Getting to 70% Saudisation without hiring for the number

Most companies treat Saudisation as a number to hit at the end of the quarter. That is how you end up with hires nobody planned for, roles nobody designed, and a team that knows exactly who was brought in for the ratio. At the foreign insurance startup in Riyadh where I lead HR, we reached 70% Saudisation while hiring for the roles the business actually needed. The difference was not luck or budget. It was treating Nitaqat as a planning problem from the first hire.

Why the end-of-quarter approach fails

Nitaqat classifies an establishment by the share of Saudi nationals in its workforce, within bands that depend on its size and activity. When the band is checked only at the deadline, the company has one lever left: hire someone, anyone, quickly. The result is a role invented to carry a nationality, a salary that does not match the work, and a new employee who can tell. Those hires rarely last, and when they leave the band drops again. The cycle repeats every quarter.

The compliance view also hides the real cost. A company that is below its band loses access to services it needs to operate, including new work permits for the expatriate hires it was counting on. So the shortcut does not even protect the plan it was meant to protect.

Start from the workforce plan

If you already know which roles you will open in the next twelve months, Saudisation becomes a sequencing question. For each planned role, ask two things: is this a strong fit for Saudi talent today, and if not, what would make it one?

At the startup where I lead HR, the workforce plan was tied to the expansion plan, so the roles were known before the hiring started. We marked the roles where the Saudi talent pool was deep, the roles where it was growing, and the roles where we would need to hire an expatriate and build a development path behind them. Then we ordered the hires so the ratio stayed healthy at every step, instead of correcting it after the fact.

This sounds obvious. The reason few companies do it is that the workforce plan usually does not exist. Saudisation forces you to write it, which turns out to be useful for everything else as well.

Design the role, then find the person

A role designed around what the business needs attracts candidates who want the work. A role designed around a nationality attracts candidates who want the salary. The first group stays, grows, and becomes the next layer of managers. The second group leaves at the first better offer, and the company is back where it started.

In practice this means writing the role requirements before opening the search, agreeing the salary with the business from the start, and being honest in the interview about what the job is. Saudi candidates can tell the difference between a real role and a ratio role, and the good ones will not take the second.

Use the programmes that exist

The Human Resources Development Fund and its platforms, including Taqat, exist to support exactly this kind of hiring. They are underused because they are not well understood, and because they are usually discovered after the hire rather than before it.

Used properly, they lower the cost of the hires you were going to make anyway, and they connect you to candidates you would not have reached. The current programmes, eligibility and conditions are published by the Fund itself and change over time, so check them when you plan the year rather than relying on what a peer company was offered last year.

Measure monthly, not at the deadline

A simple monthly view of the Nitaqat position against the hiring plan removes the end-of-quarter panic. It takes one page: the current band, the hires planned for the next three months, and where the band will be after each one. When a planned hire slips, you see the effect on the band before it happens, not after.

This is also the view the founders want. Compliance reports are read once. A plan that shows the band moving with the business is read every month.

What this looks like from a founder's chair

If you are opening a Saudi entity, your first hires set your starting position. Plan the mix before the first contract is signed, write the roles you will need in the first year, and treat the ratio as one output of that plan rather than a separate target. Done this way, Saudisation stops being the thing that blocks growth and becomes a by-product of hiring well.