Forward Planning: Specific emiratisation policy and plan adopted in insurance sector

Many years ago when I wanted to venture into the private sector on my own despite my secure government job and was trying to understand all that it entails, I answered an advertisement in the newspaper announcing the possibility of starting one's own business.

I went for an interview and discovered that it was an insurance company offering agencies to successful candidates to start in the insurance business.

For many reasons I didn't go further than this first and only appointment, not realising that in ten years' time I would become the marketing director for the Gulf area of that same company. It was a long process of changing career and leaving the security of a government job to try my luck working in insurance.

I realise now that the move I made 13 years ago was very useful and helped me explore and reach my potential - with still very much room to progress and advance.

Insurance seems to be the last industry nationals think of when it comes to making a career in the UAE. In the 46 insurance companies employing about 3,200 people the number of nationals is just 100 plus.

Not to mention the 100+ brokerage firms, 30 loss adjustors and 12 insurance consultant firms where nationals are only a handful among the many employees. Yet the insurance industry has great opportunities and benefits to offer to nationals.

Nationals make up only two per cent of the workforce in the private sector which presents many challenges for them in comparison with the government sector, including long working hours, lower initial pay (for the first few years), no social security (previously), fewer holidays, 30 days of annual leave only (instead of 60), no job security and the need to start from the bottom and work one's way up to the top.

For all these reasons the insurance industry was unattractive to national employees with the result that so few of them are employed in that field. The "welfare state" environment existing in the Gulf countries for the last three decades or so didn't provide real challenges for nationals to excel and match private sector employees' skills, knowledge and experience.

In the last few years, government jobs have become fewer due to the fast-growing national population and it became logical for nationals to start looking toward private employers. National unemployment today has become a serious problem in many Gulf countries, leading to social and economical instabilities.

University and high school graduates alike sometimes wait for years to find "the job" in the absence of proper employment- and educational- need planning. Nationals are not channelled through the right schools, the right professions and the right jobs.

A national employment development centre established a few years ago is struggling to place a fraction of the 7,000+ unemployed nationals in its database.

The biggest challenge is, of course, changing attitudes, perceptions and expectations - both for the would-be employees and the would-be employers - prior to recruitment and after.

To motivate national candidates to work, succeed, and excel under the private sector work conditions is one difficulty. Nepotism among expatriate employers is another hurdle - young expatriates come from abroad to take up jobs which could be assigned to nationals.

The working hours of many insurance companies are not helping matters either, with a three-hour lunch break (from 1pm– 4pm) and a closing time of 7 pm - most employees are not home before 8pm and are, therefore, deprived of a normal family and social life.

Another problem is the absence of a proper insurance training institute for the whole industry which prevents the formation of new recruits and developing the skills and knowledge of employees already in the field.

In the last few months the government has decided to encourage and facilitate the insertion of nationals in the insurance industry by adopting a specific emiratisation policy and plan.

Supported by the federal cabinet and the national federal council, a new national training institute will be established. Programmes are being developed to help insurance firms find the right national candidates and even provide financing for the first two years.

The insurance industry has welcomed this new development and shown definite interest in helping nationals penetrate this sector.

In the present economy, insurance is a very important field where nationals, if properly informed, trained and qualified, certainly have their place.

The author is UAE-based managing director of Al Ghaith & Co, public accountants, and a financial writer.