Human resource experts from across Qatar met at Qatar University recently to launch the latest phase of a programme designed to help companies create new job skills’ criteria and better design their training and development.
The Qatar University Initiative for Life-long Learning (QUILL), launched last year, aims to enable companies to attract, retain and promote key talent.
Part of the university’s continuing education office (CEO), QUILL has a number of projects - all of which are underpinned by Qatar National Vision 2030 of helping support the development of the country’s workforce.
One of QUILL’s key projects - the Competency Frameworks Initiative - includes HR professionals from various fields of expertise in Qatar.
They are assessing organisations’ current provision of guidelines for job competencies - the integrated knowledge, skills, judgment and attributes that people need to perform a job effectively.
These can be general employability skills, such as communicating effectively, as well as technical abilities. While widely used internationally, competency frameworks are a relatively new concept in Qatar.
Working in teams, the experts will evaluate the usefulness of developing such competency frameworks in Qatar - looking at the benefits and challenges - before drafting prototype frameworks for employability skills and the field of HR at a range of skill levels.
Finally, they will create draft process guidelines to implement these frameworks. They will also review the training needs, provision of training and development and quality of training programmes in organisations across Qatar.
“This is an important project, which will help identify areas where we can further support organisations across Qatar as they focus on selecting and promoting the best talent to lead the country in the future,” Dr Taj Kardaman, head of the continuing education office, said.
“This is one of the countless efforts undertaken by many ministries and other organisations to prepare the workforce in Qatar for the QNV 2030 goals. The participation of these HR experts is testimony to the willingness of professionals from all sectors to develop HR practices fit to Qatar’s unique needs. Qatar University is a key partner in all these efforts as demonstrated by the success of the QUILL programme till date,” said Kevin Lamb, managing partner of Keystone Global Consulting Group who is working with QUILL on the project.
Community College of Qatar’s associate dean Dr Abdulnassir al-Tamimi said: “It is great that Qatar University’s continuing education office is leading the initiative to look at the possibility of developing and using competency frameworks that are useful across all organisations in Qatar. The first phase of the QUILL project resulted in the development of a very successful certification programme offered at Qatar University for young Qatari HR professionals. Participation in the second phase is very important to us as we want to ensure that we are aligning essential workplace competencies with our workforce programmes, which we are developing for government agencies and local industries.”