Successful nationalization

This article, the first in a series, will start to answer both of those questions by defining the goals of the nationalization process. Future articles will expand on the basic fundamentals discussed below.

Nationalization is important to every developing country and I'd like to share one of H.H. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan's quotes on the issue: "Developing the human being is a national necessity that precedes building factories and establishments. Without the right man, it is impossible to achieve prosperity for this Nation".

His statement focuses on the ultimate goal of any nationalization program -- development of people. Nationalization is about ensuring your local workforce is trained so they are able to meet all of your company's goals, both current work requirements and future challenges brought about by increasing global competition.

So how can HR specialists ensure their organizations have the right people, with the right skills, at the right time, to accomplish their business objectives? How can they ensure the new employee has the combination of awareness, skills, knowledge and attitude that enables them to perform a job to the required standards? These goals can be achieved by putting together a systematic process that ensures new nationals hired by your company become competent. This systematic process faces many challenges involved with transferring responsibilities from expatriates to nationals as they gain the competencies required to safely, effectively and efficiently perform the tasks assigned to them.

To create this systematic process we need to design a system that integrates the "various puzzle pieces" such as, identifying the competencies required to fulfill current and future job requirements, writing job descriptions that are competence-based, making sure the company's recruiting policies & practices are built upon those job descriptions, establishing an integrated training plan that links together these common factors and finally, aligning this process with your organization's strategic manpower planning efforts. Failure to "build that puzzle" results in tackling individual problems in isolation that can lead to nationals in the work environment that often perform below their fullest potential.

The systematic Nationalization process requires top management support and it must be clearly communicated to everyone in the organization. Nationalization programs also tell nationals, the organization values them and this leads to increased motivation levels with your staff. After all, well-designed Nationalization programs can be a win-win situations for everyone!