INTERVIEWER: MAHMOUD MANSI

EDITOR: AYAM AMIN 

About Kristina Eissa: A Hungarian who has been living in Cairo since 2010. She is a personal trainer, family wellness coach (who has her own developed method and system), and a project manager at ERA for Development. Back in Hungary Kristina worked in several field including IT, management, banking and sports. In 2008 she studied Recreation, in 2005 she studied Recreational Sport Management, while in 2010 she studied Personal Training. Kristina is now implementing in Egypt a very exciting concept through her new startup, in partnership with her husband.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/krisztina-csurgo-05a30441?trk=hp-identity-name

THE INTERVIEW

1HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Tell us about your organization and what it offers.

Krisztina Csurgo: Our Company, Era for Development, offers well-being and health development solutions. I know this sounds quite unfamiliar. We offer, for example, stress management programs, smoke-free workplace policy support with a very modern and highly effective group session-based solution, nutrition-related programs, team building activities, grand corporate health fair and family day management, on-site gym support or recreation room management, and of course, the popular employee initiatives.

2- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: How long does a well-being program take?

Krisztina Csurgo: Well, it depends on the needs of our clients. We offer packages, but first, we tailor our solutions to every company, as almost each company is a special case. We have 3-to-12-month long packages with different programs in them. The selection of the program modules is up to our clients.

3- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Some Egyptian managers may not grasp the importance of what you offer. How are you willing to implement this approach in the Egyptian corporate environment?

Krisztina Csurgo: What we can see as a corporate health development provider is that it is the right time now in Egypt to take the next step when it comes to any long-term investment with the employees. Managers are more and more open-minded, but we still have to do our part, of course.

The first important thing is to let them see the link between the program and the business’ objectives by understanding the importance of the employee’s engagement and its relation with the companies’ achievement. Once this relation is clear and well understood, we can talk about more details.

4- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What are the psychological problems that Egyptian employees face? And what does your organization offer to solve that?

Krisztina Csurgo: Self-confidence is the most important barrier. We can see this in 2 different extremes; some employees being shy in simple, everyday situations, while others are aggressive in certain cases to cover for their lack of self-confidence. This makes everything all the more difficult, as they cannot engage in effective teamwork with such core problems.

We focus on self-development in all our programs, whether it is team building, nutrition, or smoke-free workplace policy support. We developed the structure of these modules very carefully, so anyone who will participate will be able to start their inner journey with us. The main focus is the individual.

5- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: To what extent is the mood of the employees related to their performance?

Krisztina Csurgo: We are humans, not machines, so of course we have good and bad periods. At a very difficult time, without any effective support, anyone can reach an unstable state, which will definitely show.

Some cases are worse where there is no support system at home or with friends, or maybe there is but not the right one. So, for example, on-site coaching is a great solution, but unfortunately it is mainly for the top management. This is the reason why we thought about stress management, which is actually a group coaching form of finding the way back to one’s balance.

6- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: How are you customizing your programs according to the Egyptian business environment and employee mentality?

Krisztina Csurgo: The main difference between how we promote a program in Europe and how we promote one in Egypt is the interest of the people. For example, in Europe, promoting a healthy meal campaign or gluten and lactose free snack corner idea would be enough motivation for employees to participate. However, employees do not share the same interest in personal well-being in Egypt.

We realized that for Egyptians a core feature of this kind of program is dealing with stress, as most of them/us live in a very stressful environment, starting with traffic, long distances between home and the workplace, the problems of work-life balance,…etc.

Simply, we have to forget the popular Western corporate well-being programs. Stretching, yoga, cooking competitions between departments and others do not work in Egypt, which is good. Employees here are very competitive, which is an important characteristic when we want to promote a new idea. This is something unique and can be a key parameter to build on.

7- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Do you work with employees in groups or one-on-one?

Krisztina Csurgo: We work in groups but there are situations when we provide one-on-one sessions if there is a need or request for it. In a case of the smoke-free workplace policy support or stress management, there is always room for one-on-one sessions. We are available online and we have quite a good follow-up system, so everything is ready for extra support.

8- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: From your experience, what are the clear differences between the working environment in Hungary and in Egypt? And what are the similarities?

Krisztina Csurgo: The first and biggest difference is that in Hungary I worked with great leaders and top managers from different age groups. We are more flexible with young and talented people than Egyptians are. Not only in the private sector, but also in the governmental sector, where we appreciate talent and recognize exceptional skills – if we exclude corruption now. This is a very important thing.

The attitude is different too. I believe this has a cultural background, as in Hungary young people try to manage their life alone early. We do not have the big family model anymore; we have become independent quite early, which means we must to take our job seriously, otherwise our income will be unstable.

What is similar is that generation Y employees switch workplaces very often back home too. They know what they want and they go for it. Their priority is a work-life balance, rather than money, so they search for a workplace that is able to provide the feeling of being free, flexible, and creative. They want their work environment to be nice, modern, and comfortable. In other words, they want their work environment to be home-like, where they can maximize their potential. They also prefer the option to work from home. We are talking about a completely new kind of attitude here.

9- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What are the different departments in your organization that assist the main organization’s mission?

Krisztina Csurgo: We are a small organization with the mission of designing and delivering high impact well-being development programs that lead to outstanding human performance and high level of engagement. To achieve this mission we are working as cross-functional teams in 3 main areas: recreation and well-being, education, and consultation. With our wide range of up-to-date program modules, we are ready for the most extreme challenges.

10- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What is your opinion regarding unemployment in Egypt and unemployment in Hungary? And what are your suggested solutions for each?

Krisztina Csurgo: This is a hard one. The roots of the unemployment issue is deep and related to a bunch of other problems, but to cut it short, I would say that if the right people with the right skills would sit in certain positions and would have clear visions then everything would be different.

This is not the case in Hungary. We are a small country and the focus is on the capital (Budapest) and its area. There are huge differences in salaries between the capital and any another town in the south, for example. Furthermore, our average salary is far from the western European minimum, and therefore, a huge number of Hungarians move to the UK, Germany or the US.

At the same time, there are extremely smart and talented Hungarians who want to stay in Hungary and are able to build up amazing startups or huge and successful businesses from a small family business.

I do not have the sufficient experience in Egypt, but it seems that so many people opt to study at a university and see the future only by having a degree, while we do not really have skilled and experienced workers. Maybe it is a cultural problem here that we do not respect qualified workers, but I think anyone could build a decent business by being a skilled laborer.

The other thing is that education alone is just a small part of the whole package. Soft skills are also required to be able to find a good position or to move forward. I would even say that a good list of usable soft skills can be more convincing than a fancy degree when it comes to finding the right candidate.

10- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Thank you so much Ms. Krisztina for your creative and positive ideas in Egypt, and for this amazing interview.

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Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/EraForDevelopment/timeline