Emirates General Petroleum Corporation: Managing Diversity

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Introduction

Emirates General Petroleum Corporation is the top UAE national petroleum brand. It is notable not only for its long and successful history but also for the diversity that becomes one of the constituents of its success. Having understood the importance of cooperation among people of different backgrounds, the company has introduced the principle of diversity in order to reap the benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the idea of diversity is put into action in Emirates General Petroleum Corporation. In this respect, the brief history of the corporation, the HR department activities, the mechanisms of managing the diversity, and the opinion concerning this approach are considered. Further, the current state of affairs is viewed through the lens of the book by Michelle E. Mor Barak. The perspectives of development in the long term (after five to ten years) are discussed. The paper includes the interview intended to clarify some issues pertaining to the competition. Finally, the lessons learned and concluding statements are given.

Emirates General Petroleum Corporation was founded in 1981 and aimed at marketing and distributing petroleum in the region (El Mallakh 153). In 1982, the corporation established its Lubricant and Specialty product brands. Next year, the company proceeded to establish Natural Gas Distribution networks and eventually opened Lube Express Centers in 1989. Today, the corporation owns 180 retail outlets in the region and the largest natural gas supply network.

The company provides a wide range of petroleum products and services to both large and small consumers. Its products dominate in the Northern United Arab Emirates. Some of the products the corporation offers are gasoline, kerosene, petroleum gas in liquid form, fuels used in the aviation sector, battery water, lubricants, brake fluids, radiator coolants, and grease.

The company has diversified its products: it offers food staff, postal services, dry cleaning, smart cards, postal services, auto-care services, and general automotive maintenance. Emarat products are designed with the intent of making life better and delivering high-quality items (El Mallakh 68).

As part of its social responsibility, the corporation has functional social and environmental programs that appreciate the diversity in a community and support the interest of the host environment. The corporation rebranded in 1996, marking the start of the strong brand that has ensured its success. The aim of the company is to produce and market the products of high quality; it grants the customers the highest value of products that fits their diverse interests.

Human Resource Department

HR Operation

The human resource department is a critical part of the organization. The human resources are designed to perform four major operations: the management of the workforces, rewards, and policy, learning and development of the workforce, and recruitment and planning strategic activities. The apex, the top component of the human resource department, is comprised of chiefs and senior administrators. Their duty is to translate and characterize the mission of the organization and guarantee that its destinations are relevant to this mission.

The operating core consists of persons who perform different tasks to achieve set goals. The middle line component connects the strategic pinnacle and the operations center. It makes the work of the working center predictable and corresponding to the desires and arrangements of the peak. The technostructure comprises people whose responsibilities relate to ensuring that the organization is run smoothly. With the human resource department, the analyzers identify the best ways of utilizing the workforce.

The support section of HR is also important in terms of many issues, for example, the general coordination of human resources functions and their relationship to the overall work (General Petroleum par. 2). Although their role is not associated with a certain part of HR, the support contributes to the efficiency and viability of the department and its expectations as part of the larger organization.

The relative impact of these components on each other has a huge effect on the way of organizing. It is stated that every component will have a favored method for coordination (Proven Models par. 2). For instance, the chiefs will work through direct supervision, and they will be particularly imperative in smaller organizations with simple structures. The centerline will try to institutionalize yields while the technostructure will attempt to institutionalize the work forms. The working center will institutionalize abilities.

HR Operation & Service

Operation management is a significant part of the human resource department. The aim of the operation management is to ensure that human resources are dedicated to the benefit of the entire organization. As the quality of the product or service directly depends on the human factor involved in the production or delivery, the department must always strive to achieve the highest standards of service. In order to do it, the utilization of the current human power to convert goods into products becomes an essential component. All forms of resources in the form of labor are an integral part of the final item.

The major managerial function of HR with reference to operation and services at the corporation is to synchronize the available human resources and the tasks. The officer in charge examines the task and comes with a model that gives the opportunity to utilize the manpower sufficiently. Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has numerous employees on different stages, from the initial one when raw materials extracted to the final phase of consumption.

It is probable to state that each stage requires the diversity of the workforce. The unique skills possessed by particular staff members must integrate into one common force to fulfill the aims of the company. In other words, in any organization that seeks to offer various products or services, the workforce must be diverse: the in-house harmony connected with task performance relates to the degree of diversity.

Operation function is also one of the major parts of the production line labor resource: it includes the HR functions which touch upon marketing and finance labor resources. Without the support of the operation and function sections, the compartments of the production line cannot be operated effectively. The section consolidates the entire team and takes into account their diversity because, again, the knowledge and skills of different people with different their background (for instance, education received in various countries) may be advantageous.

Learning & Development

Learning and support of the human resource department become significant issues to ensure the quality of services. They keep workers vigilant and attentive to the changing needs of the organization through learning forums. Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has acknowledged the need to enhance its staff qualification through training programs supported by human resources. Learning about their responsibilities, employees also acquire knowledge of what makes them different and how this difference can be used to the advantage of the company. Learning and development are effective instruments: the workforce becomes mutually dependent and moves towards the service delivery quality improvement.

To increase the rates of development, HR can use the management and operational assessment of new interventions adopted by the organization. The procedure involves the evaluation of new skill sets and the ways employees can apply them to practice. Measurable targets are used to evaluate the rates of learning and development of a team.

Recruitment & Planning

The Emirates General Petroleum Corporation’s human resource department has shown good utilization of the recruitment sources. For the most part, it has good interviewing qualities and methods. Interviewing candidates present the organization’s real experiences. Besides, the critical analysis and predictions of the staff’s needs have so far been accurate and effective. The hiring choices the corporation has made have given the team very important employees.

In terms of the ability to organize and execute the employment process within the recommended time span, the HR department has the average indexes. The department takes into consideration time issues and focuses attention on the quality and qualification of employees; as a result, it allows the company to achieve its hiring objectives. However, the department can be more effective if it targets specific parts of the workforce and human resource availability, such as encouraging diversity.

Rewards & Policy

The working climate of the present-day world demands high levels of employees’ commitment, and workers also expect more from their employers. Performance appraisals evaluate business activities in a more individual way by means of providing a forum for comparison of one’s performance characteristics and the organization’s standards. The corporation provides a platform through which the business can evaluate the level of its workforce’s accomplishment.

The evaluation of human resources is continuous in nature. It starts at the beginning of a fiscal year and finishes in the last quarter of the year. In Emirates General Petroleum Corporation, the performance appraisal results in the positive feedback of the employees since their personal success is recognized. Within the organization, the cases of deviation are also identified through the performance evaluation. As the most expensive resource of the corporation, people have tasks assigned to them, and the management must ensure that individuals’ actions help the corporation stand out among other competitors.

Managing Diversity

Thinking about diversity, one should not limit oneself with gender differences among the staff. This issue refers to complex details. Apparently, people from different backgrounds are not the same in terms of cognitive abilities, personality, and beliefs. The success of the corporation depends on how well it takes care of the employees. To some degree, the Emirates General Petroleum Corporation’s approach to diversity is not perfect.

The organization is known for the predominance of people from a particular ethnic line and its favorable promotion opportunities. Analyzing the speeches delivered by the official of the corporation, one can see the attempts to explain how the organization perceives the diversity issues. On the one hand, the organization lacks sufficient tools to take care of workforce diversity. However, there are also mechanisms that help ensure that the differences among the employees are considered when allocating duties, promotion, and employment opportunities are examined.

The allocation of tasks depends on people’s abilities only, and women enjoy similar rights as men. The idea of male-oriented employment is not practiced in the organization. While the corporation is situated in an Arab country, its employee base consists of people from other parts of the world including Indians, Chinese, and Americans. The company repudiates any forms of discrimination. The organization recognizes employees’ academic efforts and rewards qualifications.

The corporation’s guiding principle leads to the maximum management of diversity. Equity, access, assumptions, constraints, and aspirations are included. Taking into account equity, the organization ensures that the available resources are distributed to everyone equally, and the organization does it through the equitable allocation of promotion opportunities, training, and team development. With the access policies, the organization strives to give its employees equal access to resources and incentives.

Later on, the company’s policies restrict stereotyping, and particular groups of people are not to be ascribed with negative attributes. Therefore, one can agree that all employees benefit from this work environment where everyone is treated equally and with respect. Ethnicity issues, gender differences, and personal diversity are vital for the company. The constraint policies recognize the limitations of certain groups and dedicate effective methods of handling possible problems.

According to the sociodemographic data concerning the company’s workers, all of them are men. However, other variables are more diverse. For example, many nationalities are represented except for the UAE employees, and three of them are the most frequent ones: the Indians, the Pakistani, and the Nepalese. Education differences are also registered: the qualification types include a primary school, high school, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph. D.. Both single and married men are represented, and the former group is slightly predominant.

Opinion

The diversity evaluation model and Porter’s five forces model are important for a firm attempting to venture into a specific area of industry. It permits the company to assess the feasibility of the option based on Porter’s five forces model (Proven Models par. 2). It includes threats and competition levels. In the petroleum industry, diversity risks are low due to the relatively high barriers. Still, some challenges exist and include the enormous human resources requirements necessary for the development of a new view of the workforce.

Emirates General Petroleum Corporation, therefore, has to face little threat of misunderstanding due to its diversity approach. In fact, the threat is considered to be low at the moment. The company also enjoys being the national company, and the threats caused by dealing with large financial sources dedicated to maximizing the diversity benefits are reduced. At the same time, the corporation is exposed to a significant threat of substitute skills. The company operates in an area that is already crowded by similar service providers. More than that, international companies continue to be a threat to the operation of the Emirates General Petroleum Corporation.

The companies, such as Shell, take a significant share of domestic and international customers. There are also threats of alternative sources of employment, but its level is considered to be relatively low since the company dominates the area of its operation. Owing to the availability of alternative employers’ grants, the employees are given the opportunity to bargain over the conditions of their employment. Further, employees have substantial power when it comes to their salaries, the quality of amenities, and support. It is easy for the workers to make a decision concerning the desired employer by means of the publicly available information and the approach to handling diversity.

The level of competition in the petroleum industry is significantly higher. Competition techniques used by companies include service quality, employee wages, after-services offers, and leisure services during off-seasons. There are more than ten companies in the region that absorb a significantly large portion of the diverse workforce. Competition in international companies is also higher due to the fact that they follow the international standards which touch upon the issue of diversity, and this choice may seem more attractive.

Michelle Barak: Socioeconomic Transitions: The New Realities of the Global Workforce

Diversity in Emarat refers to the general definition of diversity in terms of age, sex, social class, beliefs, race, and other elements that make people different. However, true diversity is impossible until Emirates General Petroleum Corporation involves the engagement of best minds, including both minority and majority groups and various levels of qualifications.

Increasing diversity in an organization workforce provides the ways through which a solution can be generated to overcome individual limitations of skills, human resources, and innovative abilities; the solutions that take care of all interested groups can also be made (Mor Barak 153). Diversification of the organization helps establish the necessary level of credibility in providing solutions to the issues of the greatest concern.

When one hears about diversity, what comes to one’s mind is the racial, gender, and beliefs diversity. While race has much to do with diversity, diversity in the corporation in the phase of globalization demands more than just race equality. Nowadays, there are some people who do not understand the scope of operations in the corporation, and women are poorly presented in the profession. Judging by these tendencies, some people may believe that the process of promoting diversity is long and tedious.

However, the diversity in the workforce education is essential for the viability of employees and also the companies in which they work. Diversity is critical in understanding the multidimensional problems associated with globalization. The multi-disciplinary approach favors the idea of the multiple views of a common problem. Solutions are to be generated by diverse groups that have better understanding, creativity, and effectiveness. If new challenges appear in new domains, employees must be diverse in their approaches; in this regard, education systems are to be the beginning of all innovations. Gender, personal, and aspirational diversity matters are substantial in defining a diverse employee team. Incorporating such diverse factors in education shows how much the corporation has grown to be diverse.

Position After Five to Ten Years

In order to estimate the potential changes and predict what the future holds, it is necessary to consider the current state of affairs. The present-day plans of the corporation and tendencies will be important to make suggestions.

The expected success of the company will give the opportunity to draw attention to diversity and spend money on these issues. Commercial and selling cost is an area in which Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has a higher unit cost than its competitors, for instance, Shell. Although the difference may be considered small, it illustrates the fundamental importance of reaching a wide customer base mostly by making use of all distribution channels and also the global promotion of the brand. Nevertheless, Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has another advantage: while roughly half of its business activities take place within the UAE where the fuel charges are relatively low, the company also acts within the European markets. In this area, the unit cost of the corporation is around one-third below that of Shell.

The corporation provides a differentiated range of products aimed to meet different customers’ needs. In addition to product differentiation, the company also offers various services, such as special cargo arrangements, hotel services, and care and maintenance services. Emirates General Petroleum Corporation is among the petroleum companies that deal with auto-services and free maintenance connections to customers depending on the product subscribed.

The main strategies of the corporation concentrate on the domain of service provision and product lines. Since its launch, the company continues to be among the market leaders within the UAE. The initial objective of the company was to be the best petroleum product provider in the UAE, but this objective has expanded: currently, Emirates General Petroleum Corporation focuses on providing quality air services within the UAE and beyond. From the previous success, the company continues to broaden its focus and aims at offering its services to global customers. To increase its customer base, the corporation has begun to offer packages with increased variations. Thus, new customers are likely to start using the company’s products and services.

The vision statement of the company is to have a track record that supersedes the conventional performance records of the existing petroleum companies. The management is dependent on innovative ideas derived from the features of the petroleum products industry. The company is accredited for high ethical standards in the delivery of services and products. Consequently, one can expect the expansion of the company in the future.

Sustainability is emphasized in the mission. The company prides itself on being committed to the wellbeing of the society and environment. The service’s reputation comes from its reliability, stability of service, and excellent delivery. The vision of the company is to ensure the 10% annual growth which is relevant to the opportunities available at the moment (Tong and Al Awad 55). The company plans to support the growth strategy event with the limitations that affect the petroleum business. Although the government owns the company, its growth is the result of careful marketing strategies implementations.

The competitive strategies, such as price, quality services, and multiple packages, increase the generated revenues. Therefore, Emirates General Petroleum Corporation will probably combine the urge to grow and the necessity to be stable.

As the company has a comprehensive knowledge of the current technologies and principles of investing, new inventions will boost the functionality within the market of the petroleum industry. The strategy is relevant to the vision of providing the highest quality to customers in the sector. Despite the fact that the company is one of the youngest actors in this industry, it will be able to keep its vision of being the most technologically equipped company.

Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has become more than just a company – it is the brand, and due to the change in its stature, the competition does not create many threats. However, the company has been keen on keeps changing its strategies to remain viable in the market. The corporation has multiple strategies that it uses to reach its aims. The list includes the following strategies:

positioning strategy regarding the choice of target market segment;
considering the description of the customers that show their expectations;
choosing different advantages that help compare its competitive strategies with those of the rivals in the segment;
promoting the delivery of services enhancement;
gaining better competitive advantages and increased dominance of viable markets. Currently, Nordic Petroleum is among the most competitive air transport service providers.

Interview

In order to collect more information and obtain the necessary details, the interview with the Manpower Planning specialist in Emirates General Petroleum Corporation was conducted. He explained the company’s policies in relation to diversity and stated that it was the success of the corporation that became the criterion that helped determine the attitude towards diversity. It means that a wide range of workers with different backgrounds is the formula for success: manifold opinions and approaches are useful since the best solution may be identified.

As the interviewee stated, the competition and concentration on prices made the regional petroleum industry more competitive than the numbers suggested. The product sold within the regional petroleum market is homogeneous. The only product differentiation possible for Emirates General Petroleum Corporation is the time which, again, can make a different impact on the purpose of services. It was emphasized that the competition from the entrants was entrenched by the high cost of entry and certain resources owned by the company. However, the industry faces competition from the external or internationally operating petroleum. The threat of competition from substitutes influences the local petroleum industry activities.

According to the interviewee, the supplier power in regional petroleum is high since there are many suppliers in this market. Other supplies, such as labor and fuel, are determined by socio-political factors which tend to affect the regional petroleum to large degrees (Al Falasi and Al Shaer par. 3). The buyer power is high in the market scenario. Still, there is evidence of a monopoly in special travel agreements and services. Very high price competitions, moderate supplier power, high buyer power, high fixed and low marginal costs coupled with barriers to entry and exit lower the profitability of this industry.

The petroleum industry has changed greatly because of the border deregulation act in 1978 (El Mallakh 49). One of the aftereffects of this industry liberalization, as the interviewee believed, was the development of low-cost petroleum. Before the deregulation, the pricing structure comprised of a prohibitive model which restrained the industry’s development. The primary targets of the deregulation act were the evacuation of the state control over the routes, expenses, and new participants in the business sector. Thus, the law exposed this industry to aggressive sector powers.

Overall, the complex processes that characterize the present-day situation demand new solutions. In this context, the experience of foreign specialists and diverse people will prove to be useful. The interviewee also expressed the opinion that the company would be successful in the future and manage to overcome today’s obstacles.

Lessons Learned

Due to the complex relationships that exist nowadays, Emirates General Petroleum Corporation has to face the fierce rivalry and struggle in order to continue its success. Under these circumstances, diversity becomes the issue of paramount significance.

During the project, I managed to gain some knowledge concerning the arrangement of Emirates General Petroleum Corporation, namely how its HR department functions and which peculiarities help follow the main principle of diversity promoted by the company in recent times. I also learned what diversity implies, why it is important, and which threats may cause troubles. In the petroleum business, success is possible if a company quickly adapts to the constantly changing technologies and improves service delivery. The company’s conception of diversity and incorporation of new services increases the company’s ability to strive in the competitive petroleum business.

Conclusion

To sum it up, the diversity evidenced by the base of the employees indicates the effect of globalization and the growing interaction among various cultures; thus, the tendencies are displayed in many forms, and staff made up of people of different backgrounds can serve as an excellent example. In this context, handling employees should incorporate multi-cultural approaches to human resource management. The HR department must respect the differences in thinking, attitudes, cultures, beliefs, religion, gender, and cognitive abilities, and behavioral patterns and provide favorable conditions.

This paper analyzed diversity as one of the most important approaches of Emirates General Petroleum Corporation and explored the current scenario of a globalized employee base. The world economies rely on the creativity, entrepreneurship, and productivity of different people. To maintain high levels of development and globalization in human resources, one must make use of diversity manifested by people and their innovative capacities.

In this respect, homogeneity in Emirates General Petroleum Corporation is no longer an effective approach. Having taken a closer look at the world, one can understand that many fundamental changes occurred, and the corporation illustrates this statement. It is globalization that is opening new perspectives and making professionals think in broader ways, use their skills, and implement innovations to make life more comfortable and efficient.

Works Cited

Al Falasi, Mohammed, and Adel Al Shaer. Company Overview of Emirates General Petroleum Corporation. 2016. Web.

El Mallakh, Ragaei. The Economic Development of the United Arab Emirates. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.

General Petroleum. Performance Management and Rewarding People. n.d. Web.

Mor Barak, Michelle E. Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, 2016. Print.

Proven Models. Five Configurations. n.d. Web.

Tong, Qingxia, and Mouawiya Al Awad. “Diversity and Wage Inequality in the UAE Labor Market.” Journal of Economics and International Business Management 2.3 (2014): 59-72. Print.

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