When you choose any new country to settle and start up a business, you need reassurance that the country in question has fair, impartial and independent laws and regulations in place, particularly regarding employment.

Qatar Financial Centre’s Employment Standards Office (ESO) delivers against this through a number of services, practical tools and communications.

The ESO’s mission is to ensure a fair and harmonious workplace. So you and your employees can feel confident that you are guided and protected by an independent organisation that has a regulatory framework solidly in place.

The ESO does this through dispute prevention and compliance monitoring to prevent disputes from happening in the first place. And if they do, then dispute resolution procedures are also in place to assist in resolving disputes amicably.

To enable dispute prevention, the following are in place:

(1) Activities such as roundtable discussion
(2) Tools such as newsletters and interpretation advice
(3) Perpetual regulation improvement

To ensure legislation and regulations are being applied, the following are in place:

(1) Overall compliance assessment
(2) Identification of non-compliance
(3) Root-cause analysis
(4) Defined actions required (including enforcement if applicable)
(5) Support of enforcement process (through evidence collection)
(6) Monitoring of compliance through enforcement orders
(7) Defined actions to prevent future contraventions

Fair and transparent rules ensure that employers and employees alike are aware of their rights and obligations.

Any alleged breaches of QFC Employment Regulations should be reported by filing a complaint with the Employment Standards Office.

Please make sure that you read the ESO Complaint Submission Guide carefully prior to submitting your complaint.