Occupational Standards

What occupational standards are

Occupational standards (المعايير المهنية) are reference descriptions of what practising a particular occupation requires: the knowledge, the skills and the level of performance that counts as acceptable in it.

Their distinguishing feature is the level at which they are written. Occupational standards are set out for an occupation in the labour market, not for a job in one particular organisation. They are an outside reference against which a job is measured, not an internal document describing the job you have.

That level is what separates occupational standards from the documents an organisation writes about its jobs, and from the other references that carry the word “occupational”. Each neighbour answers a different question, and the sections that follow take them in turn.

How occupational standards differ from competencies

Competencies are the knowledge, skills and behaviours a role holder needs in order to perform the role at a defined level, described in observable terms. The difference between competencies and occupational standards lies in the point of reference, not in the substance:

• A competency framework. It is written by the organisation for itself, reflects what that organisation wants from the way its jobs are performed, and is used in that organisation’s interviews and assessments.
• An occupational standard. It is written outside the organisation, for the occupation as a whole, and it stays the same whichever organisation the occupation is practised in.

For that reason an occupational standard can serve as raw material from which a competency framework is built, but it does not replace one: the framework translates the standard into what can be observed in the work of one particular organisation.

A consequence follows from that division of labour. Two organisations employing the same occupation can hold different competency frameworks for it while referring to the same occupational standard, because the framework records the choices of an organisation and the standard records the occupation.

How occupational standards differ from job analysis

Job analysis describes a job as it actually is in your organisation, not as it ought to be. An occupational standard states what practising the occupation in the market ought to include.

The distance between the output of a job analysis and the occupational standard is therefore exactly what deserves examination. A job that sits far from the standard for its occupation has either been given the name of an occupation it does not perform, or been designed incompletely. Job analysis by itself cannot show which, because it records the job without comparing it with anything outside the organisation. The comparison needs the outside reference, and the occupational standard is that reference.

Occupational standards, occupational classification and professional accreditation

The word “occupational” is attached to several different things, and keeping them apart is a practical matter rather than a verbal one:

• An occupational classification. It identifies occupations. The Saudi one, the unified Saudi classification of occupations (التصنيف السعودي الموحد للمهن), is issued by the General Authority for Statistics, and the localisation decisions key their tables of targeted professions to its codes. In the texts we reviewed it serves to identify an occupation, not to describe what practising the occupation involves. We have not obtained the classification document itself, so its structure and definitions are not described.
• An occupational standard. It describes the content of an occupation and the level of performance in it.
• A professional accreditation. It is a certification that a competent body grants to a person. It is the outcome of a decision by that body, not a description of an occupation.

An occupation can therefore have a code in the occupational classification and no published standard, and a professional accreditation can be required in an occupation without the standard on which it was built being available to consult.

The localisation decisions show where accreditation does appear. The procedural guides we reviewed name the accrediting body in seven localisation decisions, across three authorities, and in each of them a worker without accreditation is not counted within the localisation percentages, as our guide to profession Saudization decrees under Nitaqat records. Where a guide states the basis of the requirement, as the pharmacy guide does, it refers to the Health Professions Practice Law and its implementing regulation, not to an occupational standard. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text linking the accreditation conditions in the localisation decisions to occupational standards, so no relation between the two is stated.

Occupational standards in the Implementing Regulation of the Labor Law

Occupational standards are named in two provisions of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل), both implementing the training provisions of the Labor Law.

Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation sets out what every employer must do in implementing Article 42 of the Labor Law, which requires an employer to set a policy for training and qualifying its Saudi workers. The first item of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation requires the employer to prepare an occupational description of the tasks and duties of its jobs and of the requirements for filling them, in accordance with the unified Saudi classification of occupations and the national occupational standards (المعايير المهنية الوطنية). The other items of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation, on training programmes and the evaluation of trainees, are set out in our explanation of blended learning.

Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation implements Article 44 of the Labor Law, on the contents of a training programme, and its part First addresses every employer whose establishment is bound to provide training. Item 1 of part First of Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation reads:

عند وجود معايير مهنية، أو اختبارات للمهارات في أي قطاع كان، مقررة وملزمة من قبل الجهات الحكومية المختصة، فيجب ألا تقل معايير التدريب التي يقررها صاحب العمل في المنشأة عن تلك المعايير.

Rendered in English, the item provides that where occupational standards or skills tests, in any sector, have been prescribed and made binding by the competent government bodies, the training standards the employer sets in the establishment must not fall below them. The rendering is ours.

Two points follow from the wording. First, the item is conditional: it applies where binding standards exist, and it does not say in which sectors they do. Second, it attaches the floor to standards that a competent government body has prescribed and made binding; it does not make every occupational standard binding.

Beyond those two provisions, other points remain open. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text naming the body that issues occupational standards in Saudi Arabia, no list of the occupations for which standards have been issued, and no text stating which standards have been made binding in the sense of item 1 of part First of Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation. We also found no document setting out the national occupational standards that the first item of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation names.

Where occupational standards help inside an organisation

Occupational standards serve decisions that need a reference outside the manager’s opinion.

One is defining what a role actually requires, in place of what job advertisements for it have grown used to asking for. An advertisement can carry a requirement forward from one vacancy to the next without anyone checking it against the work; a written standard for the occupation gives that check a starting point.

Another is measuring a skills gap against a written scale instead of an impression expressed as a number. When the level a role calls for is written down before anyone is rated, the rating has something to be compared with, and two people assessing the same holder are working from the same description.

A third is separating a requirement from a preference in selection. This is where occupational standards meet hiring on the basis of skills (التوظيف على أساس المهارات). In that approach, a certificate remains a genuine requirement, not a barrier, in roles that require a professional licence or a statutory qualification. The occupational standard is the reference used to tell a certificate that is asked for because it is necessary from one that is asked for because it is customary.

In each of the three, the standard does not take the decision. It supplies the outside description against which the organisation’s own documents (its job descriptions, its competency framework and its selection criteria) can be checked.

The provisions relied on are those of the Implementing Regulation of the Saudi Labor Law, issued by Ministerial Decision No. 115921 dated 19/8/1446H and published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: item 1 of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation (the occupational description in accordance with the classification and the national occupational standards) and item 1 of part First of Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation (the floor set by binding occupational standards or skills tests). Also relied on are Article 42 of the Labor Law (the training policy that Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation implements) and Article 44 of the Labor Law (the contents of a training programme, implemented by Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H amended Article 42 of the Labor Law, and the training policy duty described above is the text as amended. Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H also amended Article 44 of the Labor Law, adding the skill in which the worker is trained to the required contents of a training programme. The accreditation facts come from the Ministry’s procedural guides to the localisation decisions.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.