Raghavan Murthi is the Chief Executive of United Finance Company. Speaking to Vistas, Murthi visualizes the future and function of HR in the labour market in Oman. According to Murthi, the need for quality manpower in the Sultanate across industries is more pronounced than before. He feels given the meteoric growth, which the Sultanate is witnessing in the recent years, organizations have begun to realise the need for sound HR practices. HR as a profession and function is still in a nascent stage in Oman. Organizations will have to adopt and implement sound HR practices which are both customer and people centric. This is the challenge, which Murthi feels, will predominate, in the coming years.

Murthi spoke about of the vision of UFC, “UFC lives its Vision, Mission and Values. To this effect, we have plaques of our Vision, Mission and Values displayed at prominent locations at our head office and branches.
We have over the years  translated our Vision, Mission and Values into sound business practices. Our Company’s slogan, “Live the UFC Way” has inculcated a sense of  belongingness within our employees and inspires them in both their professional and personal lives.  Our in-house journal UNITED has been one of our primary vehicles to promote and nurture our values.”

Murthi believes in maintaining HR as a strategic function in their company. He says, “Our flat organization structure provides us the leverage to be responsive to changing market needs. Our process and practices foster employee development and engagement. We have a well-defined HR hierarchy with GM–HR heading the team and is assisted by the Head of HR and Manager–Training and their respective teams. Our focus is to build competencies within the organization to meet the current and future market needs. We have a detailed process in place to identify training needs, training delivery and assessment of training effectiveness. 
We have adopted the Balance Score Card as a performance measurement tool. We have an Omanization Committee headed by CEO which focuses on professional and personal development of our Omani staff. We are a decade-old company with 165 people as the working force.”  

The GM–HR is a member of their management committee and all committees/functional group has an HR representation. “We are in the financial services industry, and as in any service industry, one of the key differentiators after cash is the quality of people employed in the organization, as this has a direct bearing on the bottom lines of the company. We realize the need for appropriate and timely HR interventions to further our growth” adds Murthi.

Murthi asserts that one of their core HR objectives is to build the employee’s competency. He says they have identified job families and defined competencies for such job families. An employee’s performance is consistently measured against certain standards. The areas of development  are identified, and their in-house and External Training Programs focus on helping their employees to hone up their skills. The employees are encouraged fully to improve their skills to achieve their personal and organizational objectives. The staff is supported to acquire higher formal education in their respective professions.

UFC constantly tries to update themselves with the general trends in the industry. A long-term competency-based policy has been devised for sustenance and growth. The HR team is fully geared up to propel through this phase.

Murthi believes that the current scenario of labour market is in one sense, a proverbial “catch-22” situation. He opines, “the Sultanate is booming with business opportunities being converted into realities. On the flip side, we have a dearth of competent people to propel this growth. Today, sustenance of growth is the core challenge. The Sultanate may allow a limited number of competent immigrants with required knowledge experience and skills as citizens of a different class without any political rights for a lifetime. Evolvement of University education in Oman is a recent phenomenon. Therefore we would have to wait for something like two generations before these Universities can produce equitably competent HR for business needs”.

In his opinion, Government is doing every thing possible to encourage Omanis to get educated and acquire skill sets to get into economy as skilled staff. Primary/secondary schools, technical colleges, training colleges, Universities, affiliated twin professional programmes, all such options have been aggressively pursued by the Government.
“We are on the right track and the way forward is clear. The Ministry of Manpower is one of the best performing units of Government of Oman and is extremely interactive with trade, which augurs well. Soon Oman will face a challenge of brain drain also as other GCC countries start looking at Oman for their HR needs both Omani as well as expatriates”, Murthi concludes.