Business Report: Causes of Leaving Job at Ministry of Housing in the Sultanate of Oman

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Executive Summary
Within the Sultanate, the Ministry of housing is charged with regulating land use in areas
such as housing and development including but not limited to land distribution. Despite the
decent wages offered to the its staff, the ministry has been faced with the perennial problem of a
employees leaving the ministry. The ensuing report covers some of the main causes behind the
high number of employees leaving the ministry before suggesting feasible suggestions to dealing
with the causative agents. Some of the causative agents discussed include lack of staff training,
poor working conditions, involuntary departures, absence of employee rewards and poor staff
communication. The suggested solutions are offered for integration with the existing human
resource policies that are currently present at the ministry. Suffice to say that the report
concludes stressing the need for developing a means to measure the effectiveness of the
suggested policy recommendation.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents............................................................................................................. 3
Introduction.................................................................................................................... 4
Statement of Issue............................................................................................................ 5
Analysis of Factors contributing to a Employees Leaving the Ministry...........................................5
Staff Training.............................................................................................................. 5
Working Conditions...................................................................................................... 6
Involuntary................................................................................................................. 7
Rewards..................................................................................................................... 8
Workplace Conflicts...................................................................................................... 9
Employee Communication............................................................................................ 10
Staff Appreciation....................................................................................................... 11
Opportunity for Advancement........................................................................................ 12
Job Skills Mismatch.................................................................................................... 12
Recommendation & Analysis............................................................................................ 13
Soft System Changes................................................................................................... 14
Conclusion................................................................................................................... 17
Bibliography................................................................................................................ 19

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Introduction
The Ministry of housing is one of the most important ministries under the umbrella of
service ministries in Sultanate of Oman. Its role is to regulate issues concerning land use by
preparing detailed plot plans for governments and the various regions of the Sultanate and
distributing lands to citizens who should be eligible in accordance with the existing laws. This
ministry also provides housing units through the established housing assistance scheme as well
as non-interest housing loans program.
The ministry has employed current technology (e-services) to assist in efficient service
delivery. The ministry has 3237 employees across the sultanate. Despite the staff being well paid,
retention levels are generally low. To this end, the ensuing paper is a reporting aimed at
discussing the causes of employees leaving the Ministry of Housing in the Sultanate of Oman
with a view of suggesting feasible measures for mitigating the causative agents. In particular, the
report makes particular emphasis on the application of a soft systems approach as a remedy to
the issues highlighted in the discussion.
The subsequent report is important as:
(a) The study will be able to establish the factors that motivate employees to stay with the
organization and those that cause them to leave
(b) The study will also enable the ministry to development HR practices that will result in increased
employee performance and efficiency

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(c) By so doing, job satisfaction will increase and as a result retention levels increase which implies
less employees leaving work and reduced costs for the ministry in terms of recruitment and
training costs.
Statement of Issue
In light of the above system issues at the ministry, effort needs to be placed in easing the
employees leaving the ministry. A possible approach is to conduct an internal study to establish
the factors that cause employees not to be satisfied with their job and those that result in job
satisfaction as well as those factors that cause them to leave job. The second step will be to
evaluate the existing human resource practices to determine their effectiveness. Third is to
integrate the findings of the internal study with the HR practices and make adjustments to
improve them. Last step is to implement the new improved strategies and measure their
effectiveness to establish whether employee retention will increase.
Analysis of Factors contributing to a Employees Leaving the Ministry
Staff Training
Ones success in any job is heavily dependent on the amount of skills that they are able to
acquire before and during their job posting. Working in the public sector, in this case the
Ministry of Housing, the employee is exposed to a flurry of expectations and targets all of which
would require that they complete within a reasonable period. However, as research shows, the
amount of in-house training invested on civil servants at the ministry is very negligible. This

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implies that the employer, whether new or seasoned, may struggle to adapt to the new mission
statements and objectives that the government may place on them and thus quite the ministry.
Suffice to posit that as the nation embarks on a path towards modernization, the
government attempts to keep pace with this by requesting the respective ministries to adopt the
current emerging trends and practices in service delivery and productivity in general. For
example, within the ministry, the use of new softwares for executing ministry function implies
that all employees need to acquaint themselves with the new program. As is often the case, the
ministry leaders are often quick to roll out the software enhancements without first training the
staff. The result is a frustrated employee who faces constant criticism from their supervisors.
In conclusion, suffice to posit that the introduction of new technology or policies often
result in the employee facing a difficult time at work in the event that they did not received
adequate training on the new paradigms.
Working Conditions
It is the desire for any given employee to work in an environment where they are in a
position to work in a hospitable and cordial setting. From preliminary investigations, it was
revealed that another reason employees left the ministry resulted from poor working conditions.
With such a revelation, further inquiry revealed that there were several aspects to the employees
alleging that the ministry has poor working conditions. These reasons focus on the case for
resources or tools for performing their duties.

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Cognizant of the fact that the ministry is tasked with managing the housing infrastructure
in the entire sultanate, suffice to posit that some of the employees are required to perform
fieldwork. During such occasions, reports indicate that the employees are not accorded ministry
vehicles and are instead asked to use public transport. Whereas this might not be too bad for the
environment, the situation becomes dire for the employees where they are forced to use their
personal resources for transport with the hope that they will be reimbursed by finance.
However, this is not always the case as the stringent procurement policies dictate that the
officer needs to produce verifiable receipts for reimbursement. In most cases this is not possible
due to the nature of the public transport industry. Where one uses a taxi that may provide such
receipts, their reimbursement is rejected because they overspent the quota. Overtime, employees
find the situation a little bit too tough for their personal economies. It is important to state here
that the transport allowance accorded to ministry staff only caters for the routine transport to and
from work and does not cater for in-work trips.
Involuntary
Another source of concern for ministry management is employees leaving due to
involuntary reasons. By involuntary departure, the employee is forced by circumstances that are
beyond their control. In examining this category, one has to take note of the fact that within the
ministry, there are both local Omanis and expatriates working alongside one another. There are
several circumstances responsible for involuntary staff departure.
Firstly, retirement is one of the causes of staff leaving the ministry albeit one that is not
so much of a great concern. With the retirement age placed just below 60, employees who attain

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that age are forced to retire with the chances of any extension highly unlikely unless endorsed by
the minster under special circumstances. Key to note here that most civil servant never asks for
extension as they opt to focus on personal business using the expertise and connections that they
acquired at the ministry.
Health reasons force a small population of ministry workers to resign from the ministry.
Some of the health conditions that may render them to such a resignation include advanced
stages of diabetes and cancer. Moreover, there have been situations where workers were involved
in accidents thus rendering them unable to discharge their duties effectively and thus retired.
Lastly, a section of departing expatriates hired to work on special ministry projects leave
the ministry over concerns pertaining to them being unable to fully adjust to the weather and
climate in the sultanate. Moreover, some are recorded as suggesting that they may not be in a
position to serve the government over their personal opinions over national polices and cultural
perspectives.
Rewards
Monetary gain is another source of conversations making employees leave the ministry.
Suffice to say that consistent with theories revolving around individual utility, persons are by
designed expected to source employment from places where they are assured of reaping the most
benefits from. In particular, the ministry employee may opt to simply offer their services to the
nation for the purposes of acquiring contacts and experience, which they then use is seeking for
employment in the private sector where it is more likely to pay more.

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In addition to the above scenario, a common trend among ministry staff is where they
utilize some of the government education privileges in ensuring that they achieve the highest
level of education, PhD, after which, they use it a launch pin into seeking for employment in the
private sector. For example, with the PhD, the local Omani ministry employee may be drawing a
salary of about RO 1500 but they may get an offer twice the amount in the private sector.
Interestingly, the employee would actually apply for early retirement where they might be
entitled to a decent pension. Besides the issue of employees seeking employment in the private
sector, there are those who have simply quit the ministry as they are of the opinion that their
salary may not be sufficient.
Workplace Conflicts
The sultanate is a cosmopolitan region drawing in peoples from various cultures and
background to not only work but also live in the region. With regards to the ministry, it employs
local Omanis from different parts of the sultanate and those close to the royal family. In addition
to this, there is a small group of expatriates hired by the ministry to perform certain services as
the locals are yet to acquire the level of expertise required to fully run the ministry. As such, the
ministry is full of persons with different work ethics and behaviors.
Cognizant of the above, there are recorded cases where employees sought to quite the
ministry over situation where they reported incidences where they had conflicts with their
colleagues. In most cases, the norm would be that the human resources department, if not the
departmental head, would intervene in trying to have the staff work together harmonically.

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However, they reported that there was little if any form of intervention from the human resources
thus resulting in the staff feeling as if their feelings were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Some of the workplace conflicts that are noted as being among the most common are
those involving cultural issues between employees from different sexes. Bearing in mind of the
dominant religion in the sultanate, certain male employees find it difficult in relating to their
female colleagues especially in circumstances where they are their supervisors. In other cases,
the staff are said to have conflicted with their immediate supervisors over certain assignments,
which they claim their team leader did not handle managing the project effectively, and thus
when the project resulted in a failure, they were quick to place blame on their subordinates.
Absence of reprieve, they resulted to quitting their jobs.
Employee Communication
Employee communication on ministry directives is another major cause for employees
leaving the ministry. As is with any relationship, there is need for senior ministry officials to be
in constant communication with their staff especially on matters pertaining to organizational
changes. However, the norm has been that the cabinet develops the key socio-economic policies
after which the ministry head simply channels it down to departmental heads who do the same.
The staff are expected to comply with every directive lest their employment is terminated.
Consequently, the staff feels that their input is irrelevant in the planning of the ministry and thus
social services. Such sentiments often result in reduced work output that eventually leads the
worker to seek employment where their input would be desired.

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In addition to the above, there are occurrences where the ministry has resulted to
developing plans that would essentially trim down the expenses. In such situations, one of the
key targets would be to retrenched staffs that are deemed as either excess or redundant. When
such word gets out before the ministry heads can explain the situation to the staff, an element of
fear is generated within the staff resulting in a handful of them terminating their services so as
they may get a head start in venturing into other organizations.
Staff Appreciation
Any employee feels appreciated when they perform tasks that exceed their potential or
the targets that were accorded to them by the their supervisors. In this regard, a handful of staff
have commented that they at times feel unappreciated when they go out of their way and perform
impossible tasks. In some cases, after performing such tasks, it has been noted that the section
heads simply consider whatever fete they accomplished as part of their routine responsibility. In
such cases, the employee feels that they are unappreciated and thus their output reduces as they
feel uninspired in exceeding their performance. As such, some opt to seek employment
elsewhere.
Another similar situation is where the employer is at the centre of suggesting key
ministry solutions whereby their ideas form the core of a future ministry policy. The norm would
be to have the supervisor inform the minster as to who was behind the suggestion. However, the
practice at the ministry has been such that the section heads receive the bulk of the credit. In turn,
the ministry staff opts to leave for the private sector that rewards employees for such business
solutions.

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Opportunity for Advancement

Every employee has the vision that one day they would be at the very heart of an
organization where they have dedicated their entire career at. In the case of working at the
ministry of housing, majority of the employees are weary about their progression into the higher
echelons of the ministry due to the political nature of the appointments. Cognizant of the fact that
the ministry is within a sultanate, a number of the senior most positions in the governments are
exclusive to members of the royal family. On this account, the ministry employee would keep in
mind of the fact that regardless of their academic and professional expertise, they might on be
able to get to run the ministry.
As such, to them, they find it better if they were to focus their activities towards an
organization that they are sure that they would get to be the chief executives in the future.
Moreover, note here that in as much as the ministry might opt to increase their remunerations,
certain employees value the title over the cash incentives and thus this might not work for them.
Consequently, where the employee feels that they have come to the limit of their career growth,
they would secretly seek positions in the private sector where they may be able to achieve their
ambitions.
Job Skills Mismatch
Perhaps the last subtle reason making employees leave the ministry of housing revolves
around the issue of job skills match. Suffice to say that the ministry of housing requires person
who have a knack for helping the selfless in the community. Moreover, the job demands that the
employees be strategic thinkers that may be able to deliver the ministry targets in the most

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feasible manner. With this regard, in as much as one might have a strategic management and
legal background, they need to be persons who are comfortable with working with the
community.
Recommendation & Analysis
From the above discussion, it is apparent that the ministry of housing places itself in a
precarious position in the event it fails to take hold of the situation. Key to note here is that
where the above causes for employees leaving the ministry is not sorted appropriately, there
would be consequences that would work to the detriment of the ministry. Cases in point,
increased staff departure implies that the ministry would result in spending more resources in
ensuring that they recruit new personnel. In this regard, it implies that the ministry would b
compelled to increase its budgetary allocation for staff recruitment.
Moreover, the ministry of housing might result in offering poor services to the people as
it would be understaffed. In such a situation, the ministry services will have to be scaled down
for the available personnel to work out a decent plan of action. With such a scenario, the
available ministry staff might be overloaded as the ministry tries to accomplish a huge workload
with personnel. On this account, more employees may opt to resign at the wake of the workload.
Suffice to say, failure to attend to the issues leaves the ministry open to increased problems.
Based on the causes of the discussion so far covered in the report, key policy
recommendations need to be considered to rectify the situation. As the issues raised in the
discussion pertain to both people and ministerial structure, suffice to posit that policy
recommendations need to consider both hard and soft systems. In particular, care has to be taken

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to examine the current existing human resource policy before suggesting ways in which to rectify
the situation. in other words, the policy suggestions need to be integrated with the current human
resource policy and target a specific causation to employees leaving the ministry. Once that is
accomplished, implementation may commence.
Cognizant of the need to ensure that the policy recommendations are effective, the
ministry heads need to develop mechanisms where they can measure the success of the policy.
Absence of such a measure may render the implementation of the recommendation redundant, as
there would be no benchmark. The following are policy recommendations designed to tackle
specific causative agents to the problems. By tackling these agents, it is envisaged that the
symptoms to the problems would disappear with time and thus the discussed repercussions to the
agents averted.
Soft System Changes

Staff training throughout the fiscal year is necessary to ensure that her employees are
equipped with the most relevant and recent emerging trend in practices unique to housing
institutions. As observed, the human resources department does not have a cohesive training
program let alone a designated budget for it whereby heads of department may refer to when
they wish to empower the staff. As such, the HR department should consider the areas that
staff need training in after which they may proceed to examine some of the most feasible
ways in which they may be able to impart the much-needed skills on her staff. With this in
place, staff that may not be familiar with emerging trends and technology are less susceptible
to leaving the ministry.

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On the part of involuntary employee departure due to cultural and climate issues, suffice to
posit that the ministry lacks a cohesive orientation program for expatriates. As such, this
report suggests that the ministry develop one such package with the aid of a tourist
consultancy firm. With such a program, the expatriates are informed more of the culture and
socio-economic dimensions of the sultanate in such a manner that they feel comfortable in
seeing through their duration of contract. Key to note here that the recommendation in hiring
a tourist consultancy firm is based on the issue of capacity in which the ministry does not
possess now. Moreover, such firms are experts in that field.

The human resource department needs to ensure that it recognizes effort from its staff and
acknowledge credit where it is deemed necessary. Regardless of the civic responsibility that
the civil servants posses, there are actions that calls for an applause from the management as
is the case with numerous private organizations. To this end, the ministry needs to issue out a
memo to its respective heads of department and inform them of the need to identify
outstanding employees who exceeded the demands of their job description. These employees
should then be recognized during public holidays or special commendation days and thus
encourage all the staff to perform more than their requirement.

Human resource department needs to modernize itself in such a manner that it may be able to
adjudicate workplace conflict. The occurrence of workplace conflicts is ordinary. However,
what is not ordinary is the manner in which the human resource department within the
ministry handles the whole issue. Suffice to say that the ministry needs to develop strategies
that would go a long way in creating respective amongst all its employees regardless of their
background. Moreover, steps needs to be formulated that may in turn be used to adjudicate
where such workplace conflicts occur.

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Communication is an important ingredient to the success of any relationship. As such, the

ministry heads need to appreciate the fact that the ministry staff are humans and that rumors
often work against them. As such, they need to develop policies that ensures all departmental
heads are in constant communication with their subordinates in such a manner that they
would be positioned to make meaningful contributions towards issues and policies affecting
them and the ministry as a whole.

The sultanate as a whole needs to review the manner in which it develops it policies. In
particular, the policy where the heads of government agencies must be persons from the royal
family needs to be checked more closely. Suffice to post that some of the royal appointments
do not add much value to the respective government agencies as they are made out of kinship
and not professionalism. In this regard therefore, the various civil servants may not have
much reverence to their leadership due to their lack of professional experience. As a
recommendation, the sultanate needs to consider steps in which any qualified person from the
sultanate may be considered for such appointments. With this in place, ministry staff would
feel motivated to develop their skills and expertise as they prepare for possible promotion to
the higher echelons of the ministry.

During the recruitment process, the human resource department needs to ensure that the
prospective employees are placed on probation pending determination of their usefulness to
the ministry. The issue of jobs skills mismatch is of great and growing concern that needs
urgent address. With the proposed probation period, the ministry staff would be able to
access the suitability of the employee into working with the ministry. In so doing, they are
ensured that they will not waste resources on persons who for one reason of the other may
not be willing to work in the ministry after they realize that perhaps the civil service is not

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part of their career plans. Suffice to say that working in the civil service needs persons who
are patriotic and committed to changing the lives of others through the implementation of
government policies.
Conclusion
Employees departing from work remains to be of great concern to any given
organization. Steady productivity and service delivery can only be achieved where the
organization is positioned in maintaining a decent level of its skilled workforce. From the above
discussion, it is evident that the ministry of housing needs to examine these nine causative agents
to making its employees leave. The suggested remedy to the causative agents are discussed in
detail. In summary, the ministry needs to implement both the hard and soft systems solutions.
Case in point, staff training throughout the fiscal year is necessary to ensure that her
employees are equipped with the most relevant and recent emerging trend in practices unique to
housing institutions. Moreover, the human resource department needs to modernize itself in such
a manner that it may be able to adjudicate workplace conflict. Similarly, the department needs to
invest in tools of trade such as ministerial vans that may be used by its officials during fieldwork.
During the recruitment process, the human resource department needs to ensure that the
prospective employees are placed on probation pending determination of their usefulness to the
ministry. Moreover, the human resource department needs to ensure that it recognizes effort from
its staff and acknowledge credit where it is deemed necessary.

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As suggested, the ministry heads need to develop ways in which they may be able to
measure the rate that employees leave the ministry. One such method may be to develop a
mathematical model whereby a correlation may be mapped out between productivity and
employee departure. Developing such models would require the integration of several factors
that affect ones decision to be employed at an organization. In conclusion, the report has
achieved its core objective of discussing the causes of employees leaving the Ministry of
Housing in the Sultanate of Oman with a view of suggesting feasible measures for mitigating the
causative agents.
Word count: 3989

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Bibliography
Information Technology Authority . (2015). Ministry of Housing. Retrieved January 2, 2015,
from Omanuna: http://www.oman.om/wps/portal/!
ut/p/a0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOKDvbydgj1NjAwszELNDDxDvQND3N
wMDA0MzPWDU_P0C7IdFQHJ46k0/?
WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/EN/site/home/gov/gov1/gm/mhew/