HR Summit in Abu Dhabi - no more get out of jail free cards for recruiters

I attended the Middle East HR Summit in Abu Dhabi this week. Here's a review in case your interested and couldn't make it. Firstly the exhibition centre (ADENC) is a stunning facility and easily accessible from Abu Dhabi airport. The gala dinner was also in stunning surroundings (The Emirates Palace Hotel), and a client of mine from Gulf Bank was awarded the HR Excellence award of the year. Mabrook! (congratulations) Surour Al Samerai.

Generally the quality of delegates attending the event was high - and some of the speakers were genuinely interesting; including the CIPD Chairlady and Fellows from London Business School and Oxford.

Much of the content on show during the first day was nothing new, but still the coffee and the networking was hot! The general theme was attracting and retaining talent.
Last year there was a lot more theoretical discussion about lofty HR plans such as the effects of moving groups of staff from fixed pay schemes to variable or performance related pay. This year, it was all very practical and operational: "How do we get more good people, and how do we stop losing them so fast?"

I recall one delegate from the crowd asking for the microphone and asking the panel what they would suggest for her dilemma: "I work for a major national engineering employer. I had to hire 1800 people in a year, I managed 1000. However to achieve that, such is the scarcity of talent, both the line managers and myself had to lower our standards and hire very average staff. I feel guilty, what do you suggest?" The speaker, I think not knowing where to start or end, simply suggested they get a better handle on the requirements going forward and agree at the outset with line what is 'nice-to-have', and what skills are mandatory. Pay more, educate the line how important it is to get it right, get a recruiting system and a decent website to attract and educate jobseekers - would have been amongst my answers!

Clearly some companies haven't worked out yet that during a talent war, standing still is equivalent to running backwards. Many national employers are still operating recruitment the same way as they did in 1998. Leave recruitment, do not pass go, there can be no more "get out of jail free cards", go directly to another job!

The Head of L&D from real estate development giant Nakheel talked about how he was in the process of recruiting a psychologist into recruitment who would focus on the experience of humans, so for example if you have 10 staff on a training course - what should you feed them at lunch to maximise the learning experience - should you give them ice-cream to boost ceratonin so the brain can take on more info, and how can you combat those post-lunch sugar lows?

He also said how how detested 'Training' as a function in general, and that if we recruit the right people, then surely they would be best serving the company if they are not in a training room, and that they should know the job anyhow! Very interesting, and it did cause a bit of a stir which was partly why it was said I think. Certainly a thought-provoking presentation, and to a large degree backed up by the Oxford Fellow who showed that the least effective method of transmitting learning was 'classroom' based, with only 5% of the material delivered in that format being learnt.

From a technology perspective there was little to talk about, although RecruitGulf.com were there and told me they are happy to offer 3 and 6 month posting packages to clients, and also have an 'unlimited posting' philosophy which I think is great and will really help them step up their growth in the Middle East market. Unlimited was the original UK job board model in the early days as I recall, however nowadays if you take Monster as an example they will give you an unlimited (max 200 posts) contract, or an unlimited (up to 500 posts!) contract.

That's it for now, if you want any more details drop me a line on the blog.