are overqualified. Other issues include deficiency in recruitment and retention strategies and the absence of a suitable and reliable database crucial in aiding policy makers make better assessments and judgments regarding their country’s workforce.

In summation, while the management of career enhancement essentials and training development ends as soon as the individual trainee departs from the training institution or away from the trainers’ sight, HR managers must never forget the fact that institutional development programs necessitate uninterrupted efforts to ensure that the accrued knowledge and skills have been utilized in an efficient manner in order to augment individual and eventually organizational performance.

Thus, institutional development can be viewed as a scheme that assimilates human resource development and systemic modifications/adjustments to develop them and connect them to performance. As it is, improved participation and empowerment coupled with effectual inducement structures which compensates competence are vital objectives and elemental principles of such an incorporated system (French and Bell 1999). These fine-tuning can assist in creating the bond between human capital and performance.