Emiratisation is more than a game of numbers or quotas

It's the quality of the national manpower that will ultimately benefit the UAE, says Khaled Al Ameri

Emiratisation, the act of incorporating Emirati Nationals into jobs in the public and private sectors, has played a central role in the UAE's human development strategy. Given the challenges the region faces over increasing youth unemployment, as well as in terms of incorporating a growing population into the workforce, governments are on high alert as they try their best to avert a crisis that could have significant socio-economic consequences.

However, with a large majority of the UAE’s national workforce working in the Government or semi-Government sector (I have heard the figure is as high as 80 per cent), efforts are being made to explore other areas, especially the private sector. The latest suggestion has come from the FNC member Ali Al Nuaimi that private companies with a high percentage of Emirati staff be given preferential treatment in bidding for tenders.

Everyone will agree that the private sector plays a critical role in the employment and development of Emiratis. What is more important to understand is how they play that role. On the face of it, a strategy that offers incentives to private companies in the form of preferential treatment for having more Emiratis in their organisation seems to be positive. But I wonder whether this is a quick and easy solution to a problem that requires a long-term vision.

Let’s picture a scenario where Company A hires a significant number of Emiratis just to fill positions. In other words, they don’t really add much value to the organisation, or the community as a whole.

Contrast this with Company B that hires fewer Emiratis, but spends a significant amount of resources to ensure that they become valuable employees, able to assume leadership roles in the future. It’s obvious that Company B has created more value and played a greater role in developing Emirati talent. However, Company A gets a preferential treatment simply because it has a higher number of Emiratis on its payroll.

After spending two years at a business school, I can understand the reason behind a focus on the numbers and the idea that more means better.

However, one thing we are also taught to pay close attention to is what lies behind those numbers. That’s because at the end of the day they have to mean something, they have to represent something tangible (in this case development, training and excellence) and not just look nice on a piece of paper.

We should invest our energy to understand the underlying issues that are making companies in the private sector hesitant to hire Emiratis, rather than incentivising them through preferential treatment. This means that we need to treat the disease, not the symptoms.

Now we can make the traditional arguments that Emiratis want more compensation, less working hours and easier work, which I personally believe are the viewpoints of a minority. Alternatively, we can start to understand, analyse and break down the problem into smaller parts and start working from the ground up. The problem is to figure out how to make hiring Emiratis part of a strategic decision that is good for the private sector business, rather than financial decisions through private companies winning Government business they wouldn’t win otherwise.

Solutions could range from subsidising talent development in the private sector, creating more institutes that would prepare Emiratis for knowledge-intensive sectors that are shaping the UAE’s economy, or developing partnerships between private and Government universities to create exchange programmes and internships. All of these solutions might take time and effort, but they would get to the heart of the issue – creating a talent pool that is sought after by the private sector, not something forced upon them.

The UAE is fortunate enough to have the freedom to pump resources into programmes, innovation and ideas to tackle their nationalisation issues. What we don’t have is time, because with each passing day the problems are growing as our youth are faced with the same challenges in the job market. We won’t win a short-term number game, but if we do this right we will gain in the long-term human-development game, and that’s what counts.

Khalid Al Ameri is an Emirati who recently returned from Stanford University after receiving his MBA

On Twitter: @KhalidAlAmeri