We are receiving feedback from our business in UAE that Emiratis are paid higher salaries than TCN's, which is borne out by market data (Korn Ferry, WTW, Mercer & Radford). Does anyone else with employees in UAE have a defined policy in place, perhaps separate pay ranges for the two groups or an X% weighting added to Emiratis salaries? Or do you just find you tend to pay more on hire for Emiratis than a TCN doing the same job?
With the equality legislation that is coming into force in UAE we are trying to determine how we deal with a differential between the two groups of employees. Currently we operate one pay range and tend to max it out for our Emirati employees, but that has caused issues due to other pay policies we have in place globally.
Anything you are willing to share is gratefully received!
We have not experienced this issue yet, but I'm sure we will going forward! May I ask what the equality legislation is that is coming into force?
Hello there, I used to live and work in Dubai as a C&B Manager working for a large multinaitonal and we also found that we had to pay local emiratis at the top end of our salary ranges in order to attract them. The other way that we attracted them was through accelerated development programs that allowed them to get higher pay rises. We also had broad banding in place that cover a very wide range of salaries which allowed for scope to set appropriate salaries to attract emiratis and other nationals