Personal Lessons Learned

There were two specific areas that emerged as much more significant in establishing high levels of employee engagement for the bank’s Emirati staff than I had previously imagined. The first concerned the lack of “meaning” ascribed to the work generally. It is now obvious this is something that I had been taking for granted as my own sense of Meaningfulness had developed many years ago. I also now realise the value of the induction and education that I had personally received during my early years in employment.

The second concerned the way the discussions around career guidance and the quality of induction became linked with the desire for real career opportunities. The most encouraging aspect that I derived from the interviews concerned the perceived ability

132 for the individual to challenge themselves and to possibly develop themselves further than their peers might in the public sector. This provides a strong differentiator to be used in future recruitment efforts. Again I had not really considered the motivations of the Emiratis in joining the private sector before, as I had assumed that everyone had the same thinking as I did and were focussing on the trade-off between job security and future pay and the respective opportunities to develop. Clearly, this issue is much more complex than I had originally thought and the concern with the issues leading to

Meaningfulness and Availability need more deliberate attention.

Another unexpected issue that emerged, concerned the problems with Emiratis being given sufficient work and receiving the necessary level of knowledge sharing on the job. I changed my mind in this respect as I can now see that I had previously shared some of the general prejudice towards the Emirati appetite for work and realise that in many cases, this is misplaced and that some of the bank’s internal processes, such as the performance ranking process, reinforce this unhelpful perception.

There were also a number of observations that were pleasant surprises arising from the group discussions. The greatest of these, concerned the sensitivity of the Emirati

participants to the views of their expatriate colleagues. For instance, one participant had been very keen to progress the idea of a regular Emiratisation forum, where the Emirati staff could air their grievances and have the chance to discuss their experiences in the bank with members of the bank’s senior management. I had expected this idea to get broad support but after some discussion it was dropped as it was felt that this would be conferring another privilege to the Emirati staff. The general consensus was that it would be better if such a forum could cover all staff and that the Emirati staff made more effort to speak up for themselves.

In addition, it was heartening to see that the participating Emiratis were as frustrated with their low performing colleagues as the rest of the bank’s staff and management. This showed that I had been guilty of subconsciously generalising certain features of the Emirati staff unfairly and had assumed a level of acceptance for certain behaviours that was not supported by the research findings. This observation has subsequently

133 encouraged the management of the bank to have more Emiratis involved in managing and guiding the National staff. Doing this has helped lessen the perception of conflict between the expatriates and the Emirati staff to focus on the common goals and objectives within the bank.

Finally, I have particularly enjoyed the chance to engage more with the bank’s Emirati staff and to discover quite what a talented group of people they are. This has brought many new experiences for me and brought down a number of barriers that I had previously struggled with. One particular example concerns an office that was entirely staffed by Emirati women serving under an expatriate manager. I had had real problems building any sort of rapport with the individuals within the team and had often felt frustrated and on occasions, intimidated, by their collective treatment of me as an outsider. During the period of this research, I found myself more able to relate to them and they are now one of our more effective teams and the people I enjoy visiting most.

6.6 Conclusion

The value of this research initiative has proved to be beyond my initial expectations. The process has served to significantly improve the engagement of the participants in the development of the bank and the actions emanating from the findings have already started to have a tangible impact on the performance and profile of the bank. For instance, since this study started in the bank, the Emiratisation ratio has grown to over 42% and turnover levels dropped to almost equal that for the expatriate staff. Similarly, the gap in employee satisfaction scores between the Emirati staff and the expatriates has closed and brought the overall score to the highest level seen by Hay in the Gulf region. Such improvements in the working environment have also been recognised externally with the bank receiving a number of accolades for its Emiratisation efforts. In addition, I have benefitted from the opportunity to face up to the impact of my own beliefs on the situation and learned how a structured collaborative approach to the problem identified can overcome such bias in their beliefs and understanding. This has helped me manage a number of wholly Emirati staffed teams much more effectively than was previously the case.

134 7.0 CHAPTER SEVEN - Areas for Further Research

7.1 Introduction

During the course of this research, a number of areas surfaced that appear worthy of further research, either because the existing knowledge does not seem to address the situation sufficiently or new concerns have arisen from this research that have not been previously considered.

This chapter looks first at the specific limitations of this thesis which may give rise to the need for further enquiry. The chapter then proposes further exploration in the areas of; the challenges for public policy, achieving high levels of engagement in a UAE private sector workplace and how the employee engagement framework might be developed further.