Human Resource Management department was one of the core pillars of any organization, as it performed a vital role in the success of the firm. For this rationale, the human capital must be utilized properly in order to overcome the challenges facing the human resource department. An observation revealed that the key challenges facing human resource management in the Middle East countries were due to human resource policies formulated by the governments.
The economies of the Middle East countries relied on oil and natural gas. The oil industry in the region faced various human resource management challenges brought about by ineffective policies and partly due to the strict and widely practiced Islamic religion (Vance, Paik and M, 314).
One of the main challenges experienced by the human resource management department of the firms operating in the region included lack of enough skilled and talented workforces. The exceptional economic progress witnessed in the region was not at equal levels with the equally optimistic human capital development and labor, raising questions whether development could be sustained.
A study carried out revealed that only 38 percent of chief executives believed that there were sufficient supply of labor in the countries. This resulted in the heavy dependency on emigrant labor, reported to be at 91 percent of the total workforce. The cut above quality and production delivered by the expatriate workers at the administrative levels attributed to the rate (Burke and Cooper, 231).
Another problem was in job creation for both the young people and women. The Arabian countries experienced a huge increase of youth numbers growing to over 30 percent of the total population, while the employment rates of the age group stood at 32.2 percent. This indicated of the government and the private sector’s failure to capitalize on the youth as a human capital resource.
Briscoe, Tarique and Schuler affirmed that the situation was further worsened by labor laws that restricted the employment and participation of women. Lack of improvements on the labor laws resulted in huge financial and social costs as a consequence of deficiency in human resource utilization and educational returns (327).
A research conducted in the Arab league countries revealed that the cost of labor had risen to over the years to over 84 percent. The Arab chief executives believed that the unprecedented rise in the costs of labor was due to increased labor demand and a decrease in the skilled domestic labor and the consequent inflation.
This was also accredited to the persistent growth and the consequent demand for skilled labor that surpassed supply. Overseas recruitment agencies therefore pushed for higher salaries to attract expatriate workforce. The skyrocket house rents and cost of living coerced organizations to raise the salaries of workers so as to retain the workforce (Fund, 1993).
Knowledge management, retention and the development of content were other key problems experienced by the firms in the region. These were due to retirement of experienced technical workforces who were leaving in droves. This translated to information and talent getting lost without transfer.
The industry needed to formulate policies aimed at in-house retention of information and talent. It was further stated that local capacity and ability development became significant for the companies operating in the area in order to ensure effectiveness of the projects (Burke and Cooper, 254).
Works Cited
Briscoe, Dennis, Ibraiz Tarique and Randall Schuler. International Human Resource Management, 4E. United Kingdom: CRC Press, 2012.
Vance, Charles M., Yongsun Paik and Vance Charles M. Managing a Global Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities in International Human Resource Management. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2010.
Burke, Ronald J. and Cary r L Cooper. Reinventing Human Resource Management: Challenges and New Directions. London: Routledge, 2005.
Fund, International Monetary. Economic Development of the Arab Countries: Selected Issues, Part 49. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1993.