Dubai: British energy recruitment firm Spencer Ogden is investing £500,000 (Dh3 million) to expand its Dubai office a year after it opened, its chief executive said.

David Spencer Percival said from the company’s new office near Dubai Media City that it will look to add as many as 20 new staff members to its existing 15 employees.

The £500,000 covers the new office and staff training.

“We’re growing the oil and gas team and also pushing out the sectors into power generation and smart technology and renewables,” Spencer Percival said.

Spencer Ogden is a niche recruitment firm dealing strictly with the energy sector. From Dubai it works with companies throughout the region from Iraq to North Africa.

Spencer Percival said the new office, at Arenco Tower along Sheikh Zayed Road, will eventually have up to 40 employees. But with expectations for rapid expansion he is not sure when they will be increasing next.

“I don’t know the answer to that because maybe we do a hub and spoke model where we open offices in maybe Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Qatar. It maybe something where we need greater office capacity here,” he said.

The Spencer Ogden business model is unique when compared to other recruitment firms. It predominately hires graduates and does not actively look for those with a background in human resources or recruitment. Instead it seeks out engineering and geology graduates who “can talk to the client,” said Peter Ogden, billionaire entrepreneur and Chairman of Spencer-Ogden. He is also the financial backer behind the company that launched four years ago with its London office.

Nationalisation

Spencer Ogden trains its graduate recruits from the ground up, however, nationalisation policies, such as those of the UAE, can hamper company growth.

A nationalisation “policy works if you have a high population … it wouldn’t work in Saudi Arabia because first and foremost the nationals that work for oil companies get paid a fortune and secondly the population is not that big,” Spencer Percival said.

Policies of some Gulf countries are not as stringent as other countries. Ogden said plans to set up in Mozambique came undone when they were told they would have to hire ten nationals for each expatriate employee. A similar policy deferred any immediate plans to set up an office in Brazil.

Spencer Ogden has already hired a number of Emirati’s. It also currently recruits only from the UAE by working with the universities. The recruitment firm spends around $50,000 on training each employee. It has around 20 training “academies” a year, each with 10 people, Ogden said.

“Our investment in a graduate is one year with no income,” Spencer Percival adds.

But the company has a fairly stringent recruitment process in effort to cut its attrition rate, which sits at around 25 per cent. Of each academy, which holds 10 people, on average 300 graduates apply.

Since 2010, the company has invested £7 million pounds back into the company, opened offices in the USA, Australia, Asia and Europe and turns over around £80 million in profit.