Virtual Human Resources (VHR) is expanding in the region. Jochebed Menon speaks to the team and learns about the new sectors and markets they are foraying into and how ethical recruitment is crucial to their operations
Danny Brooks, CEO and Founder of VHR
What brought you out to the Middle East?
I was contracted to supply staff in the UAE to a client 15 years ago. This then spawned into working with Etihad Airways and several other major aerospace and engineering clients. We grew with those clients and in some cases we became their H.R. department carrying out all of the client’s recruitment, which we still do for many large clients today.
What are some sectors that you’re looking to get into?
One of the reasons for VHR’s success over the years has been that our main focus has been on our sectors and clients. We do not wish to dilute that focus as we pride ourselves on being a specialist recruitment agency. Based on the transferable skills and the fact our clients are expanding into these areas, we are looking at expanding our renewable energy sector and are also developing our science and technology sectors.
We are looking to expand within our existing sectors and solutions, such as offering contract staffing solutions in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC, plus ground up expansion into North America.
Shed some light on the business in the UAE and how you scout for the best talent in the market?
The main sectors that VHR focuses on in the UAE are Construction/Civil Engineering & Defence/Aerospace. We work with large subcontractors on projects such as One Zabeel, Sea World and several other projects across the region. The big push is now on Saudi Arabia, there’s a lot of work going on, particularly with the Red Sea developments.
The UAE and indeed the wider GCC are markets that people want to work in, so often the key is not “finding” people but identifying who is the best fit for our client. VHR’s experienced teams and sector focus mean that we know what good looks like, and can ensure we deliver the right people to the clients.
What have been some of the challenges VHR encounters in the region?
By far the biggest challenge remains the challenge to get paid on time and as per contract, I am sure this is not unusual to VHR. As VHR provides its own staff to clients, the risks are higher on VHR more than “traditional” recruitment companies who source staff for client’s permanent teams. We must pay staff each month by law, yet clients can and do take increasing times to pay us.
COVID travel issues have meant that the labour pool has been quite stretched inside of the UAE. However, you can bring people in on a tourist visa and turn them into an employment visa, which we have done. I think one of the initiatives that we have adopted successfully over the year is creating our talent through VHR’s tailored programs.
Ethics is still a big issue. There remains several companies who are prepared to offer “free recruitment” to end users. The issue being, the staff sourced are the ones who are “paying” for the jobs. Nothing in life is free and the fact that those at the lowest level are paying for a chance for work in some areas is worrying. At VHR, we pride ourselves on being an ethical recruitment firm. This is at the front and centre of everything we do, and we make sure all the workers are treated fairly. The staff receive good living accommodation, working arrangements, and get paid well.
Walk us through your recruitment process.
Each client has their own individual process, and we work hand in hand with them to ensure that our solution is seamless. As a general overview, our experienced teams technically qualify the individuals via interviews and tests. Once that’s been passed, we will then vet their CV to check their employment histories and qualifications, carrying out references as appropriate. The final list is then submitted for review by the client with final interviews and tests.
Adrian Mansfield, Divisional Direct for the Middle East, VHR
What’s changed since you joined VHR?
When I joined VHR, our focus was on aerospace & aviation, and we then expanded to construction, alongside a few other areas. In the past four years, we have broadened our focus here in the GCC which has been a good challenge for us.
VHR has been in the UAE since 2006, but as part of the programme to set up in Abu Dhabi, we took our business “on shore” so that we can sponsor unlimited licenses. This sets us apart from most of our competition who are still operating from freezones and can only really offer partial solutions to clients. Being here for so long and having become part of the true UAE economy has set us apart over the last few years.
Why is there a need for a recruitment agency, especially in the construction sector?
There are two main advantages; flexibility and time – an agency can offer you the ability to save time reviewing the hundreds of applications you may get for a role and focus on speaking to just the two or three who can meet your needs.
Flexibility is not something all agencies can offer, but one that VHR can offer. In many of our locations our clients crave flexible staffing. Most of our clients work on projects and those projects have a timeframe. In the GCC the same is true, but the only way to meet the visa needs was to bring staff on permanently. This can lead to large swings in staffing numbers and lots of risks and time lost for clients.
VHR has solved that issue. VHR provide flexible labour support at all levels, not just “blue collar”. We supply manpower to all levels of the construction space here in the region. We are unique because we “employ” that flexible labour force, then we offer clients the ability to bring people in for a project for six or nine months, and then we place them somewhere else. The costs and risks for the client are limited and known at the outset.
From a client’s perspective, they get the quality labour they need for a project. They don’t have to worry about releasing a whole load of people at the end of that project and putting them back into the market for work.
Possibly as important, if not more so, the labour/staff get stability, a full visa with us and full employment status. They get their salary every month, whether they’re working on a project or not. We cover all those bits and pieces, so they get that stability of work.
Can we talk about ethical labour standards especially in the engineering and construction fields in the Middle East?
One of the big issues here in the Gulf is the cost of getting an employment visa and travel. There remains far too many agencies and clients who are willing to pass that cost on to the workforce and therefore leave that workforce carrying a debt burden before they have started work. As I’ve said before nothing is free and if you as a client aren’t sure who is paying for the flights and visa then ask the agency. If it’s not you and/or the agency don’t show it as part of their fees, then it’s going to be the worker.
It’s incredibly difficult for any worker to get out of that debt because you’re telling somebody that you’re going to get Dhs2000 or Dhs3000 per month as a salary, and it costs them USD10,000, or perhaps Dhs50,000 to get here in the first place. They’re simply never going to pay that debt off.
I have always been an advocate for Ethical Practices and as Director of VHR I was part of the formation of the Fair Labour Alliance that works with clients to help educate on the benefits of ethical labour supply.
VHR offer all our staff free recruitment and we would not work with a client that expected the staff to pay for their roles. Thus, with VHR, staff never have to worry about getting into debt just to get a job. We cover it all.
The companies we work with are very much of the opinion that everything should be free to the employee. The staff don’t need to pay for everything. The whole salary goes to them without any deductions for visas or travel.
When it comes to working conditions, we work very closely with our clients to ensure the individuals we supply have proper accommodation and it’s of a suitable standard.
Unfortunately, there have been a few contractors in the region’s construction sector that have had bad work camps. We know where the good camps are, we know where the good locations are, and we help our labour and workers find the best accommodation. But equally, we work with employers and know which are the better ones.
What is your recruitment agency doing to lift the labour standards in the region?
We’ve got two major factors that we try and focus on. First is emphasising the benefits of ethical recruitment to the workers and our clients. If you’re paying a good fee for quality labour on the delivery of a big project, the result will be excellent for both the worker and the client.
After all you wouldn’t buy an expensive car and then fit it with poor tyres or put bad gas in it. Why would you staff a project with staff who are so burdened by debt they simply aren’t focused on your project?
Likewise, staff treated well and paid a fair wage (free of debt), can see how they are help themselves and their families. That leads to our clients getting a motivated and committed workforce.
The second is for us to ensure we are working closely with our clients to make sure that they are abiding by local labour laws. We ensure that we have access to the project leaders and our staff and review this regularly. So, if there’s ever an issue or a problem, we could try and resolve that as quickly as possible. We have in the past, not very often, but we have had to act against clients. We’ve taken people off projects for certain clients because we didn’t feel their working practices were right, and that again goes back to flexibility from the point of view of the candidate.
Stephen Grisdale, General Manager – Construction
Tell us about your role at VHR.
I joined VHR in September 2020. I’ve been here in the UAE since 1999 and have worked on various major construction projects including the Dubai Airport, Abu Dhabi Midfield Terminal, and several high-rise buildings. I’ve been involved in most of the mega projects in one way or another. In my current role at VHR, I manage the Middle East in terms of moving VHR forward in mobilising staff to various construction projects within the region.
With your vast experience in the Middle East construction sector, please talk us through some of the new trends in the construction industry.
A lot of recent trends have been in relation to bring in the most modern techniques to the UAE construction sector. The implementation of things such as BIM systems have been put into place on all major projects, especially on the modelling side, increasing use of technologies on site, now even down to the supervisor levels.
Now everybody used iPads and laptops on-site with live modelling of the areas they are responsible for. Long gone are the days of paper-based systems and manual drawings. It means that we’ve got far better coordination of the services on a project and far better coordination between the different disciplines.
How is this impacting recruitment?
It means that the technical aspects are very much becoming more prevalent. It’s great to be a degreed engineer, but you need to be on board with the latest technologies moving forward.
Tell us why the construction sector requires the services of a recruitment agency.
Historically what has happened is companies have tended to hire directly and the costs involved with the onboarding side of things such as getting the visas and other details have been quite high.
We, as VHR, employ the people ourselves. We bring them in on our visas. We take care of all the onboarding, and we then lease out the staff to our various clients. This means we can cut down the recruitment time substantially. Often this would take clients six to 12 weeks, whereas VHR can deliver qualified staff to site in days not weeks.
We provide, in a lot of cases, accommodation for the staff. All of that is built into our tailor-made packages. We take care of the entire process of getting somebody either internally within the GCC, onboard, on the ground and ready to work.
This is the reason that our services are very well received, it’s a very clean and simple process. There is no doubt that the person who arrives on the site has all the legal requirements with regards to labour law and work visa, and they get straight to work. Another advantage is that when the projects end the process of removing staff from the site is very simple. They just send us written notifications and the people are removed from the site. After which we place them on other projects that we may have.
We work with some of the biggest construction and project management companies in the GCC.
We are looking at expanding our work in 2022 and increasing the footprint for our flexible solutions to cover the whole of the GCC, especially Saudi Arabia.
What have been some of the challenges the pandemic brought about?
The inability to travel has posed a bit of a challenge. People are not as keen to travel. They feel more secure in their home bases. I believe this will be a short-term issue. It seems that the world is certainly getting to grips with the pandemic now. It’s opening again for business worldwide. Some countries are further ahead than others, but I think that probably by the end of the second quarter of next year, I wouldn’t dare say that the pandemic will be finished, but it won’t be a pandemic per se.