Almaras Consultancy's premium clients have included ictQatar, Aspire Zone and Gulf Drilling International, among others. However, apart from human resources (HR) consulting, the company also facilitates international standard assessment programmes, career guidance for students, graduates, parents and working adults, and provides a variety of HR-based best practices in strategic planning and recruitment services for both companies and individuals.

In fact, if it could be summed up, advancing Qatar's human potential is what drives Al Humaidi and through him, his company. Almaras is also a demonstrative reflection of the passion Al Humaidi feels for his homeland and the way he has structured the company to empower Qataris in the workplace. Through his vocation and traditional attire, the warm and amiable Al Humaidi is obviously a proud and involved Qatari, but he also carries with him, to a small but noticeable degree, the air of a distinguished British gentleman. This is no doubt influenced by his years spent in the United Kingdom (UK) as a diplomat in the Qatari embassy, and is an impression reinforced by his refined manner of speaking English and his sleek Jaguar automobile.

Indeed, Al Humaidi tells TheEDGE how he enjoyed his time in the UK immensely, learned a lot, made many friends and formed important business relationships there. Yet Al Humaidi's devotion to Qatar and the realisation of what he felt could contribute to the development of the local business environment, he says, is what led him back home to start Almaras.

Before his temporary change of career trajectory led to his stint in the UK (precipitated by his tenure as national director of a United Nations telecom training project), Al Humaidi spent most of his working life at Qtel as a human resources leader. Instead of approaching retirement age looking forward slowing down, he explains, Al Humaidi chose not to "waste" his knowledge but to instead reinvest it in Qatar and the promise of its populace. "It was a decision between working, returning and closing the chapter or setting up a consultancy company," Al Humaidi says of his venture, which opened for business in 2005. "I decided to set up Almaras, where I can use my experience. But it was also a recognition for the need for an organisation that can be sensitive to the needs of the country from the inside."

At the time, furthers Al Humaidi, Qatar was growing and changing rapidly. Though there were international HR companies here, and many have come to the country since, he explains how he sought to form a locally based organisation with a focus on effective Qatarisation, and to his knowledge was the first to do so. "There was a strong desire in me [to] create something that is sensitive to Qatari needs," he says, "that focused on the market from a Qatari perspective; and that is why ours is really a Qatari-centric kind of management consultancy."

CONTEMPORARY QATARISATION
Though Qatarisation is undisputedly necessary, in some circles the concept might be considered a contentious policy, similar to the detractions aimed at affirmative action in the United States or black economic empowerment in South Africa, for example. If abused, these practices can be unfair in that they potentially promote or reward individuals in companies or government who are not qualified or deserving-purely based on their ethnicity or nationality-at the expense of those of a different origin who may actually be more skilled or efficient.

The resulting lower level of productivity and professionalism, arguably, damages the economy and also ostensibly creates an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust between locals and other nationals and expatriates. Al Humaidi does not censor his words when appraising the practice from that perspective. "Qatarisation is not a new thing," he says. "[But] it has failed because the concentration was on the placement and that is the weakest point. As soon as you say Qatarisation is about replacing somebody, you create animosity within the organisation. You split the organisation in two, the privileged ones who are looked after by the Qataris, and the expatriates." The latter, explains Al Humaidi, become alienated and resentful, because they feel that although they might be doing their job well, their employment is not secure. Moreover, some expatriate workers, he adds, though they might be more proficient in some cases, are not necessarily the best positioned to communicate and transfer their knowledge to the local workforce.

"Qatarisation in the way it has been applied has an inherent, inbuilt weakness," continues Al Humaidi, underlining his opinion that the custom of merely trying to fill number quotas of nationals in jobs-many of them menial-within an organisation is also not a correct strategy. "I think in a country like Qatar with a small population, with an expanding economy with demand for manpower, we need to go for strategic Qatarisation," Al Humaidi emphasises. "Qatarisation where it matters. Qatarisation in the decision-making areas. Qatarisation in the information-sensitive areas. Qatarisation that will sustain continuity...so we do not waste the very small human resources we have."

This kind of meaningful, well thought out implementation of Qatarisation is an important consideration for Almaras (with the resultant positive effect it has on attracting and retaining high calibre and content expatriate workers, a positive by-product). Moreover, Al Humaidi says, having international experience and standards-including his associates who have lived and worked in Qatar, but are now based in the UK and New Zealand-and his intimate knowledge of the local market, are what places Almaras in such a prime position to apply these ideas.

EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION
So what is Al Humaidi's own vision for how this can all be accomplished? Foremost for Almaras is building confidence in the Qatari workforce among managers and in the population, which affects both those moving up the corporate ladder as well as independent entrepreneurs.

Through Almaras, Al Humaidi himself-at least when he first started consulting-has felt what amounted to a lack of faith in the abilities of locals to do a good job, despite his career history. "If I walked into an office and there was a Western-looking person who was also a management consultant, they would have a 50 percent advantage over me," he says. "[The client] would say to me, you are from the region, how can you be a consultant?"

Changing this mindset, explains Al Humaidi, took dedication, as well as building up of an impressive portfolio of clients. "Others can say they have worked with this name and that name. I did not have this record behind me," he says, adding the only way to vanquish this impediment was by remaining positive and through hard work. "I did not know how to overcome that except by being persistent and hoping that as I picked up contracts, I would gain credibility."

International companies, Al Humaidi says, are usually looking for a management consultancy with a Qatari accent, but are often unsure whether these know all the international norms and the work ethics of global organisations, and it takes time to establish that confidence. Local companies and company directors, on the other hand, already know what Almaras does about Qatar. "They want to make sure that you do really know HR best practice and that you are not just speaking the language, but you are actually able to demonstrate it," explains Al Humaidi.

Fortunately over the last half-decade Almaras has racked up an impressive list of clients and developed a solid reputation in the competitive local business community, one that is comparatively small and where repeat business is thus vital. Accordingly, fostering relationships after Almaras' services are no longer required is another key element of Al Humaidi's modus operandi, which also allows Almaras to the measure the effect of its work. "It does give us the opportunity to monitor the result, but at the same time it says something about the relationships that we have started," he furthers. "People must have seen that we were really genuinely interested in them as individuals or as an organisation and the value of that helps the relationship to continue afterwards." In terms of instilling his concept of Qatarisation in the workforce, one that ostensibly flows from the abovementioned confidence in one's self and from one's clients, Al Humaidi then turns to how this should be implemented in the knowledge-based society the country is striving to become. He feels that often the know-how of qualified and experienced Qatari professionals, such as engineers, teachers and doctors, is often lost when they are promoted to management positions.

"We have enough people to have managers and workers," Al Humaidi explains. "So we need to encourage people to maintain enthusiasm for the profession that they are in...the social pressure and the lack of encouragement to stay within a profession like teaching [means] they move from their technical field to managerial field, and we lose that knowledge." Confidence and support, continues Al Humaidi, are also important for career workers and entrepreneurs, whether they are young start-ups or older people considering leaving the comfort and shelter of permanent employment.

"With that level of security they seldom leave and take the risk," says Al Humaidi of the latter, adding that though he funded his business with his own savings, not all entrepreneurs have that advantage, stressing the importance of mentoring support, financial guidance, and education on how to compile an effective business plan and follow through on it. He is positive about the steps currently being taken in the country to this effect to create local companies that will set an example and contribute to a small to medium enterprise (SME) culture here, which will in turn help Qatar's economy to grow.

On the thorny issue of expatriates working in Qatar, a practice that some of the most extremely opinionated feel should be phased out altogether, Al Humaidi weighs in objectively. "It would be wrong to Qatarise all the jobs 100 percent. We need that interaction, translation, updated knowledge and window of opportunity to look at new ways of doing things," he says. "Name a country in the world that does not have expatriates working in it. There is not one."

What does need to happen rather, says Al Humaidi, is the fostering of more knowledge for expatriate workers. They need to be better prepared for living in Qatar, to learn about its culture and be encouraged to learn Arabic, which also needs to be made more accessible. In fact, ongoing communication and learning between locals and foreign nationals is something Al Humaidi feels that all Qatar companies, be they local or international, should take more responsibility for. He explains how his feeling is that not enough being done here, and as most expatriates rarely go beyond their own small network and rarely mingle with other nationalities or have Qatari friends, this can further foster cultural ignorance and create further mistrust.

"I do not think it is good for the Qataris and I do not think it is good for the expatriates", Al Humaidi opines. Al Humaidi therefore advocates building platforms whereby expatriates can work together in more of a spirit of cooperation with Qataris, and project this unity back into the international business community. "I think that is a good way forward," he says. "It also provides security for Qatar; when all of the countries are involved in their investments here, they will look at Qatar as Qataris themselves do, because [they have] more of a vested interest here."

ALMARAS' FUTURE
On the future of his own company, Al Humaidi, who through Almaras is currently associate director of HR at Sidra Medical and Research Center, is bullish. "We are just at the beginning. Five years is not really a long time," he says. "I am glad that from the start we were looking at the broader picture, and now we are focusing on something that is more tangible, much more relevant and that we have found our niche."

Through Almaras Consultancy's assessment centre, its focus on strategic Qatarisation and the identification of training needs that contribute to the success of HR in Qatar, Al Humaidi feels his company is only now just hitting its stride. "All we have done in the last five years was searching and researching, now we have a sense of direction, more focused on where we want to be five years from now and what we want to be doing every year. Qatar's national vision [also] helped us to see a translation and an interpretation that echoes some of the thinking we have.

We definitely are going to be more and more focusing on Qatar with that extra sensitivity, with that extra local knowledge, and we will be using that to its best effect. We would like to see ourselves as a reference point, with all the activities that we have experienced and that we do and the information that we will gather, we will be able to offer advice that hopefully will contribute to the workplace and the setting up of educational programmes and training schemes.

"As a home grown company we are better positioned than other recruiting agencies. They also offer Qatarisation," says Al Humaidi, "but I feel we can offer more insight."

ITS ALL IN THE LOGO
Nowhere are Ali Al Humaidi's character and his passion for his life's work more clear than Almaras' name and logo. "When I sat down first time to think about what I want to do," he explains, "I needed to think of a word that actually reflects that [but] that word did not come easily. So I took the first name of every member of my family- 'A' for Ali, etcetera. The second thing I did was put those names into a meaningful word, and Almaras means...a challenging opponent. Then I drew the logo and the box, which you could take as thinking out of the box, or you could take it as overcoming a challenge. The colour orange represents a desert and the harsh terrain, the challenging terrain. Then there is the maroon colour that is the Qatari flag, that is representation of Qatar, and it is breaking through or overcoming the challenge, and hopefully becoming a star."