A Dissertation on HR Assessment of Employees in Saudi Aramco

This dissertation examines the human resource assessment of employees within Saudi Aramco, a major national petroleum and natural gas company. The study investigates the company's employee assessment methods, comparing them with existing literature and theories. It aims to identify how these assessments impact employee performance, productivity, and overall company success. The research poses questions about the effects of assessment on employee performance, contributions to company success, and challenges in conducting assessments. The literature review covers the role of human resources, particularly in large organizations like Aramco, and addresses issues such as gender inequality and the need for employee empowerment. Hypotheses are tested to explore the relationship between employee assessment and performance, the role of incentives, and the impact of assessment integrity. The methodology includes details on the population, sample, and data collection methods. Findings and discussions are presented to provide a comprehensive analysis of HR assessment practices at Aramco, concluding with limitations and a timeline for the research.

Running head: HR ASSESSMENT OF EMPLOYEES IN ARAMCO 1
Dissertation on Saudi Aramco

HR ASSESSMENT OF EMPLOYEES IN ARAMCO 2
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Company Brief and Rationale.....................................................................................................3
Research Aims and Objectives....................................................................................................4
Research Questions......................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................4
Hypotheses Testing..........................................................................................................................8
Research Methodology..................................................................................................................10
Population and Sample..........................................................................................................10
Data Collection......................................................................................................................10
Findings.........................................................................................................................................12
Discussion......................................................................................................................................32
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................35
Limitations of the research............................................................................................................36
Timeline.........................................................................................................................................36
References......................................................................................................................................38
Appendix........................................................................................................................................42

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Introduction
Company Brief and Rationale
Saudi Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company based in
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In terms of revenue and employability, Saudi Aramco is one of the
largest companies of the world. The company employs thousands of skilled people to work
towards the achievement of the organizational goals (Saudi Aramco, 2019a). The company
operates the oil business from Dhahran but it also has different operations worldwide which
include production, chemicals, refining, distribution, shipping, and marketing (Saudi Aramco,
2019b). The operations are monitored by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral
Resources and the Supreme Council for Petroleum and Minerals (Shearman & Sterling LLP,
2016). Since Saudi Aramco operated on a larger scale and employs thousands of employees, it
requires the human resource department of the company to conduct proper employee
assessments. The studies conducted in Saudi Arabia with regards to employee assessment
suggest that they are not sufficient to provide a critical analysis and assessment of the process
that are adopted by Saudi Aramco. As opined by Murray & Zhang-Zhang (2018), although the
company has fostered technological advancements, still it has been facing the issues of gender
inequality in the society due to which the company has been incapable of adopting gender
sensitive and affirmative actions from a prolonged time. However, Saudi Aramco has considered
to embrace change in its recruitment policies and hire more women in the company. The
underlying question is the process of assessment of the employees and build a robust structure
that caters to the needs of every individual in the company. Therefore, the report aims to identify
the employee assessment methods utilized byhuman resource department of Saudi Aramco. The
assessment of employees will be based upon their cognition and personality, performance

HR ASSESSMENT OF EMPLOYEES IN ARAMCO 4
standards and levels of motivation that will be assessed by the HR department in alignment with
the vision and goals of the company.
Research Aims and Objectives
 The aim of the research is to identify the human resource assessment of employees’
methods utilized by Saudi Aramco.
 The objective of the research is to conduct a comparative research of the process of
implementation of the methods in Saudi Aramco aligning with relevant literature and
theories.
 The research also examines Saudi Aramco’s utilization or non-utilization of human
resource assessment in improving the levels of overall productivity in the company.
Research Questions
The following research questions have been framed to analyze the use of human resource
assessment in Saudi Aramco:
1. How does employee assessment affect the performance of employees and their
productivity?
2. How does assessment contribute to success of the company?
3. What are the main hurdles faced in conducting employee assessments?
4. How can employee assessment be used in improving the level of productivity at
ARAMCO?
Literature Review
According to Daley (2012), human resources is defined as the department that deals with
a business that is responsible for carrying out work-related things. The department is responsible

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for selecting, vetting, recruiting, training, paying, terminating as well as on boarding employees.
The human resource department is regarded by multiple business strategies in order to remain the
most imperative among other company resources. This helps the employees to accomplish
innovative skills that in turn increases the size of the overall competitive advantage. Noe,
Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright (2017) opined that HR is regarded as the one function that most
of the businesses prefers to outsource. It is used to reflect on both the individuals who work for a
company as well as the department that is responsible for managing resources related to
employees. The human resource department deals with both comprehensive as well as strategic
approaches that will help to manage individuals as well as workplace environment. The concept
that underlies human resource management has been responsible for a traditional personnel as
well as administrative tasks. The department is mostly focused on adding value to the strategic
utilization of employees. This in turn makes sure that the employee programs has an impact on
the business in both positive as well as measurable ways (Bonet, Cappelli&Hamori, 2013).
ARAMCO is the company that has been scrutinized in the past due to women empowerment
level. The company was characterized by low number of women employees that resulted due to
traditional aspects that are followed by most of the individuals in Saudi Arabia. As can be seen in
the article by The Economic Times (2019), the operations that are carried out by ARAMCO
mostly deals with enhancing the energy industry that endows the company with the leadership
position in manufacturing crude oil. As stated in Saudi Aramco (2019d), the company has also
invested largely in order to empower women thus including them in the company structure. As
opined by Burke &Richardsen (2016), the empowerment of women in the company has not been
regarded as a unique model to ARAMCO. It has been however adopted by companies on a
global basis in order to raise the diversification level as well as become attractive to the market.

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The Saudi Arabian ARAMCO provides multiple services to enable Saudis to competently lead
towards community engagement. Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright (2017) stated that training is a
decisive aspect as far as development of human capital related to an organization is concerned.
As stated by Aldulaimi (2018), ARAMCO is one of the largest companies, its leadership roles
are regarded as considerable areas that requires the company to initiate an informed decision in
order to select employees within the entity that has ability to lead. The human resource
department at ARAMCO is mostly responsible for determining strategies that could be employed
in order to develop investments as well as revenues.
As suggested by Nasser (2012), the company has been witnessing problems related to
rising ageing workforce. The increasing workforce has been affecting the overall productivity
status thus preventing young abilities to participate in the development procedures. The HR
department has been looking forward to become more comprehensive to include two aspects.
The first aspect involves knowledge currency whereas, the second aspect involves chronology.
Tracey, (2016) argued that an ageing workforce initiates owners to decrease the overall wages of
older employees or else terminate them. The added difficulty is that the extra benefits that are
linked to age swell the older employees’ costs labor. Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright (2017)
argued that the comparative advantage that is related ageing workforce lies mostly in the soft
skills that are possessed by the employees. The practices that are related to age are more inclined
towards to become accurate as compared to the local actuality which the perceiver is exposed to.
According to Dar, Bashir, Ghazanfar&Abrar (2014), the negative generalization that is related to
age among employers has direct impact on their strategies. The HR department has also been
responsible for carrying out a motivational evaluation that is regarded as one of the major types
of assessments. ARAMCO mostly witnesses the issues that are related with working with

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multiple employees who are not productive for the company. The HR resource is responsible for
carrying out performance evaluation that is imperative to maintain an adequate productive level.
This in turn makes sure that every employee provides the best performance to accomplish set of
objectives. The HR resource has also been responsible to develop the best practices that adapt to
the individuals who requires as well as create better methods (Bashir, Ghazanfar&Abrar, 2014).
The organizational evaluation has been equally imperative in order to create a roadmap that
could be used by the human resource department in order to accomplish the requirements of the
company in the long-run. It has been argued that it is imperative to create a professional
employer organization that will undertake a complete responsibility related to all aspects that are
part of the HR operation.
As suggested by Charan, Barton & Carey (2015), in order to conduct businesses through
the employees to achieve the predetermined goals and objectives, companies must recruit people
who are capable of achieving such objectives and adopting various methods that contribute to the
development of employee performance and brings organizational change. There are not many
research conducted in Saudi Arabia with regards to assessment of employee performance and
measures to improve their productivity. As suggested by Alsamman, Aldulaimi&Alsharedah
(2016), Saudi Aramco offers enhanced services that provides Saudis to contribute in the
community engagement, but improving the performance of its employees has become a major
concern in the view of commitment to organizational change. Saudi Aramco is one of the leading
companies in Saudi Arabia but it lacks awareness among its employees with regards to internal
procedures, and assessment and training evaluation methods. Few of the researchers have
identified that the company should support organizational change that will eventually bring
innovation and diversity within the company. Companies nowadays encounter the inevitability of

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the increasing competitive stress and therefore requires ways to survive in the long run.
Therefore, the investment should be directed towards human capital in a way that assures the
recruitment of a better workforce and assessing them develop their efficiency contribution to
support the organizational change.
Hypotheses Testing
1. Employee assessment, when done right, improves employee performance.
The concerned hypothesis focuses on the exploration of the employee assessment benefits which
could be gained by the organization for adding on to its productivity and output. It has been
stated that the employee assessment could help in gaining employee performance if it’s done
accurately and in the correct path. This testing would help in understanding the reasons for
opting for the employee assessment within an organization. Employee performance improvement
would help in adding on to the productivity of the organization and create more output and
profits.
2. Assessment incentivizes performance, while also showing the employees where they may
be going wrong
The performance incentives needs to be checked accurately and minor so that the employees
could be provided on with the mistakes or the loopholes which they have been carrying and thus,
it could actually be beneficial for the company and for the employee to move towards the
improvement path. The hypothesis would provide the concept of performance incentive and the
benefits that that company could gain through applying it.
3. a. Lack of integrity in self-reporting limits the accuracy of the assessment
Including integrity within the employees could actually be helpful for the company as this would
add on to the culture and the environment of the company. Enhancement of the environment and

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the organization would have an impact on the employees as a whole which could actually work
in favor of the company. This hypothesis would be make the research wide and broad. Self
integration would help in adding on to the professionalism characteristic which would provide
authentic feasibility to the organization.
b. Some HR departments barely have the time for a thorough assessment
This hypothesis would reveal the time that the HR departments spent on the employee
assessment and the results which they gain through it. On testing that the HR department has
been spending huge time on assessment and the department who are spending less time their
experiences would reveal the hypothesis to be accepted or rejected. The HR department has to
be accurate and carry the knowledge of assessing the employees in feasible manner.
c. Un-customized assessments do not consider the individual needs and capabilities of
the employee
The un-customized assessments compared on to the customized assessments would provide the
actual benefit that the company could gain through creating a balance between the two. The
hypothesis testing would help in understanding the capabilities of the employees and understand
the portions where it could actually needs to work.
d. Limited knowledge on how to conduct an effective assessment can impede the
outcome of the assessment
The skill of the HR department needs to be checked on a regular basis as this would help in
meeting an accuracy in the works executed by them that is the employee assessment and other
acknowledgements. The hypothesis would provide the research with an informative conduction
and thus the relevance of the hypothesis would be proved.
e. Employees who cannot take criticism cannot benefit from an assessment

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The employee’s needs to be checked on the level of criticism and their ability to take criticism
which could help the company in gaining the number of employees who has a positive attitude
and thus the environment and the culture of the organization would be impacted.
4. Effective assessment practices inspire and motivate employees to do better.
The accuracy of the assessment should be quite accurate as this would help in motivate the
employees to work in the respective areas and thus, develop thoroughly and intensively. The
hypothesis would bring on the information on the importance of effective assessment.
Research Methodology
Population and Sample
The research focuses on collecting data from employees of the company Saudi Aramco in
Saudi Arabia. However, the focus was on examining the human resource department and the
methods used by the company for employee assessment. In order to satisfy the aims and
objectives of the research simple random sampling is used to reach to the employees of the
company. The major sampling criteria of the research was the individual factors influencing
Saudi Aramco significantly. The rationale behind analyzing the factors is to understand the main
components and significant processes that are essential for Saudi Aramco Company. Since the
research has focused on only Saudi Aramco, the sample has been restricted to only the
employees and the HR department of the company.
Data Collection
The research has utilized the mix of both qualitative and quantitative data collection
methods of research methodology. The qualitative research has been drawn from the relevant
literature and reports of the Saudi government as well as information from the company website.

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The reports of the Saudi Aramco company shows that in the year 2017 there were more than
70,000 employees in the company. According to the recruitment process of Saudi Aramco, the
company has been straightforward in recruiting the best possible human resources that aim to
contribute to the productivity of the company. The company looks for trained professionals who
are educated to degree level with 5-10 years of experience. The recruitment process starts with
the accepting application of the candidates and interviewing them in the next step. The interview
process includes either face-to-face interviews or video conferencing. The selected candidates
are given the offer by Aramco Services Company (ASC), Aramco Overseas Company UK (AOC
UK) on behalf of Aramco. As per the offer, the employees must agree to the conditions provided
by the company. The Vision 2030 reports states that Saudi Aramco is on the way of evolving
itself as a global company and as Saudi Arabia diversifies, the company will also diversify itself
(Saudi Aramco, 2019c).
The quantitative research has been utilized to examine the data collected from the
research. The data has been collected from the company employees which are stratified and
tested by use of relevant statistical tools. The primary data was collected through survey and
interview questionnaires designed for the employees of the company. Employees were provided
with online questionnaires which will comprise of questions related to the assessment programs
and methods used by Saudi Aramco. The survey questionnaire was sent to 300 employees of the
company that was later narrowed down to 125 questionnaires which were randomly selected.
The interview was conducted on 3 employees of the Human Resources Department of Saudi
Aramco through teleconferencing or Skype to complete the process quickly. The questionnaires
prepared were structured with closed-ended questions. The respondents self-completed the
questionnaire which were distributed to them online. The link for the survey questionnaire was

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sent on their emails and all the respondents attempted the survey questions. The questionnaires
were immediately translated and feedback from employees were taken to understand their
concerns. The interview on the 3 employees were conducted by use of a structured interview
questionnaire which comprised of closed-ended questions. This helped to understand the
methods used by the company to assess the performance and productivity of the employees.
The secondary data was collected by use of information from Saudi Aramco’s website, its
annual reports, labor turnover reports, current employees in the company, and their recruitment
processes. Relevant literature on the previous findings of the company’s measure to assess the
performance of its employees have been analyzed. This has helped to conduct the research
appropriately. The questionnaires were modified at times to insure the appropriate meaning of
the questions, the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The literature review has been
written by use of company data, relevant reports from Saudi Arabia, use of scholarly articles,
journals, news articles, annual reports to understand on the employee assessment methods used
by the company Saudi Aramco and reach at a conclusion from the various data identified.
Various research articles and scholarly authors have opined on the various process of
implementation of employee assessment methods in other Saudi Arabian companies. The
relevant literature and theories have highlighted the effective utilization of Human Resource
assessment in improving the productivity levels of employees as well as the company. By this
research, it has been analyzed that all the company has gained technological advancements and
excellency in its field of expertise, it still has prevailing issues of employability according to the
gender. However, as stated by Rahman &Alsharqi (2019), Saudi Aramco has a vision to bring
changes and its recruitment policies and build a healthy environment within the company.
Findings