Top 20 hr challenges In UAE

 

Human resource department stands as one of the essential departments of any organization or business. Businesses are often struck by risks ranging from workplace violence to recruitment issues. All industries face a number of issues that can emerge internally, and these issues must be solved by their respective HR management. But first, the problems within the organization need to be identified. This article enlists the major hr challenges in the new world of work. The solutions to hr challenges have also been provided for combating them and making way for better growth of businesses.

 

How to Overcome HR Challenges In UAE

 

Human resource management should replace the traditional approach with a more data-driven, strategic, and scientific approach. The HR managers should mitigate salary disparities with imminent funding and challenges of skills shortages in a niche sector as well as design employee-friendly policies. Priority must be given to a strategic staffing plan, including succession planning and talent management. To proactively position the organization, the HR department should make use of recruitment tools such as competency-based interviews and competency mapping. A few examples of hr challenges are mentioned below to give a rough idea about the global human resource management challenges.

 

The tourism industry has human resource development challenges and opportunities as well. Irrespective of skill levels and ages, tourism provides employment to a huge population across the world. But it has to face several hr challenges due to its reliance on a huge number of part-time workers. The issue of human capital is one of the biggest hr challenges in the tourism industry. For several years, this industry has experienced a high level of recruitment issues. For making tourism a fascinating job choice, there should be an implementation of strategies that focus on different aspects of tourism employment.

 

One of the major hr challenges in the airline industry is the recruitment of candidates with the right skills. The demand for talent in the airline industry is evolving rapidly, but it still lacks skilled professionals for meeting the workforce requirements. The increasing difficulty of retaining talent adds more stress to the HR departments of airline businesses. The airline industry should give priority to high-quality training and development programs to attract and retain staff.

 

Top HR Challenges And How to Face Them

The Following Are The Top 20 hr challenges in UAE:

 

1. Compliance

 

It was recently brought into the spotlight that some banks were creating fake accounts for customers without their permission and also inflating numbers. The sales practices at banking institutions and banks became a top-down controversy. Due to compliance risks, employees have to look for professional liability insurance to prepare for the worst. The disconnection between HR and compliance is one of the major hr challenges in the banking sector. For small businesses, employee misclassification becomes the most common compliance challenge. Failure to comply is common in small businesses, and it can be a costly mistake, irrespective of being intentional or unintentional.

 

Solution: HR management should evolve itself to identify such enterprise-wide risks with proper verifications.

 

2. Recruitment

 

Every sector is on the lookout for the best talent. For steering the course for the new work environment, the innovative and impressionable candidates have to be lured with big paychecks and bonuses. But recruiting is one of the biggest challenges for human resource management in various industries. It has become difficult to find suitable candidates for even entry-level positions. Pre-employment assessments are the problem behind the recruitment challenge. Hiring the wrong person increases if candidates are not properly assessed by HR management.

 

Solution: HR should set up a proper process which includes personal interviews, group discussions, and written tests for recruiting the right candidates.

 

3. Conflict Resolution

 

Ignoring the conflict in the workplace can cost both money and time while growing the business exponentially. Conflict resolution is one of the most concerning hr challenges in businesses. According to a study by CPP, a professional training and coaching firm, 85% of employees in businesses experience conflict in their workplace. Employee retention rates and morale are likely to dampen if the HR management could not properly handle conflict resolution.

 

Solution: The HR department should handle such conflicts by listening to both the individuals or groups and then solve the issues in a professional manner.

 

4. Investment in Talent Management

 

HR managers in hospitals have to secure funding in order to attract the best workers and offer them competitive benefits. The funding includes financial plans of the hospital along with competitive salaries. Securing such funding is one of the major hr challenges in hospitals. As a result of offering competitive salaries, the high performing workers can be retained, but the ROI, as well as patient satisfaction, faces direct impact. Staff turnover can also decrease. HR management already struggles with its current budget, but investment in talent management further leads to more human resource management challenges.

 

Solution: HR management can lower costs for hospitals with the help of single cloud-based HRIS applications. These cloud-based applications eliminate internal IT costs, which include hardware upgrades and maintenance requirements.

 

5. Employee Retention

 

Many employees in the hospitality sector don’t consider working in hotels as their ultimate professional goal. Thus, they plan on working on a short-term basis in hotels and leave their jobs soon. Some employees even have to be fired due to their low-grade job performance. Due to these reasons, employee retention becomes one of the biggest hr challenges in hotels.

 

Solution: The human resource managers should carve new ways to keep the staff members fascinated in their jobs for retaining them for a long time. The employees should be provided with a clear sequence plan which explains their advancement to higher levels of service if stuck for a longer period of time.

 

6. Seasonal Demand

 

Seasonal demand has become one of the concerning challenges of human resource management nowadays. During the busiest times of the year and holidays, retailers usually open for extended hours for fulfilling the demands of the consumers. More work shifts are required on those days, and the HR departments eventually have to face challenges related to seasonal hiring and work shift schedules.

 

Solution: In order to cope up with the seasonal demand, human resource management can utilize operations management software to track budgetary metrics and performance as well as meet increased demands. The required number of team members during the busiest periods can be arranged with the help of a well-prepared and proactive approach to seasonal recruiting. For ensuring access to the top candidates.

 

The HR department should begin the seasonal recruiting cycleway before the holiday rush. Social media, influential sources, and traditional recruiting channels should be used to make efforts more effective. Retail HR departments should be aware of the latest tools and market dynamics to arrange for the additional team members in the seasonal demand period.

 

7. Employee Theft

 

Employee theft is one of the major hr challenges in retail and also possibly one of the largest sources of inventory shrinkage in the UAE. Globally, compared to an average case of shoplifting, the average instance of employee theft is over 4x greater in value.

 

Solution: The issue of employee theft in the retail sector is quite difficult to eliminate, and it still remains of the top hr challenges in the 21st century. However, an improved hiring and onboarding process, along with frequent training on the organizational repercussions of theft and improved workplace conditions can decrease the severity and frequency of employee theft. Employee theft is indeed one of the key hr challenges, and it can be reduced over time with sufficient resources and attention.

8. Safety

 

In a fast-moving environment like retail, both employees and customers face safety issues. This issue is of the biggest hr challenges in retail. The HR management needs to create safer workplaces where team members won’t be worried about safety and put all their concentration on their tasks.

 

Solution: In order to minimize safety issues in a retail environment, the HR management should provide education and training on safety along with safety measures such as first-aid kits and fire extinguishers. Such precautions not only ensure the safety of customers and team members but so help to tackle liability issues in case of a lawsuit. The HR manager can also conduct a quiz for employees on the safety standards and policies of the organization to ensure that they understand and remember the information.

9. Productivity of Employees

 

HR management usually evaluates productivity by looking at business resources, practices, and procedures. It has to find various ways of improving the efficiency of the employees without decreasing their job satisfaction. This challenge is one of the significant human resource issues in the workplace.

 

Solution: The HR department should address attendance issues if excessive absenteeism is the cause behind the drop in productivity. Time-tracking software helps to enforce attendance policies with ease. The trends in absenteeism can be caught easily with the help of accurate time-tracking software. With such software, the HR department can determine if the issue is confined to the entire workforce, any department or just one employee.

 

10. Employee Training

 

Employee training is one of the biggest hr challenges faced by organizations.
Training programs are implemented by the HR department, and they are designed to ensure that the workforce follows all the procedures and policies of the organization. Some organizations want their employees to complete certain certification programs. The human resource department ensures that all the employees are qualified for their jobs. Often, the HR department faces a huge load due to these tasks, which may result in a growing number of employees not complying with company policies or failing their certifications.

 

Solution: The human resource department should simplify scheduling and payroll processes with the help of software so that they get enough time to create and implement training programs.

 

11. Payroll Errors

Payroll errors are the most common challenges human resource managers face today. There is always a chance of human error if payroll information is entered into a system manually. The HR management can be quick enough to catch such errors before the delivery of the payroll checks to the employees. However, employee morale decreases due to major errors. Employees can lose motivation when they constantly worry about the accuracy of their paychecks. The level of job satisfaction decreases, as well.

 

Solution: Accurate accounting can be ensured with the help of payroll software and a time attendance system.

 

12. Funding Issue

 

The funding issue is of the major human resource management challenges facing local NGOs. The tenure of the funds’ flow has shortened and reduced these days due to which projects get closed early, and retaining staff becomes difficult. The uncertainty of project extension worries the staff even before the actual closure of projects, leading to a negative impact on project outcome. Sustainable workforce depends on sustainable development, and such funding issues are tough challenges to human resource development. Loyalty to a particular organization also gets crippled due to funding issues.

 

Lack of sufficient budget is of the biggest hr challenges in higher education. Compared to other industries, the HR budgets in higher education are 50-70% lower.

 

Solution: With innovative funding, human resource management can explore the latest resource options. The HR management should bring in resource sharing, volunteerism, and internship to become innovative in staffing. The insecurity around project closures can be reduced to a good extent, with the help of outplacement initiatives and transition counseling.

 

The HR professionals in higher education should gain mastery in operational efficiency in order to manage the relatively lower budgets.

13. Employee Requests and Queries

Human resource management deals with a lot of queries and requests from employees daily. Tye queries include information about vacation time, time off, paycheck, and other HR issues. The HR management also receives requests for shift swaps. Such requests and queries built up as challenges for the human resource department.

 

Solution: Automation is the best solution to this problem. A complete workforce management system should be integrated into the daily operations of the business. With the help of a scheduling or time-tracking software, the employees will have access to their own schedule. Compliance issues and payroll errors are prevented by accurate time-tracking software.

 

The process of schedule creation is simplified by the scheduling software, enabling HR managers to concentrate on other essential tasks. Such software also allows them to send requests for shift swaps, and they are ideal solutions to human resource planning challenges.

 

14. Low Morale

 

Low morale is one of the concerning hr challenges in the hospitality industry. This issue can erode businesses as low morale has a huge impact on service standards. If the reputation of a restaurant, hotel, or bar gets tarnished, then it will prove to be a heavy blow for the HR department. Unskilled colleagues, stress, lack of training, and understaffing are the causes behind low morale. The same goes for the airline industry too. Low morale is one of the major hr challenges in the airline industry and several airline companies have been affected drastically due to this issue.

 

Solution: The HR department needs to provide training programs for the entire staff and listen to their queries to prevent low morale.

 

15. Lack of Quality Service

 

The quality of service in any industry gets affected due to the overflowing of customers and a shortage of employees. Lack of quality service is one of the crucial hr challenges today.

The performance of the employees reduces due to an increase in their workload. An employee’s job performance falls due to intense work pressure, eventually affecting the service quality. The damage to the brand name is blamed on the HR department.  HR Department is blamed by

 

Solution: The human resource management should focus on hiring a good number of employees who are enough to cater to the needs of their customers.

 

16. Culture and Communication

 

Culture and communication are of the most emerging hr challenges in all the industries. Irrespective of the location of the workforce, new communication issues are penetrating into the workplace due to international business trends. Such issues may arise if there’s a difference between the culture of a new manager and the workers and vice-versa. The members of a diverse workforce also face such issues which include nonverbal, spoken and written communication.

 

The relationship between employees, motivations of employees as well as the role of managers and employees may trigger cultural and communication challenges.

 

Solution: Human resource managers cannot train everyone to handle any situation they may face or stop anyone from having cultural exchanges. But they should teach cultural awareness and sensitivity in order to manage teams of diverse employees.

 

17. Diversity

 

It may sound unpleasant, but diversity is one of the major hr challenges in project management. One has to be extra careful while handling a team of employees belonging to different races, cultures, and gender. Such a team might have its members with different behavior and point of view. A team member could misunderstand the manager as the one who supports personal-favoritism.

 

Solution: For resolving such issues, the HR management should carefully listen to the problems of team members and resolve them in a timely manner.

 

18. Non-Transparency

 

Major human resource issues in companies are Non-transparency by families. The HR management in a family run-business constantly faces nepotism and its wrong practices. If left unchecked, nepotism can be a hindrance I’m recruiting talented staff in family-run businesses. Other employees might accuse the founding members of nepotism. Even if nepotism is not actually practiced in the business, any misunderstanding can lead to the bitterness of employees towards the organization. As a result, the organization can face higher staff turnover.

 

Solution: The HR department must step in such matters by ensuring transparency within the organization. For ensuring transparency, the HR managers should review and oversee the entire evaluation, recruitment, and remuneration process. Anti-fraternization policies can be implemented for prohibiting an employee to be under the supervision of a founding member. Such steps prevent any form of favorable treatment to family-related employees. For preventing any accusations of nepotism, the organization should appraise any family member only if he/she has the ability to contribute to the organization and a proven track record.

 

The human resource department should also have an open-door policy for allowing the employees to express their grievances anonymously. Doing so will encourage the employees to speak about any obstacles and it will also foster a sense of openness and trust.

 

19. Excessive Conservatism

 

The maintenance of firm grip over a family-run business by the founding members often leads to excessive conservatism, which becomes of the toughest hr challenges in the family business. Employees of family-run businesses follow the guidance and leadership of the senior founding members. It turns into a problem when they are resistant to change. Being egoistic and refusing to upgrade affects the business drastically and can even lead to a down-fall. HR professionals cannot bring much-needed changes within the organization due to these reasons.

 

Solution: HR management should conduct sessions to discuss the changes with the senior management of the business. Such sessions give the seniors a feeling of being relevant and pave the way for HR to enact changes. Rather than having sole control over the business and being reluctant to change, founding members should embrace the necessary changes suggested by the HR department.

 

20. Universal Bank Model

 

As banks have switched to a universal bank model, it has led to the creation of challenges for recruiting entry-level employees. Banks are trying to make their employees more versatile by cross-training them and they are also reducing the number of employees working at a branch. The universal bank model is one of the concerning hr challenges in the banking sector.

 

Solution: The HR department should recruit candidates with strong math, problem-solving, interpersonal skills and sales skills.

Trading and business growth increased and became easier with globalization and human resources challenges prove time and again that nothing comes too easily. The hr challenges mentioned above addressed in the organizations. The solutions to counter them must be implemented immediately for avoiding any down-fall.