Attraction and Retention of Talent in the MENA and GCC

Despite the growing literature on the challenges and opportunities that talent management offers public and private organizations from a global perspective, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has not attracted ample attention from researchers. This chapter addresses the paucity of research on talent management in the MENA region and provides some insights and strategic recommendations on how to tackle this important subject. It examines the challenges that MENA countries in general and Gulf ones, in particular, face in their efforts to maximize talent management. The significance and key contribution are in shedding light on the dichotomy that exists between the topic of talent management in a global setting and that in the MENA region. Various socioeconomic and educational factors hinder not only the management of talent, but also its formation, preparation for the market, and its development. Given this chapter’s unique geographic context, particularly within the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) context, talent management is defined as the local government policies, tools, processes, HR practices, and mechanisms put in place to educate, attract, retain, and develop talent. This chapter tries to measure the impact of these factors on the talent pools existing in the region and determine what should be done to empower and integrate them effectively into the job market.