Retaining Foreign Talents in the Dubai Banking Industry Dissertation

Retaining Foreign Talents in the Dubai Banking Industry - Dissertation Example Advani (2006) mentions that the said situation exists in the said country because of the fact that the employees would rather work for the foreign banking institutions as the latter offers better compensation packages than their local counterparts. The Oxford Business Group (2008) also cited attracting and retaining high quality talent as one of the most common problems experienced by banks in Bulgaria. Generally, this problem is brought about by various issues such as the competition for limited banking resources such as the location that can be used to establish banks, the availability of skilled employees and eligible clients (The Oxford Business Group 2008). In Dubai, as well as in the other members of the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC), retaining foreign talent in their banking industry is likewise an important issue issue. During the past years, the said countries, most especially Dubai, has been considered attractive in terms of enticing expatriate professionals Nevertheless, it was only considered as relatively successful in a sense that it has merely served as a transient market wherein the young professionals begin their careers, earn tax free income and socialize for 2-3 years. In this sense, employers therein experience high rates of turnovers as regards their staff (Rehman 2007). The 2007-2010 depression which affected Dubai along with the other members of the GCC has resulted to the radical decrease in the number of expatriate workers in the said countries. True enough, many Westerners were employed four to five years ago. However, nowadays, most of them have been transferred to other countries and some have been repatriated to their own countries. More often than not, the decision involving them is brought about by the fact that foreign expatriates are more expensive than others. Undoubtedly, the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, most especially Dubai has long relied on foreign expatriates. However, because of the economic issues that they have faced, most of them have decided to come up with initiatives which are aimed towards the localization of the workforce, replacing the foreign expatriates with skilled local employees. The adoption of these initiatives had been highly influenced by the banking institutions in the countries to cut down their expenses by reducing the compensation packages offered to the expatriate professionals. Aside from these, the decision of financial institutions to cut down the premium pay of expatriates had also facilitated their turnovers (Rehman 2007). Undoubtedly, there is a need to implement employee strategies so as to retain key employees, most especially foreign talents in a certain company. However, because of economic problems such as recession, companies tend to cut down their costs in order to cope with the financial situation. This paper focuses on the issue of expatriate management in Dubai. It focuses on the different innovative strategies that companies, most especially memb ers of the banking industry usually implement in order to retain foreign talent. However, given the fact that Dubai suffered from economic recession in the last three years, this research aims to look into whether or not ht financial institutions therein continue the implementation of the said strategies during this period in the hopes of retaining foreign talent. Statement of the Problem As previously mentioned, the adoption of pertinent employee strategies is of paramount importance in terms of retaining foreign employees. Amongst the members of the banking industry, the key to attracting and retaining employees is through the development of good payment packages. However, banking instituti