A lot of people are deciding to resign. It doesn’t affect me much for now, but I guess for those who stay here it might start having a huge impact on their work eventually?
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The biggest danger for a new hire right now is being drafted into a bad department after you thought you were being hired by a good one. I give you a real life example of how this worked at my old department before I left. We got a REALLY bad manager who made life miserable for everyone. In 2019, there were 13 expats. Of those, 3 were downsized, 1 moved to another group, and 7 left the company. Now there are only 2 of the original 13 left. The manager tried to hire from the outside, but he was really cheap about it, and nobody showed up. What the group does is too important to trust contractors with, so the manager went out and "drafted" employees from other areas. There are several "draftees" working for him right now in what is still a very under staffed situation. As a new hire, you are a prime candidate to be drafted by guys like this manager, because you have not established yourself at the company yet. New hires are essentially treated like livestock and herded where ever they are needed. If you must come, then DO NOT bring your family. At least that way you can resign immediately if the company does something like this to you.
The last post is a must read for all those expats considering employment with ARAMCO. ARAMCO is no longer a good career move. Nor is it a safe place to grow your experience.
When expats retire, resign or are laid off, the work they were doing does not mysteriously just disappear, nor does it get well distributed amongst all, but instead just gets added to the workload of the remaining expats. Its burdensome to the extent that the remaining expats get demoralized because they cannot cope with the workload and unreasonable deadlines so they either resign or try to hang on until retirement; or when they are rated M in their performance review because of not meeting the demands of their excessive workload, they just hang on until the inevitable and they are laid off. If there is no expat in that specific part of the organization, the workload may be distributed amongst Saudis, but either the deadlines become more relaxed, or they don't bother to do it until it falls off the priority list and is no longer required. If the work is important enough that it has to be done, either an SMP contractor or expat is hired to do it. It's a vicious cycle.
I will ask? There was some impact or consequence after big Covid layoffs?, specially in the long term?.
Current High Attrition rate is one of them, nobody wants to pass about that nightmare, message was clear, Aramco is not longer a safe place.
And there is one more because if you check regularly IR manual, now is much less attractive, less benefits and there is no any retention plan indeed. So new hires needs to wait six months with monthly manager performance revisions that could increase a fast attrition of these ones at end.
I feel current HR works only for locals, expats are being handling like a disposable resource and without any dedication.
Goid part, reduce pressure for further layoffs.
I see it already, usually was really hard to move people between departments but now if there is a shortage of people in a certain key project, they will move it quickly. Filling a ho-e with a new ho-e, you know. If you are working in Dhahran and now needs to work in Abqaiq, adding a 40 min risky commuting, impact is there.
It does so by decreasing available manpower, that in-turn causes those who remain to carry a heavier workload. We are already seeing it in aviation due to high attrition rates.
How will it have an impact on their work?