Jordan: the country of professional human capital

By Tareq Rasheed
International Consultant and Trainer

Human Capital is the most crucial capital for sustainability and the development of countries. Since the 1950’s, Jordan has been one of the top countries in the Arab world and Middle East to have the most professional human capital.

His Majesty the late King Hussein had said in one of his most important speeches that  “The human is the most expensive and valuable resource we own”; and it proved always to be true. For development in any country, there are seven sequential strategies to be applied:

• Teaching: Education is the most critical field of development. Education is the pipeline for all other professions; engineers, doctors, IT specialists and finance experts are all the output of an excellent education system. Jordan is one of the best countries in education; locally, regionally and internationally at both school and university levels. Jordanian teachers in the 1960’s till today support most Arab countries especially the Gulf with well-educated and professional teachers

• Training: Teaching provides knowledge while training aims to develop skills. In the training sector, there are Jordanian trainers who work both locally and regionally with a very professional and reputable experience in the field

• Developing: This requires continuous learning and gaining of skill in several Jordanian universities and in applied scientific colleges; engineering, medicine, law and others. There are associations for graduates; these associations provide their members with continuous development

• Qualifying: The role continues for the different associations to provide their members with professional certificates from well-known bodies and organisations. This results in very qualified human capital in Jordan in almost most professions

Once these four strategies are applied, the result would be a very professional outcome to serve the country, through the following three strategies: 

• Delegation: The responsibility of managers and leaders in Jordanian organisations, both public and private, to start delegating qualified employees

• Empowerment: Through continuous delegation strategies, the Jordanian Human Capital is empowered and will now be responsible to manage and lead and thus develop Jordan for the future

• Creating second and third layers of professional experts would help Jordan grow and develop

The Human Resource Departments in the private and public sectors will play the important role of the previous seven strategies that will lead to professional and the continuous development of Jordan. The strategic functions of the Human Resources Departments include:

• Human Capital Planning: Analysing and determining the needed human resources from different specialists

• Job Analysis: Providing the job titles and job descriptions for different departments

• Developing Personal Development Plans: Where career paths are defined for each position and the development paths through training, coaching and mentoring

• Performance Evaluation: Setting the needed Key Performance Indicators for different objectives and evaluating the human capital performance through a well designed criteria

• Design of salary scales and benefits for different job titles

• Designing with the finance department the incentive system for the best employees in performance; this will help job enrichment and growth

• Recruitment: By setting the selection criteria and conducting the interviews of candidates to select the best

The Jordanian Human Capital has proved through several benchmark studies and assessments to be one of the best both regionally and internationally through the guidance and support of His Majesty King Abdullah.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine