Hiring in the UAE
So you’ve chosen to set up a business in one of the world’s top cities to live and work in. With its connections to the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, as well as its position as the bridge between the East and West markets, this is a prime location for your budding business empire. However, one of the main considerations for your company is hiring suitable employees — a crucial part in such an early stage, and perhaps you aren’t as familiar with hiring in the UAE as you’d like to be.
With this in mind, we’ve done the research for you and made a quick overview of the nuances in hiring employees here in the UAE. Here are the five main considerations for this process.
- Scouting for the right talent
The UAE has a skilled and diverse labor market, but there are still certain industries that lack highly skilled workers and specialists, such as construction and financial services. This means you may need to dedicate more time in searching for the right candidate in these industries, as well as exert a bit more effort to ensure you find a candidate who meets your criteria.
Fortunately, you do not have to sift through profiles upon profiles of potential candidates by yourself — there are plenty of reputable recruiters who can assist you in different ways, through either getting the job opening out to a suitable audience or through screening employees before they make a formal application.
Before any of this, it is important to comprehensively lay out the roles and responsibilities of the job in question, so everyone involved in the recruitment process fully understands what to look out for in each applicant.
2. Choosing the right candidate
There are two main parts to this process, because candidates need to be screened for both aptitude and attitude. Making a checklist of the skills the right candidate must have and ticking it off as you review their application is the most effective way to deal with finding their aptitude.
Candidates who make it through this stage can then be invited for interview, where you can examine their attitude closely.
You can use the interview to determine whether the interviewee really does match up in terms of skills, qualifications, and experience, but interviews can be most maximized in assessing the candidate’s character and attitude. It is one of your few chances to personally watch how they respond and react to certain situations, so look through and keep some interview techniques on hand and watch how they behave.
Remember that this candidate will have to work closely and frequently with your team, and that even the most qualified of candidates can affect the workplace atmosphere if they are not the proper fit.
Ideally, the candidate that makes it through the interview is someone who you are confident will fit seamlessly into your organization and the company culture, rather than opposing it. Given that all candidates will want to present their best version of themselves in interviews, this can be tricky to judge. However, asking about relationships with previous colleagues and employers, as well as the amount of time they spent in their previous jobs, is a good way to read how well a person can adapt to a new working environment.
3. Making your way through the UAE employment laws
Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, the hardest part of the hiring process is behind you. The next step of the process is navigating the UAE’s strict employment laws.
The main factor to keep in mind here is that once you hire someone you are considered as your new employee’s sponsor while they are in the country. Therefore it is your obligation to obtain your new hire’s employment visa and residency permit.
Depending on where your business is located, these documents need to be filed with either the Ministry of Labor (MOL) or the Department of Naturalization and Residency (now under the General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs).
If your business operates within a free zone, you must liaise with the relevant free zone authority to commence the work permit and residence visa process. In most of the free zones, the free zone authority will be the ones to deal with the appropriate agencies for you.
4. Creating the contract
With the exception of free zone employees who are governed by free zone authorities, all those who have been hired are required to execute a standard employment contract. The terms and conditions of this contract are governed by the UAE’s labor law, and determines most of the aspects of employment, such as hours of work, additional benefits, and, for foreign hires, repatriation.
For working hours, the UAE labor law specifies a maximum of eight working hours per day, adding up to a 48-hour week for most professions. In some sectors, employees work nine hours per day. Examples of these are the ones working in trades, hotels, cafeterias, and as guards.
For benefits , it is important to note that in this country, the salary is just one part of the package. Housing allowance and travel expenses are usually covered as well.
For expat workers, the employment contract makes it clear that the employer is responsible for the full cost of repatriation unless the employee terminates the contract of employment.
With regards to employment contracts, there are two standard types that you will need to note. The first is the limited employment contract. This has a set commencement and completion date, which can be renewed after, and sees that both parties are fully compensated in the event that the contract is terminated early by one party.
On the other hand, an unlimited contract has no completion date. The employee does not work for a specified period of time, and can be terminated with a justified reason at any time, providing that thirty days’ prior notice is given.
5. Helping your new hire settle in
There’s more to the hiring process past your new employee’s first day at work — and it still does not end after the successful completion of their probation period. Settling into a new company will always take time, perhaps even more so if your new employee is a recent expat arrival.
It will take some time for your new employee to be fully productive — and naturally, you will want yours to reach that peak as soon as possible. However, this can only be made possible if you are committed to giving them all the training, guidance, and support that they will need in these crucial early stages.
Remember those recruiters we mentioned earlier who can help you out with finding the right candidate? One of the options you should consider is outsourcing the job instead. This allows you to easily find an employee that has all the skills you need, which means that all you will need to worry about is their capacity to fit into your company culture.
