Lack of Career Growth in the UAE Public Institutions

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Table of Contents

Statement of the Problem
Background and Overview
Alternative Policy and Administrative Solutions
Implementations
Conclusion
References

Statement of the Problem

Lack of career growth is one of the biggest challenges that many employees in public institutions in the United Arab Emirates have to deal with in the society. According to Stillman (2009), many employees always join public institutions with high hopes that they will develop their career. However, this is not always the case, most of these employees find themselves stagnated in the same position for several years. This problem is very common among the employees of lower cadre. For example, a messenger may find himself doing the same job for over 20 years. When such a messenger joined the institution, he or she might have had the feeling that there will be a promotion after a short while. Such an individual might have felt that he would become a supervisor after some time. However, this is not always the case.

Such an employee would see new supervisors come and go, but his position, as a messenger may never changes. This is not only demoralizing, but also annoying when someone who has been working diligently for an organization for over 30 years is forced to answer to a young man who has just left college. Most employers cite limited knowledge of some of the junior offers as the main reason why it is difficult for them to grow in their careers. Others cite lack of leadership skills that make it difficult to promote them to junior managerial positions. Regardless of the justification given by these authorities, the truth is that lack of career growth has serious negative impacts to the employees in the public institutions. Unless this issue is addressed through effective policies, the productivity of the employees in the public sector may be lowered.

Background and Overview

According to the recent survey by Wilson (2007), the government is the single largest employer in the United Arab Emirates. According to the statistics from the ministry of labour, there has been a consistent rise in the number of people employed in the government parastatals in this country. The United Arab Emirates has several ministries and parastatals each employing very many people in different departments. In this study, the researcher will narrow the focus to the emirates Group. According to Betz (2010), the Emirates Group is an aviation company with its headquarters in Garhoud within the city of Dubai. According to Merritt (2013), Emirates Group has 62,000 employees, making it the biggest employer in the Middle East. The government of Dubai owns this company. Founded in 1959 by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed of Dubai, the Emirates Group has experienced massive growth over the years, and currently, their planes fly to over 130 destinations with a fleet of about 2010 aircrafts (Wilson, 2007).

According to Khan (2008), the government of Dubai has been keen on allowing this organization to run independently, free from the direct control by the government officials. This scholar says that this decision was made to help this firm become competitive in this industry. The aviation sector has become so competitive over the years that many firms have been struggling to survive. The Emirates Group found itself in an industry that needs the best in terms of employees and technology used in its operations. To achieve success in such a complex industry, the top management unit was given the mandate to hire employees from any part of the world as long as the firm was certain that it would be the best way to achieve a competitive edge in the market. According to Betz (2010), the management of the Emirates Group experienced massive challenges in the 1970s and 1980s as the local labour force had limited knowledge needed in various departments within the company. Competition was getting stiff, and the emerging technologies were redefining the aviation industry. However, the Emirates Group was struggling to understand the existing technologies, the fact that gave its market rivals an edge over it.

In 1992, the management- after an approval by the government of Dubai- developed a policy that allowed it to employ people from all over the world who had the relevant skills, knowledge, and experience in the aviation sector. It was this policy that saw the number of foreign employees surpass that of the Emiratis. These foreigners, because of their expertise, occupied the top positions within this firm as it struggled to gain its position in the market. On the other hand, the Emirati nationals were relegated to the junior positions at this firm for many of them lacked the relevant skills to hold these positions. According to Shafritz, Russell, and Borick (2014), this was the genesis of career dissatisfaction at the Emirates Group among the local people. These scholars say that their recent survey showed that most employees in this country are very keen on career development and salary increment. When they join a company, they always hope that they will develop their careers and this would lead to an increase in their remuneration. However, this company has only been meeting one of the aspects of their desire. Employees of this company get pay rise after a given period. This has been a motivating factor because the company has been considered one of the best paying organizations in this country. However, the other aspect of career growth has become an issue of a preserve the few with the right skills and experience. From the top management unit, to the mid managers and top technocrats, the firm has been sourcing for individuals with the best qualifications irrespective of their nationality.

This employment policy has helped this company become one of the leading aviation companies in this region. It has helped in improving the profitability of the firm and expanding its market to the international society. This has proven to be the best decision that the government ever made in order to save this firm from the brink of collapse. However, some areas have been ignored. The local workers who are employed in the junior positions are almost forgotten. In fact, Wilson (2007) says that at this firm, the number of years that an employee has been working may be of minimal relevance when it comes to career growth. The problem does not just affect the junior employees. It affects people of varying ranks within the firm. In order to gain promotion, one had to prove to be the best among the rest. The firm selects the best to fill any post that remains vacant due to any eventuality. This has forced most of its employees to engage in a constant learning in order to advance their skills in their respective fields. Those who fail to do this always find themselves stagnated in their career, and some even find themselves demoted or even retrenched if they outgrow their usefulness at the firm.

Employees with college degrees find it easy to advance their careers while working for this firm, especially with the emergence of online courses. On the other hand, the junior employees hired as cleaners, loaders, security officers and such other junior posts find it difficult to progress in their careers. They spend most of their time doing the physically straining jobs at this firm. When they leave, they do not have enough time to go to classes in order to advance their careers. Moreover, their earnings may not permit them to meet the expensive costs of college education. Their basic needs are more pressing and they find it difficult to spare a section of their earnings to go to school. This means that they remain limited in their knowledge, and this makes it almost impossible to rise in the ranks.

Cases where new employees are hired to head various positions at this firm are very common. This has been witnessed even at the junior levels of managing casual labourers. To the firm, this has made it very successful because it only goes for the best-qualified candidates. To the employees, this has been demoralizing. Bringing a 24 year old who recently graduated from college to head a team of employees, some as old as 50 years is humiliating to the older employees. This reduces their morale at work, hence their productivity. The management is aware of this issue, but serious steps towards addressing the problem is yet to be taken. The management has been organizing internal seminars for its employees to make them understand the emerging trends in the aviation sector. However, this is only meant to improve their capacity to handle the emerging forces. The management rarely considers such in-house trainings as a proper justification for a promotion within the firm.

The problem has remained persistent as the firm expands its market to Europe, the North America, Asia-Pacific, and parts of Africa. The need to hire employees with a global knowledge in the aviation market has forced this firm to look for employees with the best qualifications in the market. This meant that its current employees could only be promoted if they had the knowledge that the management was looking for at that moment. The management is currently aware of the dissatisfaction that this employment policy has caused to some of his most loyal employees. The management is, however, is yet to come up with an appropriate remedy for this problem.

Alternative Policy and Administrative Solutions

According to Stillman (2009), employees are the most important asset for any organisation. When the top management unit has formulated policies, it is the responsibility of the employees to implement them in the best way possible. The success of an organisation largely depends on how the good policies are implemented. Having a team of highly motivated employees is critical in the current competitive market. The Emirates Group may not afford to have a section of its employees feeling demoralized because of issues related to career growth. The management must address this issue in a manner that will satisfy its interests to hire the best in the industry, and the desire of its employees to experience career growth. The current policy that has been used by the current administrative unit of this firm has proven effective in bringing success. However, it has failed to motivate the loyal employees who have been working for this firm for the past several years. This means that the management must find a way of addressing this issue in order to improve the productivity of its employees. In this section of the report, the researcher seeks to develop a possible approach that can be used by this firm to address the current problem based on some of the existing theoretical models.

According to Stillman (2009), a firm does not need to look for highly skilled employees from other places if it has the capacity to equip its own loyal employees. The Emirates Group should take this approach as it seeks to get to the next level in the aviation market. The firm will need to equip its own loyal employees with the right skills so that they can handle some of the challenging tasks brought about by the emerging trends. The researcher proposes the use of two models to help improve the skills and competencies of the current employees so that they can qualify for the promotional opportunities at this firm. The first approach will be the individual-motivated career development while the second will be the company-motivated career development.

Competency-Based Talent Management

Some of the employees have failed to advance their careers because of what Shafritz, Russell, and Borick (2014) define as ignorance. These employees would develop the feeling that they cannot advance their careers because of inferiority complex or fear of change. These employees tend to feel that they are only fit for the junior positions that they currently hold, and for that matter, they will not attempt to learn more about their line of work. The management of the Emirates Group should address this problem by developing programmes that should be followed by the employees in order to advance their careers while working for this firm. The diagram below identifies the specific activities that should be involved when using this model.

The first activity in this model is planning. As an individual, the employee must understand what should be achieved, the standards expected, competencies needed, and developments necessary for one to be promoted to the next level from where they currently are. These employees must be made to realize that promotion cannot be based on how long one has been working with an organization. They must appreciate that there are specific expectations that the holder of such office must meet. After understanding these expectations, the individual employee will get into the stage of self-progress review. This will involve soul-searching by the employee to determine if he or she meets the expectations and the current weaknesses can be managed. The individual employee will start by evaluating how he or she is performing based on the set measurements. The employee would then find what he or she could do better in order to meet the set expectations. He or she will need to identify what needs to be changed in order to be a better employee.

The last step would be an evaluation of the steps that an individual has made towards becoming a better employee. It starts by evaluating how one performed in a given area of competence. The employee will then determine what he or she could do better, and what has been learnt out of this process. This is a continuous model, which is meant to offer a consistent improvement to the employees on various fields. This model will make it easy for the management of this firm to pick its own employees when there is a promotional opportunity.

Job Enrichment Framework

The second alternative that this firm can use is a company-instigated approach of improving the capacity of the employees. The only reason why this firm is forced to hire new employees to handle sensitive departments within this firm is that it does not have a pool of highly talented employees. Hiring such talents may be a good option, but developing the talents out of the existing pool of employees may be the best option. It will help eliminate the high employee turnover rates hence ensuring continuity at the firm. The management will need a programme that will help enrich the employees in terms of their skills and experience. The following diagram identifies the areas that the management should focus on when using this model

As shown in the above model, the management will start by defining the specific jobs that need specialized skills. When the jobs have been defined, then the management will set an organisation wide programme that will enhance the capacity of the employees. Some of the areas that will be looked at when using this model include skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy of the employees, effective feedback system in the workplace, and approaches that should be used to enhance personal growth at a firm. The management will need to identify ways through which skills and competencies of these employees can be improved. This may require workplace-training sessions for the employees that are planning to hold junior supervisory roles, or advanced trainings at some of the world’s best colleges for the employees aspiring to hold senior managerial positions.

This alternative solution will be very effective in addressing the current problem. Instead of looking for foreign experts to hold these positions, this firm will have its own pool of talents where it can choose who to be assigned a given task. This new strategy will be socially and politically effective. The country has been concerned of the number of foreigners who come to work in the local economy despite the fact that some of the locals are unemployed. The move to limit foreign nationals at this giant firm will help solve the social problem that has been raising political tensions in the recent past. According to Khan (2008), sometimes it may be more expensive to hire new talents than to develop one. It may be a little expensive to grow a talent, but maintaining such a talent is relatively cheaper than that which has been freshly hired. This strategy will help solve the current problem about the employees’ morale that is associated with promotional issues. It is the best approach that the Emirates Group can use to solve this problem.

Implementations

According to Shafritz, Russell, and Borick (2014), the political leadership of this country has avoided any direct influence in the normal operations of the Emirates Group even though the government owns the parastatal. This means that the implementation of this new strategy will have to be implemented by the top management unit of this organisation. The report has proposed two approaches that should be used in addressing the issues at hand. The first approach is employee-cantered which involves continuous personal improvement competence-based framework. When implementing this model, the management will play a minor role because all the processes will be initiated and conducted by the employees. The management will need to provide the employees with the mechanisms they can use to assess their own capacity as they strive to learn new styles. One of the main constraints that may be faced when using this strategy is that an employee may underrate or overrate the newly learnt skills. This makes it difficult to determine if the desired knowledge has been acquired by the focus group. To address this problem, the management may need to encourage the peer evaluation among the employees working in the same departments such as the finance unit. Instead of one evaluating oneself, a fellow employee would evaluate him or her to determine if the new concepts have been understood.

The second approach is organizational-cantered and will be closely coordinated by the management unit. The top managers will start a programme that will involve training the employees both locally and internationally. The management should start by encouraging its employees to advance their knowledge by taking relevant courses at the local institutions of higher learning. The management will need to set two programmes for its employees when using this model. In the first programme, the junior employees will be subjected to workplace training so that they can be knowledgeable enough to be assigned the junior management positions. This training can be done in partnership with the local universities. Alternatively, the management can hire consultants to help in this training. In the second programme, highly talented employees earmarked for the top management positions can be sent abroad to learn about management skills in the aviation sector at some of the best colleges in the world. The management should however, be ready to spend when using this strategy. The process of training the employees can be very expensive, but its reward is very impressive in terms of the performance of the firm.

Conclusion

The Emirates Group is one of the most important parastatals owned by the government of Dubai. Other than generating revenues for the government, this institution plays an important role in the creation of employment in the country. However, the fact that most of its technocrats are foreigners defeats the principle of a job creating company in the local economy. This problem has raised the public concern, and a time has come to solve the issue in a way that will not threaten the current prestigious position of this firm in the global market. This report has proposed two options, one that is employee-based, and the other, which is organisational-based. Although the organizational-based strategy will be more costly than the employee-based approach, it is the most appropriate strategy that this firm should use. The management should find a way of enhancing skills of its employees using educational programmes at the local and international learning institutions. This will help it create a pool of highly skilled and talented employees, eliminating the need to employ foreign nationals.

References

Betz, F. (2010). Creating and managing a technology economy. New Jersey: World Scientific.

Khan, H. A. (2008). An introduction to public administration. Lanham, Md: University Press of America.

Merritt, K. (2013). The everything family guide to budget travel: Hundreds of fun family vacations to fit any budget!. Avon, Mass: Adams Media.

Shafritz, J. M., Russell, E. W., & Borick, C. P. (2014). Introducing public administration. Harlow, Essex: Pearson.

Stillman, R. J. (2009). Public administration: Concepts and cases. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Wilson, G. (2007). Emirates – the airline of the future. London: Media Prima.

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