Staff Reporter
TWENTY-FIVE Al Jazeera English (AJE) staff resigned last month and more are set to follow, admit network bosses.
However, with “thousands” of applicants lining up to fill the void the channel has laughed off claims that it is facing a crisis.
Khalid Ali Johar, Al Jazeera’s human resources manager, told Gulf Times: “This is not a red line for us to be worried about. It’s a normal cycle when you talk of HR; people come in and people leave. We had 25 resignations by the end of March which is a normal figure regarding turnover in a large organisation like ours.”
Al Jazeera English was launched in a wave of publicity in 2006.
With main offices in Doha, London, Washington DC and Kuala Lumpur the channel exceeded all expectations to reach 100mn households in 60 countries.
However, the station’s increasing popularity, and relevance within the political and media arena, has been marred in recent weeks by reports of high profile resignations and a growing feeling of discontent among staff.
According to one insider, as many as 50 employees will have gone by the end of April with a hundred more contemplating their futures – a fifth of the Doha workforce.
The insider added that many workers were now close to “burn out”.
However, Khalid yesterday dismissed the claims as “exaggeration” and blamed “rumour” for the recent bad press.
“We are supporting a number of efforts to retain our staff. I wouldn’t say there is a serious staff shortage, and we are using the help of freelancers in cases where we happen to be short staffed. There is no burn out issue,” he said.
As well as staff shortages, a lack of effective management and a loss of promised benefits, such as a second flight home a year and full health and dental cover, have been cited for growing disillusionment within the workforce. There is also a feeling that the English service has fallen victim to jealousy from its Arabic sister channel.
Again, Khalid refuted the claims – although he did admit that dental cover had been shelved after the merger in 2006 of Al Jazeera’s four TV channels.
He said: “It used to be that Al Jazeera English had its own HR and finance services but after the merger it became a centralised support system across the network. The network also introduced a common salary scale that applies to all. There is no favouritism between the Arab and English channel. There was no pay restructuring; people have been mapped according to the salary scale.
“And no-one else provides an annual flight home for an employee, his wife and three kids up to 18.”
Khalid also denied that “a lack of effective management” was damaging the channel’s output, saying: “Every channel has its own management and they decide on the strategy of that channel. We have weekly meetings with AJE and their management team and I think it’s a very effective method of communication.
“We have timelines where we try to push for certain issues to be completed and closed, and we have been very effective in terms of filling up the vacancies that are within the AJE channel.
“We actually had an open forum a couple of months ago with top management and employees across the network and most of the issues raised there were very minor.
“I think it’s normal in any organisation, especially in a situation where you have four channels brought under one umbrella, that there will be complaints. But I also believe nobody reaches 100% job satisfaction.”
When Al Jazeera English first launched it promised to revolutionise news coverage, especially in the Middle East, with uncensored reporting and open debate. Now with increasing talk of a relaunch coming, another fear among staff is that the channel’s “vision” will be lost.
Again, Khalid said this was. “rumour”
A spokesman added: “There will be no relaunch. We are currently introducing new programmes and we are working on pilots, but that’s part of the natural progression of a TV channel. We are always looking to improve.”
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