Page 228 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

210 Dubai & Co.

● An “alumni” network of former staff in leadership
positions worldwide
Top-notch professional services firms cannot—and need
not—offer lifelong employment. Competition for promotion within
these firms is intense and merit based. Simply starting one’s career
there is seen as sufficient grounding for ongoing success. For under-
graduate recruits, the period of employment is frequently defined
as two years, after which the firm may sponsor graduate education
on the condition that the staff member return after graduation.
Leading firms such as McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, and
the Boston Consulting Group have begun targeted recruiting efforts
exclusively for their Gulf offices. These efforts have drawn
top-notch talent from the region and with affinity to it, giving these
firms a deeper understanding of the region and more credibility
with clients. Having drawn in such high-caliber recruits, the
challenge becomes retaining them by continuing to invest in them
in keeping with the company’s development covenant.
Actively recruiting young and talented GCC-country
nationals is, of course, something that multinational firms can and
should begin doing today. Its benefits will become more apparent in
the medium-term future (three to five years from today) as these
professionals begin taking more responsibility in and having
greater impact on the company.

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW: LONG-TERM
HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT

In the longer term, multinational firms with serious ambitions in the
GCC states have little choice but to invest in local human capital.
Even as educational standards rise and external training facilities
expand, corporate training will remain crucial for company-specific
skills and knowledge that firms need to instill in their workforce
worldwide. Beyond formal training, internship programs for
students and mentorship programs for staff can go a long way in
building the human capital base in the firm and in the market. Such
programs can also build a great deal of goodwill, as is evident in the
experience of multinationals such as Citigroup and General Electric.
In the UAE, Citigroup runs a high-profile initiative called the
Citibank Internship Program (CIP). The CIP is a year-long program