Introduction
Since Saudi Arabia is a dynamic state, domestic policy changes are not surprising. In particular, any transformation processes at the national level are primarily related to the deep desire of the country’s leadership to meet the demands of society and respond effectively to geopolitical trends. Such judgments relate to the formation in 2019 of the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, MHRSD, responsible for ensuring the development of society, safeguarding its interests, social support and protection along with the regulation of labor processes and human resources policy.
According to the text on the Ministry’s official website, MHRSD’s stated mission is to empower the individual by promoting responsibility and shaping the labor market to create a rewarding professional experience for employees, as shown in Figure 1. From this statement, it is clear that MHRSD is committed to transparent models of sustainable development in which the human resources of the structure show the highest productivity. MHRSD’s vision comes down to an environmentally responsible and attractive market-oriented work setting. Finally, the Ministry’s corporate values include a deep focus on employees, beneficiaries and a commitment to collaboration and partnership.
As can be seen from the above statements, MHRSD’s primary interests are to create an organizational structure that is fully responsive to the interests of those involved and that provides the appropriate level of service and professional expertise to employees and clients. Thus, it is pertinent to note that the ideal MHRSD model has a generally neutral business agenda, similar to most large organizations, especially in public administration.
The Real Organization
While it is common for organizations to set high goals and use the full range of available corporate tools to achieve them, it is true to state that there is always a gap between the ideal model of the corporate system and the real embodiment. Hence, the minimization of this characterizes the challenges of effective leadership. The best strategy for identifying the real agenda in the Ministry is to consider the views of employees in integration with personal experience with the structure.
More specifically, MHRSD has achieved a very high corporate culture level that focuses on active participation and increasing employee engagement as a valuable resource for the Ministry. In fact, the government administration justifies the public interest in providing a large number of jobs for employees without any discriminatory policies or rules, allowing the Ministry to perform its assigned functional duties with quality. This assertion can be confirmed by a study of the MHRSD work page on LinkedIn, showing that the staff’s structure consists not only of Arabs but also represented by residents of the Gulf, African countries, and even the United States (Ministry, 2021). From this, it can be concluded that MHRSD provides an adequate service level and has the developed policy of diversity.
Looking at current news further reveals Ministry’s agenda. In particular, MHRSD’s commitment to transparency is reflected in regular inspections reporting on tens of thousands of job market violations (Saudi Ministry, 2021). Given the administration’s desire for a decent and competitive marketplace, such news is quite supportive of the MHRSD’s mission. Over the years, however, the Ministry — in particular, its previous forms — has indirectly supported the slave policy of Kafala, which has resulted in cheap migrant labor being illegally used in the country (Saudis, 2020). Finally, it must be acknowledged that the modifying nature of the MHRSD is an excuse for a number of localized employee problems. Since the Ministry is only in its second year of building a simple and transparent system, it is possible that staff may encounter barriers and errors.
Recommendations for Bridging the Gap
The preceding critical analysis of the real-world organization showed that MHRSD generally conforms to its stated corporate values and maximizes efforts to achieve high market administration results. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to assume that there is no gap between the ideal and real structure model, as this is not true. On the contrary, only striving to minimize potential gaps is critical to addressing previously identified organizational weaknesses.
One of the two key components of MHRSD’s corporate mission is to encourage employee accountability. There is no doubt that this goal is a good strategic decision to build the organization’s intellectual and sustainable human capital. Nevertheless, a search among the news, recent events, and reviews concerning MHRSD has not yielded any results that reflect this mission. In this case, it is appropriate to assume that promoting accountability has not been a key priority before, and therefore the Department has only recently begun to develop the system.
In this regard, the administration of a government agency should look to known leadership models for encouraging employee autonomy: the democratic style or the pacesetting style (Goleman, 2000). More specifically, real results can be achieved through the formation of workgroups led by an effective manager who increases the personal involvement of employees through engagement and brainstorming.
Another major obstacle identified for MHRSD is the qualitative mismatch between the corporate vision and actual action. Specifically, MHRSD seeks to create a sustainable, competitive marketplace in which applicants are sufficiently empowered to develop. This means that any action to discriminate against certain categories should not be appropriate. To eliminate the consequences of accusations of supporting the Kafala system, the MHRSD must acknowledge its mistakes and begin a program of local market transformation (Frei and Morriss, 2020). This can be accomplished through a change in national migrant policy in order to increase the status and opportunities of legal residents in Saudi Arabia.
Finally, an important feature that characterizes the differences between ideal and actual organizational structures is the mismatch between employees’ expectations and what is spelled out in the values. It should be noted that the focus of MHRSD’s corporate values affects the interests and motivation of employees. However, from personal, professional experience with MHRSD, the author can state that employees often encounter barriers and obstacles so far.
These include failing to keep up with the pace of internal process updates, problems of established communication between departments, and data privacy in circulation. Given the transformational nature of the current ministry, such challenges may be relevant, but controlling them is critical to effective leadership. Recommendations for bridging the gap discovered may include the need to train key employees, respond quickly to emerging issues, and manage risk in general (Suarez and Montes, 2020; Kaplan, Leonard, and Mikes, 2020).
Thus, following the suggested guidelines will allow MHRSD, which is in its early stages of development, to become a seamless, efficient, and legitimate system of administrative governance. Ultimately, this will lead to a reduction in the perceived gap between corporate ideals and the real agenda, and thus to qualitative progress for the Ministry.
Reference List
Goleman, D. (2000) Leadership that gets results. Web.
Frei, F. X. and Morriss, A. (2020) Begin with trust. Web.
Kaplan, R. S., Leonard, H. B. and Mikes, A. (2020) The risks you can’t foresee. Web.
MHRSD (2021) Mission. Web.
Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (2021). Web.
Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development reports 14,000 violations in Riyadh (2021). Web.
Saudis to ease restrictions on foreign workers (2020). Web.
Suarez, F. F. and Montes, J. S. (2020) Building organizational resilience. Web.