The Advantages of Secondment Program and Why It Is Essential for the United Arab Emirates

Importance of Secondment Program

A secondment refers to a situation where an employee temporarily changes job roles and responsibilities within the same organization or company for a certain period (Bubala, 2016). Mostly, a secondment program lasts for between 3 to 24 months. It is training or educational program into specific areas which recognized organizations, companies and institutions provide with an objective of easing technical development of officers' and personnel belonging to banking supervision entities through a specialized type of training with a targeted purpose and timespan. Organizations can provide the program internally or externally as a way of giving staffs with required work experience in various organizational settings.

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In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Al-Otaibi (2015) explains that companies and organizations set up forms of training through an employee program where employees can rotate through some positions within the organization. Employees can also rotate in other fields for a period of 6 to 8 months, after which they receive an assessment for suitable employment opportunities. In the United Arab Emirates, secondments involve making arrangements where a person secures temporary employment by their primary employer (Al-Otaibi, 2015). Employment by local employers is also common. However, such employees return to their primary employer upon termination of the secondment program.

Objectives

The primary objectives of this research are to identify the advantages of secondment program and why it is essential for the United Arab Emirates and Expo as emirtization for UAE citizens and GCC.

Methodology

The research conducted a content analysis of various materials such as journals, books, blogs and organizational websites to identify the advantages of secondment program and why it is essential for the United Arab Emirates. The study noted down the findings and analyzed them appropriately.

Findings

The study established that majority of secondment research work are case studies and re descriptive. It was, therefore, difficult to discover surveys which record secondment at its usage level within organizations in the United Arab Emirates. The study established the following advantages of secondments.

Advantages

Secondments provide employees with learning benefits which enables them to explore various career possibilities, opportunities, and professional developments. In the United Arab Emirates, formal and professional secondment placements provide learners and employees with a chance to acquire valuable experiences and new skills as a way of developing their curriculum vitae (Rose & Tuffrey-Wijne, 2017). Engaging in a secondment program enables one to demonstrate high adaptability and flexibility which are essential qualities to a future career.

In the United Arab Emirates, Rose and Tuffrey-Wijne (2017) explains that the program also provides individual benefits to the people in the program. Some of these unique benefits include personal development where one gets the opportunity to progress in his or her career. The person also gets the opportunity to change direction, set time to contemplate and re-evaluate the current abilities and skills. Secondment also enables one to looks at things from a different perspective through sharpening logical, creative and critical thinking skills by exposing them to real-time career challenges.

According to Rose and Tuffrey-Wijne (2017), GCC countries also provide secondment programs which enable individuals to enhance their personal development as compared to the home workplace. Such individuals are in a position to test their acquired skills outside the workplace. The advantages are related to the voluntary sector secondments in the United Arab Emirates which provides employees with an opportunity to test their acquired skills in a less financially damaging environment.

On the same note, internal secondments are essential to employees because hierarchies are flatter and provide more limited opportunities for development. Internal secondment provides employees with the required personal development without being forced to change locations or jobs. In the United Arab Emirates, various organizations from various industries provide secondment opportunities. These range from the legal sector, hotel industries, corporate world, and technical, among various others. In the hotel industry, employees only need to have a residence (exception of GCC and UAE nationals) and work permits. The industry uses secondment for commercial considerations since the ultimate employer lacks presence in the UAE or is unable to secure work permits or residence visas for their employees (De Vere, 2019) . In such situations, the employee receives support from the owner, but the employment relationship remains intact between the operator and the employee.

Importance to UAE and Expo

In the United Arab Emirates and GCC, there are different organizations which coordinate secondment opportunities. These include various governments, partners and federal entities. As a result, it is essential to discuss the significance of secondment about the different governments of GCC and UAE, governmental entities and partners.

Partners and Federal Entities

The essential partners are different organizations. These include host and home organization. Partners apply to both internal and external secondment where the host organization becomes the host department while the home organization becomes the home department (De Vere, 2019). Partners are essential to secondment because they expose the individual to work in a different organizational culture - cultural change occurs as a result of this. Secondment placement in UAE and GCC facilitates an increased understanding of the working dynamics of the GCC and UAE environments. Secondments are also essential to federal entities in the GCC through providing the entity with skills which it would otherwise not enjoy in situations where there were no placements. In GCC, the entities include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Secondments are also crucial to partnering organizations because they bring new skills to the organizations (Waxin, Lindsay, Belkhodja, & Zhao, 2018); and such skills provide a real business advantage.

Al-Otaibi (2015) explain that secondments have conventionally been perceived to be something that involves organizations. There are partnering organizations which have been put off due to the effects of having staff members out of the office environment. There is also an increased number of minor organizations which embrace the concept of secondment.

Governments

The governments of GCC countries benefit from secondment in various ways. Governmental institutions employ secondment as a cost-effective recruiting strategy. As a result, the government generally receives services at no cost or compensation to the employees. Secondments are essential for GCC governments because it eliminates or lowers the cost of labor, or taxes. Employees can, therefore, maintain their placement by displaying essential skills when performing the various duties assigned to them by the employer.

GCC governments also benefit from reduced training costs during budgetary allocations. Secondments provide employees to stick around as compared to those who were not part of the secondment program. Employees under the secondment program inject energy, fresh ideas, and perspectives to their employers, which in this case is the government. Secondment placement programs provide the government with new technological skills since it keeps the current employees on toes. Current government employees attempt to strive for sustained and consistent high performance with fears of replacement by more eager, energetic, enthusiastic and younger individuals.

Conclusion

In GCC, secondments are arrangements where employees remain employed by their primary employer and employed, for regional and federal law purposes, and local employers are familiar. The most vital thing to consider for secondment placements is that GCC governments should establish agreements between employers and organizations about secondment placements.

References

Al-Otaibi, M. Z. (2015). Secondment of Government Employees in Saudi Arabia "Between Reality and Expectations". Procedia Computer Science, 65, 1140-1145.

Bubala, J. W. (2016). CONSIDERING DIFFERENCES IN ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE MAKES JOINT SCIENCE-BUSINESS PROJECTS SUCCESSFUL. In Business and Non-profit Organizations Facing Increased Competitions and Growing Customers' Demands (pp. 173-182). Fundacja Upowszechniajaca Wiedze i Nauke" Cognitione".

De Vere, B. (2019). Development of common training units for forensic staff. Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1-3.

Rose, T., & Tuffrey-Wijne, I. (2017). The benefits of gaining research experience through a secondment. Learning Disability Practice, 20(1), 36-39.

Waxin, M. F., Lindsay, V., Belkhodja, O., & Zhao, F. (2018). Workforce localization in the UAE: recruitment and selection challenges and practices in private and public organizations. The Journal of Developing Areas, 52(4), 99-113.