Human Resources Department is endangered in the Middle East, Become your own HR

I was asked of my take on the Human Resources as a department in Dubai companies in general, lots of questions were asked on the credibility of how this delicate arm of any organisation is handled or managed. Key factors were highlighted most of which reflected lack of trust in this crucial department. Why didn't I get that project/promotion/corner office? I hear this questions everyday. Low morale and sense of unfairness have creep-ed into the professional space. The question is, who is responsible for keeping employees happy and productive? Do you still have someone to talk to when you have issues pressing you at the workplace, it could be health related, family, relationship with other employees or even discomfort with the uniform you wear at work. Is there any distinction between staff and the HR professionals?

Let the things outside the job performance stay outside the job! As you develop friendship beyond the work place based on shared history or even bonding over a common outside interests such as sports or music, do not let this show! Favoritism is exactly what it sounds like when someone is not doing a great job but gets all the praises for reasons outside the job performance. For instance, a manager consistently offers an employee the best and most highly-regarded projects, even though that employee does not perform well enough to deserve them. Or perhaps an employee is offered a promotion over someone else who has been at the company longer and has more experience.

You do not need to be dependent anymore, on a department that has proved to you it can be virtually absent in the wake of factors affecting you but still run your payroll. The HR department no-longer attracts candidates who care about staff well-being. Yes it the department that has been commercialized and now presents as visa making business. Most company owners now assigns the HR department along the sales and marketing their revenue targets. You too can now adopt HR as your foster professionalism. Be your own HR. Below are a few key factors for smooth professional year;

1. Unidentified potential - equip yourself to take up more responsibilities and challenges, highlight your strengths at every point if you do not want to belong to the bulk. Not everybody may get the chance to bring their talents and skills to the table, but that should not mean you pull out of the competition. Make your talent an organisational nuisance if its the only way to command your manager's attention to your work.
2. Moral decline - The moment you designate yourself as bookkeeper of favoritism and every other aspect within the company that you consider negative or does not favor you, is the moment your growth stagnates. Moral decline consequentially reduce your value to an organisation, it also hurts the overall growth of the company which leads to the loss of assets like you! Ooh and loss of jobs.
3. Desertion - Well, you either work on your grass to keep it green or be looking at other peoples greener grasses, you don't know how much they endure their grass. Same way if you fail to keep your sense of resentment under check and desert the organisation because you feel your dedication is unappreciated, this is my advice for you; wherever you end up you will not be appreciated since you are a performer seeking audience instead of focusing on the job.
4. Enhance communication - You are not working with prophets! Nobody would know your inner feelings or thoughts unless you communicate well. Ensure you confidently spell out what you like but emphasize on what you dislike even if it means writing it down and placing it on the desk of your colleagues. This might seem rude considering you are working in a multicultural environment, don't worry, this will not negatively affect you, being respected for who you are is synonym for multi-culture.
5. Benefits - You have denied yourself your annual bonuses and so have you done to your other colleagues. You will never accrue any benefits from an organisation if you hop from one place to another. By now you are aware that the visa and health requirements in all gulf countries is a national economic activity. This is arguably the main task of your HR presently. Yes they have been reduced to visa agents. The irony is that the least paid professionals are the very purchasers of this expensive service. Generally it is cheaper to retain an employee than to find and train a new one. The reason why your pay is lower than your dispensation is because we never all pass the blanket loyalty test, some people have experience of leaving each contract halfway and paying back to the company the money he/she has been paid over the period as they leave. 
   
6. Conflict resolution - Again multi-culture is to blame for your numerous internal conflicts? If you are more than two months old in Dubai then I expect you to be a good fit for the city's wide range of personalities. The HR now has no time to investigate complains such as harassment both verbal and physical, stolen property or even broken promises from the managers, you see? You can actually resolve some issues without reporting it to the twenty-four year old HR coordinator who has a bigger problem than you, called 'boyfriend/girlfriend'
7. Safety first - Absence of safety knowledge is a potential injury source. You may disagree because its not your responsibility to ensure that work equipment are safe. Most of the time the person who gets hurt is the one using the equipment which is not always the HR. Even something like a desk that is not ergonomically positioned when it causes an injury is a good way to find out if your sick-off days will not be deducted from your salary. 
8. Accommodation - The policies governing how you live in that incommodious hostel is ever changing. You remain at the mercy of the person allocating rooms to place you with atleast someone from your country for behavioral comfort.  personally cannot deal with a roommate who cooks rice and fish every morning at 05:00am for breakfast. I cannot be surprised anymore when a family member is blocked from visiting on Friday noon, why? people are praying. Apply point 4 as much as you can. Speak out, speak out speak out.
9. Have integrity - In my present role I have asked a colleague why they were chatting with their phones instead of finishing their work and I received this response "we are not doing anything because the managers are not here" This statement reflected volumes not only that the manager may be a tyrant but also that the employee lacks the finesse to carry the job, in fact the employee here betrays the trust that management has in him/her. Mind what you do when nobody is watching! Never deceive yourself that wider cultural horizon permits you to act someway. That looser you may be copying their arrogance, integrity has the same definition in their country. 
10. Be your own ambassador - This normally should be an ongoing process and in a positive way. There is nothing wrong with injecting your private hobbies into your work especially if it improves the quality of your work. If laughter calms you down in hard situations don't hold back, sing your favorite cartoon song while leaving office in the evening, everybody have a childish side of them including that lemon-faced manager whose key objective is assure the respect barriers are not overstepped. Many companies gives specific guidelines on acceptable characters traits yet you still see people get numerous smoking breaks in busy operation!