Employee outsourcing gathers pace in the UAE

dubai — Employee outsourcing is getting increased traction in the UAE as organisations are looking at costs saving, focusing on core business, hiring at incubation stage or for rapid expansion and other strategic reasons.

Outsourcing is defined by Brown. M (1997), as “a contractual agreement between the customer and one or more suppliers to provide services or processes that the customer is currently providing internally”.

The customer here refers to an organisation that utilises outsourcing services by employing people through an external service provider’s visa and payroll.

Although employee outsourcing has been in practice since five decades, a major milestone in the industry occurred in 2010, when the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) regulated the industry and introduced a new licensing framework. This was aimed mainly at protecting the rights of the outsourced employees, who were predominantly expatriates. In the UAE, employees that are drawing a salary of less than Dh3,000 are informally classed as blue collared and the others are classed as white collared employees. Today irrespective of the collar colour or whether an employee is on direct payroll or outsourced, all employees enjoy the same level of statutory rights, in the eyes of MOHRE.

In a recent study conducted with a focus group of close to 50 individuals, within the white collared outsourcing space, nearly 91.5 per cent of the employees surveyed preferred being on direct employment with customers. When the same group was then asked what if there were good opportunities for training and development, 87.50 per cent said they will be happy to continue to work on outsourced basis. The study also revealed that 35.75 per cent of the stakeholders expected the customers, to provide the training and development opportunities. This stems from a fact that the employees tend to develop a psychological contract with the customers. Denise Rousseu, (1995) defines psychological contract as the “beliefs that individuals hold regarding promises made, accepted and relied on between themselves and another (employee, client, manager, organisation)”.

Sundus has been providing employee outsourced services for the last two decades in the UAE. Tareq Al Jabbarin, the executive director of Sundus, said: “Outsourcing is gathering unprecedented pace in the UAE and as part of our 20th anniversary we have relaunched our brand across all prominent social mediums to connect with the stake holders to further understand the next wave of customer expectations.”