No One Is Left Behind
Authors: Alremeithi Humaid 
Published: October 2022

Since ADNOC's LNG business was established in 1973, we have held true to the UAE's founders' vision of continuously supporting and developing our most valuable assets, our people. This has been the driving force behind the company's story of growth and its developing reputation. It is also a significant factor in our retention of talented individuals and our attractiveness for high-performing newcomers.

No One Is Left Behind (NOILB) is an inclusive development approach ensuring the development needs of all our employees are met through a series of established processes, services and products.

Phase 1 engages employees through a series of divisional and one-to-one awareness and support sessions. We aim to ensure all employees know the development options available, while emphasizing the importance of taking ownership of their own development. Phase 2 is an on-going process, of real-time group or one-to-one follow-up and technical support throughout the year. Phase 3, run in parallel, consists of "specialty programs". These include our "License to Lead" program and an internal subject matter expert (SME) program called "Khebrati", designed to support the quality of our training and ensure its relevance to both our employees and our business, as well as the "My Project program", through which high potential employees are identified and are given the opportunity to highlight challenges within their division.

The Khebrati program allows for real return on investment through internal development courses delivered by our most talented and experienced people. These courses include soft and behavioral skills as well as technical skills. The SMEs are identified by their leaders and through self-nomination. We assess their capability in delivering courses, train them if needed and help develop their content. Khebrati was launched in Q3 2021 and (despite pandemic-related restrictions) to-date 12 courses have been delivered to 58 attendees.

Our License to Lead program supports employees who either manage teams or have been identified as potential future leaders through our succession planning processes. The program ensures the target audience is equipped with the essential leadership skills, the policies, procedures and systems know-how required to effectively to lead and manage their teams. The program is certified by the Chartered Management Institute and, to-date, 13 of our initial 15 candidates have successfully graduated.

Through the "No One Is Left Behind" initiative and its related programs, we ensure our people understand the importance of taking ownership of their development with the targeted and practical support needed to ensure their success. This is an important contribution to our culture of continuous improvement, that enables organic employee development and enhances retention. It also builds a persistent database of skills and experience.

NOILB has a direct impact on the business. Its highly cost-effective utilization of in-house resources in competence development boosts employee engagement and productivity, and reduces commercial and operational risks. During the pandemic, up-skilling employees helped to address some of the workforce mobility challenges, supporting business resilience efforts. Overall, customer satisfaction improves, and profitability grows.

This paper highlights the significance of talent development strategies and the benefits of maximizing workforce capability, a key process - particularly in challenging times of operational and business risk - for any organization to ensure it is "future-proofed".