The Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority has received the top award for MENA’s “Best Nationalisation Initiative” at the HR MENA Excellence Awards.
The HR MENA Excellence Awards, which were a highlight of the 12th Human Capital Forum MENA hosted this year in Dubai, rewarded organisations and individuals in the region for their proven excellence and outstanding HR practices and achievements.
The award for the “Best Nationalisation Initiative” recognised the QFC Regulatory Authority’s learning and development programme, Al Masar (The Path), which distinguished itself from the competition to land the top award by demonstrating leading-edge innovation, a comprehensive approach to nationalisation, and quantifiable results.
The QFC Regulatory Authority launched Al Masar in September 2015. The programme leads and supports Qatari employees through five well-defined development stages by delivering a structured approach to the different competencies, professional and management training, technical skills, and mentoring required for each stage of development.
Al Masar is driven by the employee and it is aligned with individual employees’ professional ambition, career objectives and also moves at the pace at which employees seek to realise their ambition. As part of the programme, employees have customised individual development plans to help them achieve their goals, which can include international assignments, local or regional secondments, advanced degrees, and targeted technical and leadership preparation.
“Leadership and behavioural assessments, such as psychometric testing, have really helped us to pinpoint the qualities in employees that allows us to plan better for their professional development and, ultimately, their success,” said Eisa Ahmed Abdulla, the QFC Regulatory Authority’s Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, Corporate Services. “The individual development plans we create demonstrate our commitment to our Qatari employees, and provide a clear path to success”.
He explained that as part of Al Masar, the QFC Regulatory Authority had also created a proactive succession plan that positioned the organisation’s Qatari employees at the heart of that plan. In 2016, the second year of Al Masar, the programme expanded to include the more specialised areas of the QFC Regulatory Authority’s work, the commencement of an international secondment programme, with the first employee placed in February 2017, and the development of a Financial Sector Leadership Master’s Programme, which will be the first of its kind in the region and one of few similar programs globally.
Accepting the award on behalf of the QFC Regulatory Authority, Abdulla said: “We are honoured to receive this award. Al Masar has had an immensely positive impact on the mission, staffing, budget and continuity of the Regulatory Authority. Our nationalisation effort is benefitting not only our Qatari employees, for whom it provides a framework for achievement, but the organisation and Qatar’s financial sector. Our mission is to create a legacy of financial regulation in Qatar, and with Al Masar, we are succeeding”.
“Al Masar has brought us closer to our goal to be an employer of choice for Qatari nationals,” Mr Abdulla concluded. “The award for ‘Best Nationalisation Initiative’ will motivate us even more in 2017 as we continue to seek new ways to attract the best and the brightest candidates while ensuring their path to leadership and subject matter expert roles in financial regulation for the State of Qatar”.
The QFC Regulatory Authority is an independent regulatory body established in 2005 by Article 8 of the QFC Law. It regulates firms that conduct financial services in or from the QFC. It has a broad range of regulatory powers to authorise, supervise and, when necessary, discipline firms and individuals. The QFC Regulatory Authority regulates firms using principle-based legislation of international standard, modelled closely on that used in major financial centres.