INTERVIEWER: MAHMOUD MANSI
About Jaidaa El Rouby: Working for a purpose is what has driven Jaidaa to commence her career in HR, starting with studying law in the English section at the University of Alexandria. Then she moved on to working as a flight attendant at Emirates airlines. In her five-year career in Aviation, Jaidaa fostered cross-cultural collaboration and people development, which in turn enabled her to define her true passion, working for a bigger purpose that is her own country’s development and that of its people. Accordingly, Jaidaa has studied for career management diploma at ESLSCA Business School and began her HR career at Civilsoft, where she worked till she reached HR Manager at the company. She believes in giving talents the opportunity to master their true passion.
About CivilSoft: The first enterprise software company in the Middle East to specialize in HR and payroll solutions. Founded in Dubai in 1994, the company has been growing ever since to serve some of the biggest players in the regional market.
CivilSoft inaugurated its Research and Development office in Egypt in 2008, and is thoroughly committed to the development of Egyptian talents.
For over twenty years, CivilSoft has capitalized on its management expertise, together with its state-of-the-art technology to offer comprehensive management tools, true enablers of change. It has evolved to become a fully-fledged HR solutions company with offerings that encompass both consultancy and software.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: How did your degree in law inspire you to become a better HR Manager?
Jaidaa El Rouby: Lawyers are supposed to model ethics and be driven with a noble purpose, where they ensure fairness, investigate the truth and learn to value and fight for human rights. That is what I’ve believed in then and it is what has inspired me to start my HR career. I believe that anyone who works in this field won’t be as successful if they are not driven by a noble purpose. This job gives you the chance to affect peoples’ lives, guide them throughout their career, coach and train them, ensure fairness and that employees as well as the organization are getting their rights.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: As the HR department, what kind of distinctive care and services do you provide to CivilSoft employees that are different from employees in other traditional organizations?
Jaidaa El Rouby: Most organizations give tangible benefits. However, we believe that what really matters and has a deeper effect are the things you learn in the organization. We arrange meetings with CEOs/Directors from different industries and fields where they share their experiences and vision with our employees.
We give our employees the chance to take risks. We ensure they learn through challenging tasks, experience being wrong and learn.
We offer them schooling allowances for their children since this will contribute to their children’s learning and accordingly the growth of the nation.
We drive good long-term performance through gifts like going for Umra or a honeymoon holiday abroad for our top performers in a way that does not affect their intrinsic drives.
We arrange team-building events and build a personal bond. We listen to them, celebrate with them and truly care about them.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: As noticed, one of your main objectives is to spread positive energy vibes to your employees and clients. As a manager, you can be surrounded by too many burdens and negative energy. How do you motivate yourself in order to be able to motivate others?
Jaidaa El Rouby: Positivity is a choice; it’s not something that happens to you. I choose to look at the positive side of the situation, I never let my mistakes have a negative impact on me, but instead choose to learn from them. I keep myself motivated by checking my achievements towards my purpose, if it took me too long to achieve a specific goal, I reformulate this goal and break it into shorter term objectives.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: As a company that offers HR software solutions, what other sorts of business solutions would you share with HR directors that are less related to software programs and more concerned with managing people and decisions?
Jaidaa El Rouby: We believe that what you can’t measure, you can’t manage. Software programs help organizations do that, turning qualitative measures into quantitative ones. They help managers assess performance but do not replace the skill of giving feedback. They help arrange recruitment and interviews but do not replace the skill of reading people. Building leaders is the one important thing that helps executing organizations’ strategies. Change management starts with leaders who are aligned with the organization’s vision, who work for a better change and inspire others follow the desired culture.
Jaidaa El Rouby: In Civilsoft, we invest in our leaders, successors and potentials, we build their knowledge, skills and most importantly we enforce a strong and clear organization culture.
We always tell our clients that businesses can maximize their value when they start tackling the four pillars of organizational behavioral excellence: leadership lifecycle, strategy execution, governance management, and knowledge management. We help organizations do that.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: What is your favorite sport or workout? And how does it help you become a better employee? Would you include sports as part of the essential training programs you provide to your employees?
Jaidaa El Rouby: I exercise regularly and do yoga, which help me be a happier person. Exercising and sports generally helps shape your personality. Sprinting helps people with low levels of energy, while yoga helps with decision making where people learn to relax and think wisely. Kickboxing helps sharpen the personality.
In Civilsoft, we use sports as part of our trainings, we also encourage our employees to exercise, offer discounts and gifts cards.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: As a person, how did your experience and practice of HR principles affect your personal life?
Jaidaa El Rouby: I consider my job to be the art and science of managing human behavior. This is the kind of experience that helps you do anything anywhere whether it’s in your personal life, HR career, or any other career.
I’ve developed the ability to read people in a better way, understand people’s drives and expected reactions, understand the power of words and body language, and accordingly the ability to influence others. It gives me a great pleasure to see people change because of something I did or said.
Being patient is another thing that I’ve learned. Results cannot be achieved over night when it comes to people.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: What did you learn from CivilSoft’s management and professional experience? And what did you learn from your employees?
Jaidaa El Rouby: My Manager told me once that there are people having the knowledge without applying it, others apply what they have learned without sharing it and others learn, apply and share but they lack the wisdom. In Civilsoft, I got the chance to apply what I’ve learned & share it. Guided by my manager, I started to build up wisdom, following these four keys of wisdom “Read, analyze, relate and observe.”
I’ve learned to read our history, guided by the success stories and failures of the Islamic empire, what were the reasons for these failures. Learn and think of how Prophet Muhammad (May peace and blessing be upon him) recruited his team, and aligned the team towards one goal and one direction. Relate what I’ve read and analyzed to current situations, and finally observe the outcomes and do the necessary changes in the future.
Together with my colleagues we learn from each other and share knowledge whether it is technical or HR knowledge. It wouldn’t have been possible to improve my skills or anyone’s without dealing with each other. After all people are different and learning to communicate effectively guarantees extraordinary results.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: In the workshops you conduct, what is the most important thing you focus on when it comes to people development?
Jaidaa El Rouby: In those workshops and during any coaching sessions I conduct, I focus on culture change. If someone changed, everything will change for her/him. People should drop the blame list and start working on the value they bring to the marketplace. They won’t get paid for the time they spend but for the value they bring. These words were said before by Jim Rohn and communicated in different ways and languages by many others.
I also focus on some other cultural issues that hinder development and success in Egypt. Then we help them plan for their careers.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: HR is a science of behavior, how do you define street harassment from an HR perspective, its causes and dealing with it?
Jaidaa El Rouby: Street harassment is any behavior that invades the rights of others, the right to be safe and the right for privacy and respect. In my opinion, this happens due to many reasons that are all under the umbrella of the culture.
People did not learn to respect others in general and women in particular. People are not raised to be useful to others. On the contrary, in some cases they are raised to have everything ready for them without working for it, which has fed their selfishness. In other cases, people are raised to blame the government, their families, women, men, or anyone else for their problems. This has led to people resenting each other and accordingly hurting each other.
The community is allowing mistakes coming from a man, which has resulted in continuing the mistake. People are raised to care about what other people think which has resulted in bragging about mistakes.
Other reasons causing street harassments like economic burdens, compromising the enforcement of strict laws as well as the lack of education.
In order for this to change, we need to start working on two things. First, enforcing strict laws that will have an immediate but rather a short-term effect, and the second step is proper change management, which tackles all the cultural and educational issues.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Do you think someday the HR Director and the entire HR department in organizations can be replaced by a comprehensive software program that hires, fires, measures risks and performances, and is programed to motivate employees too? How can you imagine it would be like to be effective?
Jaidaa El Rouby: Software programs indeed ensure efficiency. They guarantee higher productivity and reduced costs. They also help with controls, as well as reduce mistakes and bias, and most importantly they eliminate corruption. However, software programs cannot replace human power. It is like expecting the brush to paint on its own.
In my opinion software programs won’t be able to build loyalty nor personal bonds and will not be able to replace human skills. They cannot take decisions on their own, and will not address the organization’s needs in changing situations on their own. They certainly cannot motivate employees, since they will not be able to understand human drives. In other words, software programs can never consider the psychological factor.
Imagining their effectiveness reminds me of the computer lady on the iPhone, always miscommunicating. Imagine this person is phone interviewing you.
HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Thank you so much for sharing your valuable experience and time.
