A workshop on Best Practices in Human Resources was held in Manama, Bahrain, as part of Tamkeen (Labour Fund)’s facilitation of the Hewitt Best Employers in the Middle East study which is being conducted by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting firm. 

"Bahrain has always had a strong reputation for HR excellence and pioneering new standards," said Tamkeen's vice president for enterprise and human capital development Dr. Ahmed Abdul Ghani Al-Shaikh,

"This study matches our work in developing the larger picture of the workplace of the future and in building a rich, scientific database of trends and requirements of employees and employers alike. BCCI will also participate in this initiative, as we believe that this study will help all stakeholders to understand the future and plan for it and urge companies to register with Hewitt Associates in this eye-opening study."

The workshop focused on HR best practices which enable leading organisations to become Hewitt Best Employers around the world.

“Becoming a Best Employer isn’t easy, yet it is nothing which requires overly complex strategies or people practices. Its core is essentially a belief amongst leaders that employees can drive a sustainable competitive advantage,” said workshop facilitator and consulting leader, Hewitt Associates, Sandeep Chaudhary.

Hewitt argued that becoming a Best Employer isn’t merely an HR initiative, but an organisational requirement since Best Employers generate higher business results. The data showed that Best Employers have a higher Total Shareholder Return than the Rest of the organizations they surveyed.

Hewitt’s Best Employers database comprises benchmarks from thousands of organisations representing millions of employees worldwide. Hewitt analysed this data to show that Best Employers have higher shareholder returns by having higher levels of employee engagement (and therefore higher employee productivity and lower turnover), more satisfied customers, improved organizational productivity (measured through sales per employee) and a resulting growth in shareholder returns.

The workshop also shed light on how an organisation can strive to become a Best Employer.

Hewitt launched its inaugural study in September, and will announce the results by April 2009. All participants will get four complementary reports that will provide insights about their own organisation, as well as benchmark them externally to the rest of the market.

Participation in the study is confidential and only the final list of Best Employers will be publicly shared. Judging for the final list will be conducted on a classified basis where the Judging Panel will be given coded data and they will not know which organisation is associated with which set of data, until they have picked the Best Employers. – TradeArabia News Service