How is Raqmiyat helping to fill the skills gap?
Our IT staffing business dates back to 2004. We started offering this as value-added service predominantly for the banking industry, where Raqmiyat has a strong foothold with our own products such as cheque clearing systems and payment gateways. Later, we moved into the government sector. Currently, our IT staffing portfolio has more than 400 resources deployed with 50 active customers across the UAE, Bahrain, and KSA. We are a technology company, and we can provide an entry-level help desk resource all the way up to a highly specialised AI expert. We cover the whole technology stack.
Is it more challenging to staff IT projects today than say five years ago?
As technology keeps advancing, the cost of acquiring skills has increased. This is a highly competitive market but unregulated. We have seen many small-time staffing companies mushrooming across the country, offering their services cheap and this has led to severe margin erosion. We are addressing this challenge by going up the value chain of IT skills.
There was a time when finding the right skill was also an issue. But, this has changed with the onset of rapid technological evolution, and candidates have had to ramp up their efforts with training and certifications to hone their skills and keep pace with changing tech landscape. This has an impact on our training costs while managing a workforce.
What kind of skill sets are in high demand now?
Right now, the most sought-after skills are in the cybersecurity space, and we are also driving that as a focus area because Raqmiyat has a fully-fledged cybersecurity practice. Apart from security, there is also a robust demand for ERP experts. We are an Oracle shop, and we have always been known for our quality Oracle specialists. However, in the last one year, there has also been an increasing demand for SAP consultants, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Do you see a demand for skills in new areas such as data scientists and analytics?
We are seeing a demand for data scientists in industries such as aviation and media, and also for Hadoop developers and Big Data analysts.
How do you make sure your workers are a good match for the job?
Raqmiyat has mastered the art of match-making. We have a two-pronged approach with the presales team going the extra mile to understand what the client needs beyond a job description, identifying the hidden nuances of the department requisitioning the particular skill or a group of skills, while the recruitment team tests and screens candidates who can deliver on the requirements for the job with the right skills.
What are the benefits of workforce-as-a-service (WaaS) model for customers?
We are in the business of selling careers. It is a common knowledge that a content employee is more often a productive one when their career is mapped out by the organisation with a growth path both in terms of earning and learning. What we guarantee to our clients is a productive and quality workforce.
The biggest benefit of the WaaS model is that it completely eradicates direct HR overheads and the cost of support functions, which enables our customers to focus on their core business. Another benefit is you can hire a ‘plug-and-play’ resource because you don’t have to train them, and they can be on the job from day one. This is ideal for companies who don’t want to hire or train new employees and it saves them huge upfront investments as well.
Additionally, the WaaS recruiters stay abreast with the ever-changing work environments and labour laws. They know how to recruit of out the box. At Raqmiyat, we make our recruitment team go through regular technology enablement sessions and labour law training. The team is also trained to hire quality resources using social media effectively, not just job boards.
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