Kuwait-based Alghanim Industries emerged as the best employer for 2009, followed by Oman's BankMuscat and the Middle East division of Deloitted & Touche. But UAE's six companies feature in the top 12 list - Fine Hygenic Paper being the best among employers in the country. Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting firm announced names of the Best Employers in Middle East at an awards ceremony in Dubai on Wednesday. Hewitt Best Employers in Middle East 2009 are: 1. Alghanim Industries, Kuwait 2. BankMuscat SAOG, Oman 3. Deloitte & Touche (M.E.), Middle East 4. Fine Hygenic Paper FZE, UAE 5. First Gulf Bank, UAE 6. Jones Lang LaSalle- Middle East & North Africa 7. Marriott International, UAE 8. Microsoft Gulf FZ LLC and Microsoft Egypt 9. Procter and Gamble Near East- Beirut Office 10. The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai 11. Emerging International Best Employer from Middle East: Jumeirah Group, UAE 12. Emerging SME Best Employer in Middle East: Magrudy Enterprises LLC, UAE The CEOs and HR heads of the best employers were honored in person at the event. The study revealed some other key findings. It has emphasized the value of the HR function as it “plays the role of an expert people administrator and strategic business partner.” According to Hewitt's research, the best employers are better at career development, they provide better benefits, are better at delivering the employment promise, make significantly better investments in employee development, are better at work assignment and performance management and are better at making employees feel valued. Debabrat Mishra, consulting business leader - Middle East, Hewitt Associates, said: “This study is of tremendous value to the region as it raises the standard of people practices across the Middle East. This was a need that was not being met in the market, and we were very pleased to be able to support a much-needed initiative.” Hewitt's Study partners included the Dubai Knowledge Village, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, the Tamkeen (Labour Fund) in Bahrain, and the American Chambers of Commerce in Egypt. Dr Ayoub Kazim, executive director of the first Study Partner, agreed. Earlier this year, Hewitt reported that the representative employee base registered for the study was over 150,000 employees from across the GCC and Levant region. The study is now the definitive source of employee and human capital research across the Middle East region, with the largest benchmark database on employee engagement, organization culture, nationalization, high-performance, leadership development and many other people practices. “Our endeavor is to make the study findings easily accessible to practitioners so that it benefits the region's Human Capital development. Starting in mid-May, we are conducting round-tables, wherein we would be sharing the findings of the study with HR practitioners and business leaders,” Mishra said.
