Talent Management in Saudi Arabia

While companies like Saudi Aramco use international assignments and a multicultural workforce to ensure an effective talent management, the country itself moves backwards by prohibiting shop owners to employ men and women in the same place. Despite the high unemployment rate of 30% among women, a court in Riyadh has recently abolished a former decision that allowed men and women to work in the same place. Purportedly, the ministry of labour had misinterpreted a decree from 2011 by King Abdullah which limited work in lingerie shops exclusively to women. The lawyer declared that the purpose of this decree was not to allow men and women to work in the same shop but to prevent women from embarrassment when buying underwear. Therefore the decision that should allow shop owners to employ men and women simultaneously needed to be rescinded. Not only Diversity practitioners will assess this development as a huge step backwards in the empowerment of women rights and gender equality. Such moves unfortunately also ignore the creative potential of gender mixed teams in the workplace and is also a move backwards in the talent management of the country as a whole.

At the same time, the energy company Saudi Aramco shows effective approaches how talent management in a country like Saudi Arabia can work despite a conservative legislation. The company employs people from 66 countries to ensure an effective reaction to global changes. Saudi employees are encouraged to gain international work experience through international company assignments, providing them with professional experience under different administrative and work conditions in leading international companies. At the same time, Saudi Aramco recruits international applicants to work in Saudi Arabia. This multicultural workforce is certainly one of the reasons why Saudi Aramco is one of the world leading integrated petroleum enterprises. The company also reports ‘massive investment in training and development, including sponsoring more than 2,000 young men and women in university studies in Saudi Arabia and around the world.’ No indication is given about the regional gender split of this number.

The General Manager for Training and Development, Huda Al-Ghoson, is a woman. The company’s Corporate Citizenship Report 2010 carries the title ‘Make a Difference’. It mentions a new Women in Business program that has attracted 50 women to participate in a motivation and skills workshop designed to help them excel in the Saudi Aramco workplace. The company has some 55,000 employees, of which 48,000 are Saudi. It is considered to be the world leader in the production of petroleum-based energy.