“Nowadays, Reward in specific is one of the hottest topics that keeps execs busy, in a world that is shifting to “pay for skill” instead of the traditional “pay by job or grade”. Total Rewards professionals are expected to be always up-to-date and informed on the latest trends and come up with innovative ideas to help execs take informed decisions.” Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami
Interviewer: Mariham Magdy
Brief Biography about the Interviewee:
Mohamed is a Senior Associate in the Career practice and leads Mercer’s business in Egypt. He joined Mercer in early 2019. Mohamed is an experienced consultant who specializes in advising companies on issues related to people management, rewards, executive rewards, talent retention and organizational change.
Mohamed began his career at AmCham Egypt in the Operations department; he joined then Hay Group (now KornFerry) where he spent more than 8 years growing their presence in Egypt and other parts of the region. Mohamed holds a BA in Business and International Trade with a focus on Economics- from Misr International University (MIU). In his free time, Mohamed enjoys traveling, diving, and mountain biking.
1.HR Revolution Middle East: Mohamed, welcome to HR Revolution Middle East Magazine. It’s our pleasure to make this interview with you. We are keen to learn from you and acquaint our readers about Mercer’s growth in the past couple of years, especially in the Middle East?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Thank you, the pleasure is all mine.
Mercer has been in the Middle East region since 2007 when we opened our first office in Dubai. 14 years later, we have 300 people working across two offices in the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai), two in Saudi Arabia (Riyadh and Jeddah), one in Cairo, Egypt and most recently we opened a regional hub in Amman, Jordan to support our Middle East business. We also have operations in Turkey and North Africa.
We have been expanding our Middle East footprint as we always felt a strong regional demand from the public and private sectors driven by the key social and economic trends reshaping human resources and wealth management practices. Our different offices across the region aligned with our expertise and ability to apply data-driven research, analysis and insights, allow us to bring greater value to our clients.
2- HR Revolution Middle East: What special role has Mercer played through the critical period of covid-19 in 2020 to help support Companies & Total Reward professionals during this phase?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: 2020 was a challenging year, probably one of the most challenging years in our lives, not only from a professional, but also from a personal point of view. In times of crisis, and particularly during this critical period, our business partners turned to us for guidance and support on how to navigate and respond to the unprecedented challenges they faced as a result of COVID-19.
From day one, we developed survey reports of the COVID-19 outbreak that included status of COVID-19 planning, expatriate-specific and business-traveller concerns and issues, as well as details on post-travel quarantine or self-imposed isolation procedures, among others.
For instance, in Mercer’s first global survey of company responses, 45 percent of organizations in the Middle East and Africa region reported that their business continuity plan was currently under development, while another 10 percent admitted to not having one at all. This meant that more than one in every two organizations were unprepared for such an occurrence, leaving millions of employees without an adequate action plan should they need to take containment and recovery actions, such as remote working or repatriation. The result of this lack of planning could increase response times during crises, dampen staff morale, and negatively impact customer service.
These surveys and data kept evolving, making sure that our clients were well informed on the developments of the event and its possible effects on the labour market, as well as helping companies understand what would and would not work in a market like Egypt.
Another key priority for Mercer was to stay very close to the business and HR community, sharing insights and fostering networking. We conducted over 50 client events across the Middle East region, including 2 (?) specifically for Egypt, with the intent to drive knowledge sharing in diverse topics relevant to the pandemic, such as employee experience, remote working, compensation, performance management, wellbeing, organization agility, etc.
3- HR Revolution Middle East: In 2020 Mercer’s Egypt webinar, you announced that you are planning to unleash the Wealth Management Business in Egypt. Can you share more details about the “Wealth Mgmt.” support you provide to companies and how do you aim to strengthen this business in the coming period?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: In addition to our consulting and human resources arm, at Mercer, we have helped millions of people globally to live a more secure future and organizations build a more secure business. We help our clients making more informed investment decisions that can result in brighter outcomes for their business and their employees. Additionally, and as a leader in retirement and investment strategies, we offer a full spectrum of actuarial, administration and investment solutions and consulting services. This is also what we have been doing in the region.
For instance, I would like to give an example of some work that we have been doing in the UAE in partnership with The Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) and their employee workplace savings scheme that has been hailed a huge success, assisting expat employees prepare for their long-term financial security.
Mercer has been partnering with DIFC for almost one year now, as an Investment Advisor in the launch of the DIFC Employees Workplace Savings Plan (DEWS) introducing a progressive end-of-service benefits plan to restructure the currently defined employee benefit plan into a funded and professionally managed, defined contribution plan. The initiative also offers a voluntary savings plan, allowing employees working in the DIFC to secure their financial future with ease.
4-HR Revolution Middle East: For the first time in 2020 you managed to add Egypt to the regional survey for the energy & oil and gas industries. Moreover, despite all the twists and turns that occurred in 2020, Mercer was able to increase her companies’ database by 22% and its incumbents by 111%, which is not an easy achievement in such a year. Tell us more about the efforts exerted in the background of such achievement.
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Yes, 2020 was definitely a challenging year on many levels, but we also had some reasons to celebrate, particularly, at Mercer Egypt. Due to our efforts and meticulous planning and comparing to 2018, we successfully added in 2020, 85 new companies to our database (43% increase), 77,000 new employee data (208% increase), and 518 new jobs (78% increase).
As for the Energy sector survey, this was another milestone as Mercer Egypt witnessed notable breakthroughs with the public, telecom, FMCG and construction sectors as well.
Our approach is simple though, but effective: it’s about supporting our clients with insights and helping them make the best use of the data for their specific business, it’s not about the data in itself. I believe that added value is highly recognized by our client base in Egypt.
5- HR Revolution Middle East: I believe that the traditional way Companies used to receive the reports of salary surveys, has changed, and now through Mercer WIN®, you are shaping the industry by allowing companies to custom statistics tailored to their needs. Tell us more please about this special feature you offer to your Clients.
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Yes, you are right. At Mercer our survey results are delivered in Mercer WIN®, which is an online platform that consolidates data and analytics, as well as intelligence from other sources, to give our clients the comprehensive data needed for them to confidently make compensation decisions.
This allows our clients to customize the data by geography, industry, company size, etc.; compare job descriptions side-by-side; change pay elements to support the right level of analysis; perform function and career-level analysis as well as export the data for integration into other systems and run presentation-quality detailed or summary reports, just to highlight a few.
6- HR Revolution Middle East: Mohamed, to what extent do you believe that the surveys of the coming years would continue to include the novel elements added to the survey past year such as the salary reductions and the remote working arrangements?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Salary reductions are very specific and unique to the current situation, and we shouldn’t say that this is going to be a “trend”. Remote working, on the other hand, is definitely on the rise. If we look at it right before the pandemic, remote working was unique to certain industries and jobs, nowadays, every single company we know has a plan for flexible working and remote working.
Looking at the broader picture and what to look for in the near future, Mercer is now leading the reinvention of the new shape of work which will result in a big change in the future of jobs, as well as the reskilling and upskilling of the workforce. The new shape of work is focused on three main imperatives:
- Value. What people value and how value is created is shifting. This requires a rethink of the benefits, what inspires, and how the EVP needs to evolve for a more diverse and inclusive work model.
- Flexibility. COVID-19 has tested our ability to flex how and where we work, to rapidly adjust capacity, and accelerate digital transformation. The new shape of work is flexible and skills-based and
- Sustainability. How companies and investors behave is in sharp focus as they reset priorities and take collective responsibility for the futures of multiple stakeholders.
7- HR Revolution Middle East: Debates around the best JE Methodology to use will continue forever. What special considerations would you love to highlight to companies about Mercer’s International Position Evaluation (IPE) Methodology, and how much does it guarantee the fair differentiation between positions?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Mercer IPE (International Position Evaluation) is a proprietary job evaluation methodology based on a series of business-related factors and dimensions that represent core job attributes and it reflects current thinking on how many successful companies view and value jobs.
The consistent application of these factors during the evaluation process can enhance business understanding, support the assessment of relationships between jobs and job families, and fairly align jobs between levels, among business segments, and across borders. The 5 main factors that are considered when evaluating a job using IPE methodology are: Impact, Communication, Innovation, Knowledge and Risk. Looking at all this, ensures a fair comparison of jobs vs. each other internally as well externally.
Equally important in the current times of change we are witnessing is the agility of the methodology and enhancements taking into consideration relevant factors of job evaluation in the near future. Mercer is currently developing solutions that will increase the focus of job evaluation as well as benchmarking on skills rather than just jobs. The future of work, and corporate infrastructure, is anticipated to shift towards the value of skills as organizations become more agile and project based, where hierarchical levels and rigid job accountabilities will become less prevalent.
8- HR Revolution Middle East: We are happy to learn about the eLearning platform launched by Mercer, providing access to training in different fields (Reward – Global Mobility – Strategic Partnering, …. etc). From your experience, what special tips would you share with Total Reward professionals, especially in the Middle East in order to keep updated about the latest techniques and science practice in managing pay?
Mohamed Faisal Al-Nizami: Mercer Learning Online was established with one goal in mind – enhancing the capability of our client’s human resource employees by providing access to HR architecture that will allow organizations to form and implement a successful framework. Why? Because companies are constantly challenged to meet aggressive business goals and as a result, HR’s role in driving success is more important than ever, and yet most organizations do not have a systematic approach in developing the capabilities of the HR team.
In Egypt, HR as a practice, and Reward in specific, came a long way from being perceived as a function that is only responsible for “personnel” and “payroll”, to a “science” that is concerned with the companies’ greatest asset, its people. This would have never been possible if it wasn’t for those HR professionals who are always eager to learn, explore and are not afraid to try and implement new ideas.
I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as “best practice”, but there are many “good practices” that HR professional need to study and explore in order to pick the right one for their organisation.
Nowadays, Reward in specific is one of the hottest topics that keeps execs busy, in a world that is shifting to “pay for skill” instead of the traditional “pay by job or grade”. Total Rewards professionals are expected to be always up-to-date and informed on the latest trends and come up with innovative ideas to help execs take informed decisions.
THANK YOU