Towards the Development of a Resilient Business Infrastructure - A Military Aviation Perspective

 In comparison with other military defence forces, the United Arab Emirates defence force is relatively young. Established in 1971 it has quickly become a major defence force in the middle east. This rapid expansion has taken place primarily through significant investment in the acquisition of large number of civilian foreign workers which now make up an appreciable proportion of the UAE Military personnel. 

However, the use of high levels of foreign workers in this crucial yet sensitive military aviation industry is a cause for concern to the UAE Government. Not only does the issue cause the obvious military sensitivities of civilians working on military equipment, but the UAE Government’s strategic plan is also to increase the number of UAE Emiratis working within the UAE military aviation sector in order to become more self-sufficient, sustainable and more resilient as a sector (SDG9). Therefore, the move to reduce the overall number of foreign nationals (non-Emiratis) working within the UAE military aviation sector and to replace them with Emiratis needs to be done through highly effective leadership and an efficient knowledge management programme consisting of future skills training but also through learning from best practice and characterizing team dynamic approaches so that the ‘workforce of the future’ can be constructed (Thomas et al, 2018).