A background note on the 2 day’s workshop on the HR Challenges in Salalah The HR Community in Salalah: The current Omani HR Professionals in Salalah are the new generation local citizens who have recently taken over the HR Profession due to Country’s Omanization drive. Most of them are either ordinary graduates or have some qualification but no professional degrees. As a result they do not have much background about HR initiatives like HR strategies, organizational change, Talent management, competency mapping, career planning, performance management etc. The skill development process of the company staff is unorganized and done in a haphazard way. Most of the HR initiatives of the Company are outsourced to HR Consultants and Service providers. Such services are limited to design and implementation fails as it is left to the inexperienced HR team. It will take a while before they understand the professional challenges and be able to align the HR initiatives to the purpose of the Organization. The Omani Work-Force: The skill levels in the Omani work-force are low. They are also not much exposed to work culture and avert responsibility and accountability. The Commitment level and the loyalty to the organization is low. The fresh graduates/engineers passing out from colleges have easy entry to the industries but less interest to pick up the trade skills. Absenteeism, missing from work place tendencies is high. At the same time the aspirations of these people are high as they want to climb up to the organizational ladder faster spending without much time in the organizations. There are also plenty of opportunities for changeover of jobs if one acquires a bit of skills. Govt.’s Localization drive: The Govt. of Sultanate of Oman is aggressively pursuing localization drive for the Omani citizens. They are in a hurry to replace the expatriates including the management positions. This leaves behind concerns for the industries such as: a. Because of non-availability of adequate skills, the industries are reluctant to replace expatriates b. It takes time to develop the local talents because of their slow learning abilities and lack of commitment c. Pose risks to the running O&M if resort to localization Expectation from the Industries: Going by the fact that committed people are the real strength to any organization and given an environment they can turn-around the work culture to impact the performances to the greater heights the expectation of the Industries is to couple the HR strategies with a much deeper understanding of the businesses relating to the HR issues with that of the Organization. In aspiring to becoming a leader, a strong work culture needs to be created. The HR strategies need to be adopted, put in place and implemented with an objective to achieve maximum results that would ultimately benefit the organization. The localization drive has to be planned in a strategic way to result in a win-win situation. Staff development and skill enhancement has to be planned to meet the Govt. enforced targets for localization. A sense of dedication to support each other through team culture can go a long way if the organization has to succeed and excel in its performances. Objective of the program:

Considering the facts above, there is a bigger challenge and a good opportunity in partnering with the HR Community in Salalah by building strong relationship with them and by providing quality services to address the HR issues and challenges and thus helping them to win gradually. In this context, we propose to conduct a program on HR Challenges and HR Effectiveness. The program should basically trigger thought process on the overall HR management system, HR alignment with the mission/vision of the organizations, organize work-force, create a conducive work culture, generate team spirit and leadership abilities and overall it should create awareness in seeing a bigger picture in managing people. The program should also cover challenges of growing industrialization in Oman, shortage of skilled manpower, triggering employees commitment and attitude towards their work, preparing the younger generations for taking up responsibilities and finally it should cover people-management skills and support the growth of the local staff with policies such as competency mapping, performance management, career progression and most importantly the role of Omanis in forming a positive work culture. The program should also focus on the following area: Salalah HR Forum: We propose to formulate Salalah HR Forum to bring along the HR Community of Private, Government, and other Sectors together onto one common platform to focus on their sector specific HR issues, and priorities of common strategies. The Forum will meet from time to time and focus and provide insights on HR challenges to ascertain synergy by sharing best practices in the field. We will facilitate the functioning of this forum once formed. Our interest in this forum will be to form a HR network that will enable our entries to the industries and establish ourselves as Service Providers for their future HR issues. The Trainer: We believe that the 2 day’s program should be conducted by a HR Management Guru would sail through the participants through their existing adequacy of role, what needs to be done, Highlight the HR Challenges, how they can prepare themselves and contribute to the overall performances of the organization by effective management of workforce, planning strategies, HR strategies and finally contribute to the success in creative a positive work culture. The Trainer should be a powerful speaker and dynamic enough to cover the challenges stated above. The Trainer should have been conducting such programs for some time. I will personally have preliminary sessions with the Trainer before the program to brief him on the challenges, the HR scenarios of Salalah and support preparing the modules relevant to the requirement. Participants to the program: HR Executives of the various industries in Salalah. We also propose to invite a few Heads of Organizations who will come as guests and highlight the expectations of the industries from the HR Community in running and managing their businesses/operations.