Recruiting Blue Collar Workers for the Middle East

Employing Blue Collar workers in FM in the Middle East?

There is a common misconception in the middle East among expats regarding blue collar workers which I have come up against time and time again. It goes a little something like “The blue collar workforce are not skilled in their trades, they are under trained and unqualified, and you cannot expect to get good quality work out of them.”

I wholeheartedly disagree with this sentiment, I believe the reason this opinion has permeated across the region is purely down to poor recruiting, and as a result people receive a poor service or a service below expectations. When this happens frequently, it is inevitable that this understanding develops.

In defense of the recruiting managers over the years; the Middle East has been growing at such a rapid rate, often the need to simply have someone….. anyone….. outweighs the need for good quality staff, and often with very short mobilization periods managers do not feel that time is on their side and so they make employment decisions hastily. If a company has won a contract which requires 100 additional staff to operate, that is a huge administrative undertaking on its own, throw in a 90 day mobilization timeframe to advertise, interview and recruit, process, transport and house in your country, get visas insurance etc. and then get trained up, you have a recipe for chaos and sleepless nights…

Over the last 13 years in the UAE I have done lots and lots of overseas recruitment for blue collar workers from the Asian subcontinent and from Africa so here are some of the things I have learned from doing so which would be worth considering before you embark on an overseas recruitment trip of your own;

1.??????Be selective about who you recruit with – You are going to need a local recruitment specialist in whichever country you have chosen to recruit in. There are many unscrupulous companies out there who force candidates to pay exorbitant amounts of money to them after the candidate has been selected which throws the candidates into huge debt before they have even started working for you. You need to ensure that the companies you deal with are fully vetted and do not force candidates to pay these kinds of fees. Ask for references of companies and workers in your country so you can verify that none of these goings on have…… gone on to people in the past. If you suspect that they may have done then avoid at all costs.

There are fees which are completely legitimate such as medicals and document verification etc. however, be sure that is all your candidates will be paying.

2.??????Be selective about where you recruit – taking India as an example, certain cities are renowned for producing better skilled workers for certain trades. Selecting a local recruitment agent who understands these nuances and plans your trip accordingly based on your requirements is important. The last thing you want is to arrive a city with 2,000 hopeful applicants, none of which are going to meet your expectations….

3.??????Be prepared for long days – when a recruitment company has placed an add in the local paper of the selected cities there will most probably be thousands of hopeful applicants, you want to see as many suitable applicants as possible so be prepared to start early and stay late until you have seen as many as you can.

4.??????Set minimum standards before you go - ?create an exam, a practical assessment, document / certification review, and / or and interview assessment, decide what is the minimum level you will accept and then stick to it. Without this, the selection process is very subjective and becomes a comparison against other candidates rather than each person meeting an objective criteria. It is easy for the baseline of acceptability to move when you comparing hundreds of applicants against each other, at which point you find yourself selecting people who do not meet the requirements you set out at the beginning.?But that are “better than that guy”.

5.??????Prescreening is very important – you have limited time which makes time very precious, you do not want to spend time with candidates who are no where near your requirements. The way I have accomplished good prescreening (assuming you have already established candidates have the appropriate qualification / certification) is by using a simple written exam. It is written in English, has some numeracy questions, and some technical questions. If a candidate reaches a certain grade on the exam I know several things; they can read, write, and understand English to a given level, they have a given standard of numeracy, and they have a base level of technical knowledge I want. I can issue the exam in large numbers of candidates of candidates in a controlled environment and then only interview the ones who have met the given pass mark. This saves a huge amount of time wasting with ineligible candidates.

** note – English skills are increasingly important in FM as the industry becomes more and more IT driven and because most technical manuals are written in English**

6.??????Interview quickly and efficiently – This comes down to the sheer volume of candidates you can expect to encounter, you will not have the luxury of spending a long time with each candidate, Identify a handful of key things you need the candidates to know / possess / ?be competent in, find a way of quickly assessing if the candidate meets that particular thing, then with each candidate set out to find out those key things as quickly as you can. They either meet the requirements or they don’t, this may sound cut throat but there is little point in spending time with a candidate who doesn’t meet the requirements, its wastes their time as well as yours.

7.??????Let unsuccessful candidates know quickly – this achieves 2 things; 1) It reduces the amount of stress and anxiety for the candidate in the uncertainty of the assessment process. 2) it allows them to leave the premises which reduces the volume of people floating around, and by extension, it reduces the organizational burden on the staff trying to conduct the assessments and interviews.

8.??????Make final staff selections at the end of the trip – it is temping to offer a candidate you like a position at the end of the first day, however, resist this temptation. Place them on a shortlist and inform them they have made the list, tell them the last day of the trip and that they will be informed of a final decision on that day. This gives you time to see all candidates in all cities and to make a final selection from a full pool of shortlisted candidates. Expect to lose a few candidates who receive offers elsewhere in those few days, this is always disappointing, however, is a small price to pay for ensuring you get the best candidates all-round.

If you consider these points prior to and during a recruitment trip for blue collar workers I am sure you will select very good candidates and I am sure your customers will have a positive experience. If enough people in the region have enough positive experiences I am sure the negative perception of the blue collar workforce will be replaced with a positive one.

Happy new year folks!

Adam Hoult.