Zohour Alshilie is Remunerations and Benefits Specialist in Shell Libya’s Human Resources Department. She talks about her background and her career to date...

I was born in Tripoli into a family of five children and I am the fourth oldest. I have two brothers and two sisters. My father worked as an accountant and my mother was a teacher until the family grew bigger and she stayed at home to look after us all.

My early education was in Tripoli but when I was 12 my father was offered a posting in the Finance Department of the Libyan Diplomatic Service, working in the Libyan Embassy in Kuwait. The family moved to Kuwait and we went to school there. Even though Kuwait is an Arab and Muslim society, life in the Gulf is quite different from life in Libya, even the spoken Arabic language is different.

My first year in Kuwait was not so easy as I missed my extended family in Libya. However, I settled down and participated in a lot of sports, such as volleyball, tennis and swimming. What I liked most, though, was the opportunity to meet and mix with people of different nationalities, which at that time in Libya we could not do as the country was still under sanctions.

In 1990 we returned to Libya for a holiday, and it was at that time that Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. Family life was interrupted as my father remained in Kuwait and we were on our own in Libya. After the war we returned to Kuwait and I stayed there to complete my studies, until 1993 when we came back to Libya.

Back in Tripoli I went to Al Fateh University to study English. It was then that I began to think about what I wanted to do and I decided to become a teacher after graduating. At university I met my future husband, Emad - whom I married in 2002 when we returned to Jeddah.

Following my graduation, my father was posted to the Libyan Embassy in Jeddah so the family joined him. My two sisters had married so it was just me and my brothers. We remained in Saudi Arabia for two years before returning to Libya, where I started to look for a job.

I began as a teacher in a private school in Tripoli, but I could not settle so I applied for a job with an international company because I wanted to work in a more business-orientated environment.

Schlumberger was looking for a Human Resources Administrator and as I was keen to work with people I took the job and within six months was promoted to Training and Recruitment Coordinator. I worked for Schlumberger for five years, and I enjoyed the job very much.

In 2004 I heard that Shell and other international oil companies were signing contracts with the Government and opening offices in Libya. In 2005 I applied for a job at Shell and was successful in being offered a role in Shell’s Human Resources Department, and I have been here ever since.

When I joined Shell Libya there were just ten of us. It was a new organisation and so it was challenging for all of us, expatriates and Libyans alike. We had to start everything from scratch, establishing the HR Department, which today has seven people, with the whole of Shell Libya currently employing 140 people and that figure is rising almost every day. It has been a hard two years, especially in recruitment, but we have been successful in our employment of local Libyan staff to work in Shell Libya. Today over 70 per cent of Shell Libya’s workforce is made up of Libyan nationals.

The main issue for us in HR is that the country is opening up very quickly and the talent pool for good quality, local Libyan staff is limited. Our main challenge, therefore, is not just to attract staff but to retain them because there is a lot of competition in the recruitment field today, with over 50 international companies now operating in the country and competing for good Libyan staff.

I see the situation in Libya and, in fact, in the region changing dramatically. One of the main challenges is to attract and retain highly talented Libyans who demand more competitive packages than international companies are used to paying in Libya and the region.

It’s these and other challenges that make my job interesting and I am pleased to represent Shell within the Libyan Labour market. I consider it my role to be an ambassador for Shell and think it is important for me as a Libyan in Shell to promote and share Shell’s cultures and standards with Libyan society for the mutual benefit of all.