Congratulations! As an HR professional, you have chosen a job that deals with the most challenging aspect of growing a business; its people. And people are the most curious creatures! They love to complain, point fingers, deflect failures, and resist change. So why get involved in such a challenging career?
HR - in the real sense - is relatively new in Kuwait. When oil companies started, all they needed is someone to hire, track attendance, and pay. Things evolved quickly to protect companies’ rights and so the penalties charter was introduced as the Personnel Policy; giving all future HR policies a horrible reputation that stuck to date! Then unions followed to defend the workers’ rights and so “Personnel Administration” began negotiating with unions, setting up salary administration rules, resolving work environment issues, and looked after vocational training.
As the country’s economy grew, so did the employment opportunities across various fields. Competition for the little human resources available forced companies to up their game. Kuwaitization became an issue from the 70’s and that really pushed for a stronger HR role in both oil and financial sectors. To date, these two industries remain the biggest employer of Kuwaiti talents (after the government sector, but that’s a story for another day), followed by telecom. That’s probably why these three sectors lead in HR practices.
Until now :-)
I’m excitedly anticipating a big change to the work culture introduced by startups.
If you, as an HR professional, are still stuck in the hire, fire, pay cycle of “personnel administration”, then you’re not really doing enough to stay ahead of your competition or to provide real HR care to your human capital. Today’s HR is a strategic business partner in the organization and not the police officer giving out tickets to employees for breaking the bi-laws. HR best practice means you should be a caregiver that looks after employees’ well being: this means you’re responsible for their working experience, that they have a great working environment, that they’re learning and challenged and being developed to grow, and that they feel they’re part of a bigger collective working for the same set of values. Your focus is every single member of the organization and not just the leaders, or the high flyers, or the new comers.
Sometimes organizations tend to focus on business and forget its business drivers - the people. Your role as an HR professional is to redirect focus towards employees, fight for their learning, work experience, opportunities, and ensure that every leader is giving the desired attention to his/her own team members. We can no longer afford our old ways if we want to continue growing Kuwaiti talents. The market is full of options and if you want to be the employer of choice then you’ll have to get on board.
As challenging as people can be, they are the drivers of your organization. The word “Company” literally means a group of people. Caring after people is looking after your most vital resource; your human capital!