Dubai: Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, on Monday opened at the Beach Rotana Hotel in Abu Dhabi, the UAE's first conference to address emiratisation.

The two-day forum entitled 'Advancing and Retaining UAE Nationals in the Workplace', which is being run by Abu Dhabi University (ADU), in conjunction with Aim Events, discussed a wide range of topics including developing employee calibre, improving retention rates, maintaining a motivated workforce and managing quotas.

In his opening address, Shaikh Nahyan praised the vision and leadership of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, and said the University had proven worthy of the name Abu Dhabi and can look forward to a promising future as an important component of higher education in the UAE and towards the enhancement of emiratisation.

"Emiratisation is a necessary, but sometimes elusive, goal," he said. "At first glance, it appears that full employment of citizens of the UAE should be a fairly simple matter. The number of people seeking employment, after all, is relatively small when compared to the large number of jobs required to drive our nation. However, there are many complications connected with social, economic and technological considerations that affect the placement of nationals seeking employment.

For emiratisation to succeed," he continued, "we must explore ways to increase the share of employment for nationals in the private sector. We seek a situation where every private sector employer develops and implements a plan to aggressively recruit and employ nationals. We need a proactive role from all corners of the private economy: First to help articulate their employment needs; second to create and seek to fill appropriate employment opportunities for nationals in their companies; and third, to provide on-the-job training programmes to enable nationals to develop the skills and experience to advance in their companies.

"We must develop strategies with private sector employers to help persuade nationals that employment in the private sector is highly desirable. We must work to overcome flawed stereotyping of nationals as employees; and we must provide data and information about different careers and job openings to students and others seeking work across the country," he said.