The title says it all really. When McKinsey and Company are running a conference on 'Building People Ready Businesses', as they just did in Dubai - and where Bill Gates gives the keynote address - you kind of get the impression that people are starting to sit up and realise that recruitment, people, performance, customers, cash; are all interrelated and are all potentially very big headaches!
Quite cleverly, if a little corny, it was put into context by explaining that 'the region needs to upgrade its software (read: people and people strategies) from Gulf 1.0 to Gulf 2.0. Gulf 1.0 being defined as companies importing labourers from Asia, and Gulf 2.0 being defined as Nationals working not only for the Govt sector, and general industry moving from labour intensive work to capital and knowledge intensive fields.
If this shift doesn't continue apace, then unemployment is going to be a huge problem pretty quickly in the region. 42% of the local population are under the age of 15. Bringing in foreign workers puts pressure on those guys. The region needs to create 4M jobs to keep unemployment under control, but only 82,000 jobs per year are being produced for locals (Gulf nationals) - so which way is this trend going to go.
The other nice little cliche I picked up from the McKinsey conference is that Dubai in the UAE is seen as being the innovator for HR strategies (they said the private sector was 'beta-testing' Gulf 2.0 in Dubai), but I think that is more by luck than design, and also at risk of changing.
Dubai in terms of HR strategy isn't really pushing the boat out, it is just able to attract more than its fair share of top quality people in HR. Those that don't join a backward or overly traditional firm, are often allowed to act as change agents and are seen as the guys and girls trialing Gulf 2.0
The risk is that with rising costs of living in Dubai many such people are being attracted to Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Turkey and so on. The GM of Dow Jones in the region was interviewed on the radio this week and said how his firm had stopped trying to recruit international candidates into Dubai completely as it cost more than hiring people in London. Good news for the local and/or National working population perhaps, if they can prove they have the right skills to do the job.
These issues aren't new, and I don't see enough HR leaders out there acting as change agents. Corporate Governance (check out some of the scandals brewing in the regions banking and real estate sector) could be forced in soon from a governmental level, forcing CEO's to act better and to encourage more thought leadership. If this happens then I think the pace of adoption of Gulf 2.0 could pick up another gear.
I hope the next conference has Steve Jobs talking about Gulf 'Virus protection', and how to weed out people in your companies that slow down or resist change agents..
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