CICLO WHILE

As well as the extent to which the Sultanate’s policy of nationalisation has acknowledged the challenges and incentives necessary to reach this required percentage of Omanisation, one of the main aspects of human development that should also be considered is the labour legislation that maintains the relationship between employee and employer. Because of this, the Omani government has paid great attention to establishing such legislation in order to control and improve upon the relationship between employee and employer in both sectors, public and private. This emphasis on the importance of labour legislation improving this relationship is best represented by this extract from the Basic Law of the State:

“The State enacts laws to protect the employee and the employer and regulate relations between them. Every citizen has the right to engage in the work of his choice within the limits of the Law. It is not permitted to impose any compulsory work on anyone except in accordance with the Law and for the performance of public service and for a fair wage.”

From this perspective, a number of development laws were passed, such as the Civil Service Law, issued in 2004, which stipulates equal opportunities in terms of recruitment and promotion. This law also emphasises training and development opportunities in order to increase the capabilities of employees. Conversely, the Labour Law, issued in 2003, specifies the provisions and procedures related to the employment of the national labour force and grants them priority for vacancies available in private organisations. Furthermore, the Labour Law regulates the work of expatriates in private-sector organisations as well as the supply of expatriate workers. Globally, the government has also developed and updated the system of labour legislation in order to maintain the same pace of progress as the rest of the world. An example of this would be the government following the standards issued by the International Labour

Organisation (ILO) which outlines fundamental principles and rights in the workplace (The Supreme Council for Planning 2012).

Furthermore, a trade union was formed in the Sultanate of Oman in 2010 with the aim of protecting the interests and rights of employees. The law also grants license to the labour organisation to include other labour unions that operate in similar businesses. Consequently, the trade union in Oman has become an independent legal entity that represents employees in the private sector on both a local and international level with the number of organisations reaching 165 by 2012 (The Supreme Council for Planning 2012). This highlights an important influence that may have shaped subsequent management practices and policies in all organisations.

Another factor to consider regarding labour policy is the matter of the challenges to higher-education institutions to provide a suitable, competent, local workforce for private-sector organisations and the pressure from the Omanisation policy as well as the challenges to attract highly skilled employees who prefer to work in the government sector. These have led private-sector organisations to place a greater emphasis on their strategy of training and development as a top business priority. This, in turn, has resulted in the development of training programmes that have initially been focused on technical and vocational skills. However, because of the rise in the Omanisation percentage at the professional level, organisations have moved beyond this vocational focus and identified the importance of training experienced local employees to occupy these strategic positions that are still occupied primarily by expatriate employees. As a consequence, this may result in the recognition of key Talent Management (TM) practices as a strategy that can be used to meet the requirements of Omanisation and as a tool to meet the increasing pressure to improve organisational growth and productivity.

Therefore, if TM is to be used as an effective tool for meeting these demands, its success, when implemented in these sectors, will rely on proper investment in human capital by identifying candidates who may one day be able to lead the organisation in the long term. Because of the importance of this, leadership programmes have become a key element of TM systems within private-sector organisations, as it is believed that they will help to identify appropriate candidates who can then be developed as future leaders and managers of the organisation. However, despite these acknowledgements, TM is still an area that

needs further research within the context of the Middle Eastern region and of the Gulf region in particular (Zahra 2011; Afiouni et al. 2014; Sidani and Al Ariss 2014; Al Amri et al. 2016), especially with current challenges (e.g. nationalisation policy, conflicts and the Arab Spring). Furthermore, there is a further need to explore how TM operates within the Omani context at a country-specific level (Budhwar and Sparrow 2002) and this presents an opportunity to present a comprehensive picture of HRM in general and the importance of TM in particular within the Middle East region. As a result of this focus, specific research on the Omani context could be the catalyst that will enable future researchers to develop more universal theories and models of the TM field.