COVERAGE: MAHMOUD MANSI
PHOTOGRAPHY: ALIA FARAMAWI
“If you have not attended the event, you will know what it was exactly about, and you will learn a lot. If you were from the ones who made it, this will be a comprehensive documentation to all that you have experienced on that day.”
THE CONFERENCE
It is said that Egypt is the future land of opportunities and investments, and gradually the world’s interest moves towards Egypt. First as a source of history and tourism, then as a source of politics and contemporary art, and recently as human capital.
HR Leaders Egypt Conference & Expo – one of several annual conferences organized by informa mainly in Dubai – has chosen to be exhibited in Egypt 2016 for the first time ever, in cooperation with JOBMASTER Human Capital Solution – a Leading organization in the vast field of Human Resources. One of the main aims of the conference was to gather the Egyptian HR Leaders towards a future vision of a better HR in the Middle-East.
The prestigious speakers who currently hold powerful positions, were very well selected based on their biography as well, and the positions they held before. This reflected how deep their experiences are, and how each spoken word was backed up by powerful estimations, examples, and reasonable debates.
The wave this year was fiercely focusing on the impact of HR business partners, employee engagement, using technology creatively to develop a smarter HR, and retaining employees.
The following article will lead you towards the semi-detailed points tackled by each speaker. If you have not attended the event, you will know what it was exactly about, and you will learn a lot. This article will be your reference in many of your upcoming plans. If you were from the ones who made it to the event this will be a comprehensive documentation and revision to all that you have experienced on that day.
THE EVENT / DAY 1
The organizers have carefully chosen a very unique person to lead the conference, this person was Sandrine Bardot – an international HR consultant, trainer, speaker and a blogger with over 200 published articles.
She started her speech by welcoming the prestigious audience, speaking about the important and impact of this event, and introducing the speeches.
The first speech was led by the outstanding Rania Salah – Head of People Capability in Vodafone. The title of her speech was “How can Career Development Strategies Effectively Retrain top Talent?”
Rania spoke about the importance of appreciating the employee and how this appreciation can mean the world to some workers. Quoting from her, “When appreciating your employee, be sure that he/her will work more than expected.” But appreciation has a deeper impact than that, a long-term one, Rania emphasizes, “When you provide your employees with a clear and developed career path, they will refuse the job offers they receive from other organizations.”
After the speech there was a very interesting “Leaders Pannel” that was under the title of: “The Role of Human Resources in Egypt’s Economic Development”.
The panel consisted of three leaders; Tamer Zikry, Nora Iskandar and Hisham El Badawy.
The three panel members discussed very important issues like “What does the CEO need from the HR?” One of the answers to this question was that CEOs usually think more about the results, especially the financial results. On the other hand, the role of the HR should be reminding the CEO that people’s development, satisfaction and motivation are needed in order to achieve these financial targets.
Another thing that was tackled through this panel was about the future challenges and opportunities for human capital in Egypt. One of the panel members highlighted that leaders exist within each company but they are not mainly existing in the most suitable place in the company.
The second speech was led by a very special speaker who had an influential fingerprint on the audience. Not only that, after his speck many of the following speaking were quoting from him in their own speeches. This speaker is Brad Boyson – Executive Director, SHRM. His speech was entitled “The Role of Human Capital in Creating Business Value in Egypt”.
Brad spoke about the importance of HR as being part of the external community and society. He also spoke about the impact of having different HR communities and clubs in Egypt (which is something that already exists and that just started to boom in the past year). He referred to this as “networking opportunities” and shared with the audience a chapter written by him entitled “Global HR Economics”.
Moreover Brad shared a very interesting piece from his own library, a book written in 1964 by Gary S. Becker “Human Capital” and how the author tackled this issue in such a very early era. He recommended the book, and that it would be a very interesting source of knowledge especially when comparing it to the changes that really happened. He focused on analyzing a certain issue, that the “Value of Human productivity is becoming less physical and more intangible.” He spoke about Facebook as the third largest country, and the huge content of pictures, ideas, words, and businesses, that are all outsourced!
Brad spoke about some problems that not only face HR in Egypt in specific, but they do face other countries as well. He said, “The problem with HR is that they talk a lot, but little changes.” Another vital problem he highlighted, “Credibility has a wrong approach that we should change: How much your boss likes you, reflects how much credible you are!”
The third speech was an international case study “Line Managers: The Lynchpins of Outstanding Engagement Success” that was led by Sandhya Nagee – Director, Talent & Development at MENA, Russia / CIS, SSA Thomson Reuters.
Her rich speech was about people development, and how important it is to develop a good corporate culture, and that this culture will “bring the corporate strategy to life”. Sandhya also spoke about the importance of role modeling in managers, and she then director her speech towards noticing the importance of each individual in the organization. Sandhya assured that “The Middle-East is an emerging market, it is becoming the center of attention.”
The forth speech contained a very interesting approach. It was led by Emad Nasr – HR Director of Lecico Egypt & the CEO of AHRA (Alexandria Human Resources Association). At the beginning of his speech he described the qualities and strengths of the cheetah, and from here he spoke about the title of his speech “Developing Agile Human Capital Strategies in the Times of Change”.
Emad highlighted these qualities in the cheetah; speed, direction and efficiency, and how the cheetah reacts immediately according to the circumstances. All this defines the meaning of “agility” which was the main theme of the speech. Emad described how these qualities can be acquired by organizations. As an example he forecasted the changes in the Egyptian business environment after the revolution. He also explain how the rapid organizations were able to get advantages out of the unstable environment at that time.
Emad dedicated a noticeable time of his speech highlighting the problems facing Egyptian companies. He said that there is a “low level of employee loyalty” and that the management does not “have a plan B” as long as everything is going as they want it to be. They wait for the problems then react. Emad also spoke out of his own experience about the common mistakes in companies. One of the major things he stressed on was “ignoring small problems” that manager leave small problems until they grow, then they start dealing with them. Adding to this, Emad spoke about the “importance of having ideas from young employees, and giving them more weight because they think different”. It is true as Emad depends on the youth in his own organizations, and he crowned the speech by stating that “Young employees are the future, not the old ones”.
After the break Nora Iskandar – Talent Director; Africa & Middle-East, Groupe Danone – led the fifth speech that was entitled: “Making the Leap: From HR Administration to HR Strategy”.
She spoke about career development and how in such an era anyone can learn anything, specialize in it, and become a professional. Many people are not working in the career that was drawn to them when they were university students. “You can learn anything,” said Nora, giving power to the learner and to the audience, and highlighting that same as education and self-learning is becoming a choice, careers are too, and HRs should be aware of this fact in the recruitment, training and other HR functions.
The sixth speech was “not” from a person with an HR degree, yet it was from an IT expert from the Netherlands. This person is Guido Helmerhorst – Innovation Technology and Learning Lead, Air France KLM. His speech was entitled: “Making it Stick: Gamification Strategies within the HR Domain of a Corporate”. Our IT person here has added a lot to the HR in his own organization, and now he is spreading it worldwide.
Guido started his speech by explaining the “Attract, Retain and Develop” concept that should be applied with employees. He then show the audience several pictures of people’s faced who seemed entirely excited and focused. These shots were of people in the middle of a video game. He said to the audience, “Do you see how engaged these people are? This is what we want our employees to be like.” He then re-explained the “Attract, Retain and Develop” from another perspective, stating that this is how a videogame is like, and this is how it does to the gamers. Guido explained that there are two types of people in the work place, those who “work & play” and those who believe that “work = play” and this depends on how the organization culture is designed. He also asked the audience, “What makes a game interesting?” then he explained that each game has certain rules, and depending on the rules the game would sound interesting or not.
Moreover, Guido showed examples of how games can be involved in training the employees, and that some games are even used as a recruitment tool.
Speech number seven tackled a superb theme: “People Leave Managers, Not Companies – The Manager’s Role in Engagement and Retention Strategy”. This speech was led by Mohamed Hany – Human Resources Manager, Egypt & North Africa, DuPont.
“What is the difference between Rational & Emotional engagement?” asked Mohamed. He explained that most employees are engaged because of the salary, benefits and other utilities, this is the rational engagement. Other employees feel that work is their home, and their boss is their mentor, these are the ones who are emotionally engaged. It’s all about the “commitment between the employer and employee” and then work becomes “something they love and believe in”. Mohamed gave several examples and empowered them by adding a new bullet in every manager’s job description, “My job as a manager is to make my employees emotionally committed.”
Mohamed explained the impact of having a disengaged working environment. He said that the disengaged type X employees will remain in the organization, while in the same disengaging environment the type Y employees with high potentials will quit.
Last but not least, Mohamed closed his speech by a sentence of wisdom, “Know your employees inside out.”
The eighth speech was a Dual Presentation held by HR Leaders Karim Hamdy & Tamer Zikry. Their speech was entitled: “Identifying, Attracting, Engaging and Developing High Potentials”.
Karim Hamdy – Corporate OD Director, Ezz Steel – spoke about employee retention, and how retaining an employee is much more effective than hiring a new one, unlike what happens in the employment market. The employer does not invest much in retention yet invests more in job ads, and when we speak about investment here it’s not only financial investment but mental and strategic investment.
On the other hand, Tamer Zikry – Head of HR for Middle-East Operations, Ericsson – spoke about building talent. He used his company as a case-study and a proof for the models and methods he explained in his presentation. He spoke about the changes Ericsson has done in contrast with the aggressive business environment and external changes. Tamer shared a very exciting method that was applied in his organization, this was the “young advisory board” that is created with different members each time to advice and perhaps coach the other employees and departments. Moreover, Tamer explained in details “ways to developing the entire leadership pipeline”.
The last speech of the day was led by Wael Mousa – Talent Management & HR Transformation Director, Eli Lilly and Company. His speech was entitled: “Understanding Why Talent Management Initiatives Can Fail”.
Wael spoke about key elements for developing employees, yet his approach and theory were totally different and realistic. He said, “Some organizations are very good in developing leaders, but are not so good in retaining them.” This is a dilemma that face a lot of organizations that HRs work on developing people, then these people leave in the end! However, Wael had the simple answer, “No suitable promotions for the developed people,” Organizations work on developing their employees without stating a clear career path for them and a job title that suits their development. In the end, Wael ended his speech and crowned the day by sharing the “10 Steps for Implementing Change”.
The event gathered many prestigious guests, one of them, which is considered one of the most important HR people in Egypt, Mohamed Rifaat Khattab – General Secretary and one of the founding members of the Egyptian Human Resource Management Association (EHRMA). He explained, “I have attended several national and international HR events. HR Leaders was one of the most powerful ones I have attended in Egypt. You are able to measure the success of an event through the audience attending and I see myself surrounded by many HR professionals. I am proud that HR in Egypt is moving forward.”
The event was empowered by two professional interpreters who worked on translating the speeches according to the speakers and the audience. Dr. Enas Elkhatib does not only convert the words, she first understands the content of each sentence as she translates. This means she is totally focused on the language and vocabulary on one hand, and on the other hand she is focused on the knowledge and content of these words. From an interpreter’s perspective Dr. Enas has her own analysis on the event, “I enjoyed the diversity of speeches in the event, and the speakers tackled human resources issues in a very skilled way. They did not only focus on theoretical aspects, but their theories were all down to earth, and relevant to each manager and employee. Through their speeches they highlighted many dilemmas that were of a sort of interest to the guests, and thus covered many question marks that revolved around each. Another way to measure the success of any event is analyzing the questions asked by the audience. It was very clear in this event that they were engaged, aware and inspired.”
Overall, it was a long inspiring day, with contentious short breaks in the middle, a lot of conversations and business deals, and people were very eager for the next day.
Day Two, published soon on HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine.
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