Identifying Opportunities and Challenges of Human Resources in Smart Development Projects in Egypt

Abstract

Design and building of Smart development projects (SDP) has arrived to be one of the most essential targets by most of the countries worldwide. This is due to the positive impact on the qualities of countries living standards, economic situation and human working force engagement.  The Egyptian 2030 strategic plan (2016) aims at constructing SDP with identified specific vision and strategy in Egypt. Despite, the design and building of SDP in Egypt is expected to offer many (HR) opportunities, but also it shall generate different challenges which might lead to drastic failures. Technological solutions, among those challenges, must be understood as a tool to achieve goals and to tackle the challenges cities must face Helfert (2015). Skilled workforce is another major concern for development of SDP. According to Fails Management Institute’s (FMI) talent development survey (2015) 86% of respondents reported that their company was witnessing skilled labor shortages. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to identify human resource key Opportunities and Challenges arising from the internal and external stakeholder’s environments, where the paper assumes that such HR factors can impact the success of delivery of design and building of SDP.  The paper undergoes a review for human resource challenges and opportunities in design and building of SDP. The factors were studied for case studies highlighted mainly from developed countries with an emphasis on the case of Egypt. A qualitative analysis was then performed to identify the key challenges impacting the success of building and designing new SDP. By the end of the paper a complete risk breakdown structure was obtained including key HR challenges and opportunities. The identified factors can then be successfully lamented into the development of Egyptian smart cities. The paper adds knowledge value in human resource project management concerned with building new smart projects.