Knowledge Sharing

Within the concept of employee engagement, knowledge sharing is seen as an

important part of the creation of productive working relationships. Kahn (1990, pg707) observed that “…meaningful interactions promoted dignity, self-appreciation, and a sense of worthwhileness. They enabled relationships in which people wanted to give to and receive from others.” It can be seen as an integral part of building trusted work relationships and has been considered as a specific concern in this study because of the importance given in the literature (Macey et al, 2009).

Given the findings discussed under Safety/Trust within the workplace, it was perhaps inevitable that knowledge sharing should also be seen as an area of significant

challenge. The fear of replacement in the minds of the incumbent expatriate employees serves to create significant resistance in the workforce towards knowledge sharing and ensuring an equitable distribution of work.

The expatriate fear of losing their position to an Emirati is most damaging when it is strongly held by the line manager of the incoming Emirati as this manifests itself in a marked reluctance to share knowledge and the manager is not motivated to help the

111 Emirati build a good working relationship with him or the rest of the team. Participant 1 experienced this from his first few days in the bank:

“[Building trust] was difficult, when people are really difficult with you, communicating, if you need something from them. For example, if it was a

department wise need, this was a challenge, because they are playing it defensive. They don't want to get in touch with you for no exact reason, if I am requiring something or I just want to say hi. They are scared, why, why are you scared from me.”

It is also possible that this prejudice is reinforced by the bank’s performance appraisal process. This currently uses a normal distribution model to ensure that differentiation by some measure of performance is achieved and managers cannot show preference without some target based reasoning. The normal distribution or bell curve process in the bank means that for every 100 staff ranked against a 5 point scale (1 – lowest grade performer likely to be dismissed, 5 – highest grade performer, likely to be promoted) there will be 5 people ranked 1, 15 people ranked 2, 60 people ranked 3, 15 people ranked 4 and 5 people ranked 5. However, as described earlier, this process encourages the line managers to position their UAE Nationals as the natural low scorers, i.e. they do not give them enough training or knowledge to do the job they have been recruited for, they then clearly do not warrant a higher performance rating allowing the expatriate to protect himself and those like him. The consequent loss of earnings from a low

performance rating also helps to encourage the National to leave, further protecting the expatriate’s position. Clearly, this abuse of the performance rating systems needs to be addressed and there has been a move towards greater oversight and transparency in the performance review process to make it harder for the practice to go unnoticed and unchecked. However, this unintended consequence suggests there may well be other processes in the bank that sustain inappropriate bias. Efforts are required to review the main activities of the bank to ensure any such processes are identified and changed. Almost all of the interviewees expressed the need for the Emirati staff to be given more work. Participant 15’s comments exemplify the common concern:

“The managers should provide them [the Emiratis] with the same amount of work as the expat. So they should not say no this UAE National is able to only do this much and the expat can do this much. The work should be given equally.”

112 This is also supported by Participant 8 when he was talking in respect of correcting the expatriate impression of the typical Emirati employee:

“I think we should involve the Emiratis more in work, we should give them a bit more pressure. To do things more seriously, because some of them think I just want to work and go home, some of them think I just need the money, I just need the benefits…”

The findings in this area clearly point to the need for more work to be done to create an equitable working environment, within the bounds of public policy, and to find ways to address the considerable expatriate resistance/fear. Encouragingly, most of the

participants feel they are no longer subject to these obstacles themselves but still consider them to be prevalent within the bank under study.

The knowledge sharing factor within the employee engagement model appears less important at the time of employment choice, however, the belief that an individual will be trained to do a good job, will form part of the overall assessment of safety and personal efficacy. Many of the participants had explained that they had mistakenly assumed that appropriate knowledge sharing could be taken for granted.