Features

Where is Dubai's workforce from?

1 May 2006 by Tom Otley
Dubai

It won’t have escaped the notice of regular business travellers, but the hotel chains are expanding. As we reported in Business Traveller in July-August of 2005, there are good reasons for this. Individual hotels need help in selling themselves in the global marketplace, and by joining a sales and marketing alliance – such as The Leading Hotels of the World, Small Luxury Hotels of the World or Summit Hotels – or signing up to a franchise with a well-known name, they can spread the message of where they are, and how much they charge for their rooms.

Three-star brands can expand rapidly through franchises (that is, where they don’t manage the properties). For top-end hotels, however, such as Four Seasons, Shangri-La and Mandarin Oriental, the management is usually by that company as well. The theory here is that if you are impressed with the service in one hotel then you can stay in another property on the other side of the world and expect the same level of service.

Conversely, if you have a shocking experience in one, you’re not likely to stay in another. So how do these hotels expand quickly and yet maintain a consistent standard?

It’s a challenge that one company is facing in particularly stark terms. The Jumeirah group started in 1997 with the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, and quickly became known around the world for its outstanding properties including the Emirates Towers, Carlton Tower and Bab Al Shams. Much media attention surrounded the “seven-star” Burj Al Arab, and even if there is no such thing as seven-star, it doesn’t do any harm to your reputation if you are thinking about expanding worldwide – which is just what Jumeirah has announced. It acquired the Lowndes in London in 2001 and, most recently, New York’s Essex House in January, and has plenty of properties planned, including some well beyond Jumeirah’s traditional heartland – such as one in Shanghai at Xintiandi.

Building a five-star hotel is one thing; finding five-star staff for it is another. As every business traveller knows, service standards differ around the world. Hotels in Asia-Pacific set the benchmark and the reason isn’t hard to understand. Wage costs are low, which allows hotels to have more staff and to invest in training them. Coupled with a natural friendliness and willingness to work the long hours demanded by the hospitality industry, this means success is more likely than in other countries.

Jumeirah has found a way around this by, in effect, importing its workforce, and if they can do it in Dubai they can do it anywhere. A few years ago, Dubai’s hotels were staffed predominantly by workers from the Indian subcontinent and Asia-Pacific, but as demand outstripped supply, workers are now recruited from all over the world, particularly Eastern Europe. As our box shows (page 76), if you can think of a country, the chances are you’ll find someone of that nationality in one of the Jumeirah properties.

But how does Jumeirah ensure a traveller finds the same standards whichever property they visit? It’s a long and complicated process which begins the moment a property is acquired. Mike Newnham, chief human resources officer of Jumeirah, says: “One of the first things we do is take a labour survey. In the case of a property such as Essex House in New York, where an existing team was in place, things are slightly different. We are a small company in comparison with the larger brands, so in principle, we aim to keep everybody and work with the team we’ve got. For a new property, recruitment kicks in early on to get the right people on board.”

The range of people and skills needed is daunting, from front-of-house staff to housekeepers. So who are the most difficult people to recruit? According to Susan Manson, Jumeirah’s director of recruitment, it is the staff for the themed restaurants. A hotel such as Jumeirah Madinat has dozens of food and beverage outlets with cuisines from all over the world. “We try to make them stand-alone restaurants rather than ‘hotel restaurants’. It’s not just about having experience but having a personality.”

This means investing some care in staffing, says Manson. “If it’s a Chinese restaurant such as Zheng He’s, which is modern Chinese, then we might say that only Chinese nationals are going to work in it. The same with our Thai Noodle House, and so we try wherever possible to get staff from the home countries, and that might be not just the chefs, but also the restaurant manager.”

How are staff recruited to work in Dubai? The obvious answer is money, which is clearly the prime motivation for many workers – though for management-level staff, the training and lifestyle of Dubai is likely to be almost as strong a draw. However, salaries are not so high that they can compete with countries with a strong exchange rate. Manson, an Australian, says her own salary decreased in real terms because of the Australian dollar, and South African employees have discovered the same. Since everyone on the same salary band is paid the same no matter which country they come from, recruiting from certain countries such as Scandinavia has always been a challenge.

Manson is in charge of travelling to the new recruitment markets, and has more than her fair share of amusing, and sometimes alarming stories about trying to do business in emerging markets. Why is it necessary to recruit from over 90 countries? Surely it can’t be that the language skills are needed – after all, only a handful of guests from these countries must visit Dubai each year.

“It’s about keeping ahead of the game,” says Mike Newnham. “In Dubai alone there are 30 to 50 new hotels opening in the next few years, so there is more competition and more pressure on the payroll. With emerging markets, the earlier we can get in and train them the better.”

There is still an element of persuasion in getting people to come. “We do a one and a half hour presentation about living here,” says Manson. “I always say to candidates that you have to be very thorough. It’s a decision that affects your lives. As a result, they are pretty much aware of their expectations.”

For many newcomers, it will be the first time they have left their families, let alone their countries. Is there a proportion who head home within a few weeks, either because of homesickness, or because they can’t stand the heat of Dubai’s kitchens? It seems there are strong differences between nationalities, but that fellow countrymen and women provide support.

Then there is the training. Peter Mitchell, group director of organisational development, says: “We set a service standard in the company and we train everyone to a base service level. We try to make sure people understand the concept of service with a two-day orientation programme, then departmental training. The core training remains the same, with differences on top, such as training for the noodle house or fine dining. In Jumeirah, staff are classified into one of four groups – department head, managers, supervisors and entry level.”

What are the working conditions like for the people who toil away while we are sitting on a sun lounger, or enjoying a canapé at a conference? The majority of staff in Dubai work a six-day week, though for some this is now a matter of choice rather than compulsion.

“A lot of staff don’t like a five-day week as they lose opportunities to make tips, or to work overtime in banqueting for instance,” says Newnham. Interestingly, there are differences in how different nationalities use their money, with some sending it home and others (Eastern Europeans, apparently) spending it.

“A few years ago, it was six days across the board,” says Newnham. “Then for non-operational staff, there was an element of flexibility with a five-day working week, and now we are looking at flexible rostering arrangements.”

There is no legislation pushing this, but it’s in the hotel group’s interest to provide an attractive working environment for prospective employees, points out Manson. “It’s what we want to do to stay competitive in the recruitment market – offering a better work-life balance so we will be seen as a preferred employer.”

At management level there are frequent opportunities to learn from fellow workers in other resorts, according to Mitchell: “Even now we bring London colleagues here after one year of service. They are buddied up and get a bit of social time too, so they can see what’s is in training over there actually happens here. It allows a transfer of skills both ways and that’s worked very successfully.”

What of the future for Dubai and the expanding hotel scene of the Middle East? Mike Newnham says: “The trend has moved away from Dubai being a transient place to taking a more long-term view. We are seeing it in the senior jobs, particularly as expats can buy property now.”

Where is Dubai's workforce coming from?

As anyone who has ever stayed in a hotel or resort in Dubai knows, the staff don’t come from Dubai. In fact, they come from just about everywhere except Dubai. Jumeirah alone has employees from over 90 countries and employs 10,000 people, most of them expats (one third of these are employed at the giant Madinat property). So why are they all from elsewhere?

There are a number of reasons. Firstly, Dubai nationals traditionally have been attracted to government jobs — for their status, favourable working conditions, hours and benefits. Secondly, some nationals have issues with regard to working in an industry that serves alcohol, and from which a percentage of the profits come from serving alcohol. And thirdly, in a traditional society, the family plays a big part in the decision of a young person as to their career path, and in the case of female nationals, often their willingness to work in hospitality is nothing compared to their family’s unwillingness to allow them.

In fact, the Dubai government is trying to reverse this process, and is requiring companies based in Dubai to employ more nationals. This process of “localisation” is a hot topic in Dubai, as the government has recently reorganised its strategy in the form of the Emirates Nationals Development Programme (ENDP).

For their part, the hotel companies regard it as an aim that fits in with their own business plans. Peter Mitchell, group director of organisational development for Jumeirah, says: “We have guests who, at the end of their holiday, say how much they have enjoyed themselves, but in 10 days have never spoken to a local. Obviously we want to do something about that.”

At present the training is focused on getting nationals into guest relations and front of house positions, and even as concierges, using the skills for which they have a natural affinity, such as hospitality — but the focus will gradually widen under this “unpublished affirmative action plan”. Challenges remain, however, not least that people aren’t coming through into hospitality.

Mitchell says: “Dubai Women’s College has, I think, six ladies studying tourism, so there’s no pool to draw on. So instead we take people from sales, IT or wherever and train them. We have to look wide, both at entry and senior level. We only have five or six nationals at the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management [established in 2001 with the support of Jumeirah]. In future it will be a great source, but at the moment we are working with universities and colleges. We are nowhere near the tipping point.”

In the meantime, however, there’s the small matter of housing and feeding all those foreign workers who are planning to stay for three years or more. In the case of Jumeirah, this meant constructing an Oasis Village for 6,000 workers which comes complete with supermarket, sports facilities, coffee shops, a gym and medical facilities. A further 4,000 employees live in eight purpose-built apartment blocks, with the more senior staff receiving an accommodation allowance. It is a system that will grow further in size, as Jumeirah increases its staff numbers to 15,000 in three years and 20,000 in six years, through being part of Dubai Holding, the company that was established in 2001 to consolidate Dubai’s large-scale infrastructure and investment projects.

What do hotel companies look for in staff? Good English and the ability to integrate both with fellow employees and the distinct cultural milieu of Dubai are often mentioned. Staff have at least six hours’ training every month, although depending on the particular role, this can be far more intense — the butlers at Madinat, for instance, go through an intensive six-month training course.

Three to five years is the average stay in Dubai. Perhaps not surprisingly, recruitment reflects the wider world. Susan Manson: “When the civil war in Sri Lanka was dying down, we had a spurt of Sri Lankans leaving us to go back and work in that country’s hospitality business, but of course, when things are bad in other countries, we find it easier to recruit.”

In fact, establishing trust in a market is very important. “We often find it’s advantageous to have females on the recruitment trips,” says Manson.

Workers’ countries of origin

Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Colombia, Egypt, Eritrea, France, Philippines, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malta, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Seychelles, Somalia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, UAE, UK, US, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam.

Loading comments...

Search Flight

See a whole year of Reward Seat Availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Be up-to-date
Magazine Subscription
To see our latest subscription offers for Business Traveller editions worldwide, click on the Subscribe & Save link below
Polls