Selma Roth Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Next time you knock on your boss's door to negotiate a salary increase, you may first want to check how much you are worth. A new website and application do the trick for you. Saudiwages.com is a project by 22 Saudi men and women who thought the country urgently needs more transparency for employees to know how much money they deserve to earn and for companies how much they should pay. Following its soft-launch mid-June, the website has already attracted over 5,000 visitors during the first two weeks. The salary check can be done for free until Aug. 15, when the full version of the website, which will include additional services, is launched. An Android app has also been made available a few days ago and already downloaded more than 600 times, while the app is expected to be launched on Apple'sApp Store within a week. “We think this website was highly needed in the Saudi labor market,” commented Turad El-Amri, who founded Saudi Wages and calls himself the “godfather” of the initiative. El-Amri, who is also the founder of recruitment company Bait Assawadah and regularly appears on TV shows to talk about unemployment, remarked that the test had been created for anyone interested in working in the Saudi labor market, including Saudis and non-Saudis and whether they currently reside inside or outside the Kingdom. Following five years of research, the team came up with a formula to calculate a fair salary for individuals that visit the website, sign up using their Twitter account, and enter their details, including personal, educational and professional qualifications. The process takes about four minutes, El-Amri said, and the result is a personal report that details the “fair salary in the Kingdom on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis,” which will then be sent by email if the person promotes Saudi Wages on Twitter. According to El-Amri, what makes the calculation different from other agencies is that they do not just give an average based on a person's field of work and experience, but tailors to the individual's situation, taking into account nationality and gender; level and place of education; soft skills such as planning, self-motivation and verbal communication; and the employee's desired number of weekly working days, hours and shifts. Asked why the website requests information that should not affect how much someone earns like nationality and gender, El-Amri said: “We like to be close to the reality. A degree from Harvard or Oxford is not the same as a degree from another country.” He added that Saudi Wages sent their formula to several institutions worldwide for evaluation and received very positive feedback. They also keep their formula up to date by continuously assessing the Saudi labor market and adjusting for unemployment, standard of living and inflation rate. Mother company Saudi Wages International & Ratbi Trading cooperated with organizations from 10 countries, including the US, UK, South Africa, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to develop the formula. It is currently preparing to launch the same service in the rest of the GCC at the end of this year, while also looking for partners to market their product abroad. However, knowing how much you worth is one thing; another thing is to get what you deserve. The question is whether Saudi Wages will be able to help people get a fair compensation for their work. Since its launch, 87 percent of those that sent their feedback stated the salary they should get according to the website is 10 to 20 percent higher than what they actually earn. El-Amri is nevertheless positive. “Wages depend on demand and supply, and the more people understand they are underpaid the more pressure [they will exert] on companies,” he said, adding this is the reason the website and application are free for the time being and his company welcomes all feedback. “The most important thing is awareness.” And awareness in the country indeed seems to be growing. King Khalid Foundation recently stated that a Saudi family of five should not have an income less than SR8,900 a month, while the Ministry of Labor is also trying to boost salaries in the private sector, among others, through its Nitaqat program. On the other hand, El-Amri believes there are also a significant number of employees who are highly overpaid. By using the website, companies will become aware which of their employees earn more than they deserve and be able to rectify this. The founder also hopes that with the help of his website, within two years the country will have a clear index that tells employees and companies how much someone should earn.
