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| Human Resources Committee
Samir Younis, managing director of the career development center, Top Business, spoke at a meeting of the Human Resources Committee on June 13 at the Marriott Hotel on the subject of performance appraisals. Mr. Younis defined performance appraisal (PA) as a management tool to assess and evaluate employee performance against measurable, preset objectives. The PA is part of the performance management process and is usually conducted on an annual basis between each employee and his direct manager. The functions of the appraisal are to guide employees in recognizing their weaknesses and building their strengths, to diagnose employees' training needs and to serve as a motivational tool for improving work productivity. However, there are problems to beware of in conducting a PA. These include lack of objectivity, unrealistic standards, poor performance measures, poor feedback to employees and the risk of rating personalities rather than performance. In preparing for an appraisal interview, the manager must gather all data related to the employee, while the employee must be given one week's notice. The manager must come prepared to concentrate on facts. It is imperative that the manager listen to the employee. "Be positive first, then discuss the negatives constructively," Younis advised. "Probe first and give your input later. Do not comment on non-job related issues, and summarize main points and future agreed-upon actions." Organizations have the capacity to create their future, use adaptive learning, react to situations and be action-oriented, said Mohga Badram, associate professor from the management department at the American University in Cairo. "Learning organizations improve their actions by constantly reflecting on their own experiences," she told an audience at the Conrad Hotel on May 10. The strength of organizations is based on the knowledge of their people to anticipate environmental changes and adapt to them, she said. Healthy organizations are able to accelerate development and introduce new products, services and processes. Moreover, "an organization must learn successfully from its own failures," Badram said. "Knowledge and experiences should be transferred from one part of the organization to the other." There are different ways to learn skills. System thinking, mental models, personal mastery, shared vision, dialogue and team learning are all valid ways. But in order for a company or institution to get to the "learning organization" stage, programs must be developed, skills built and learned, and team-building encouraged. "Inquiry is how we learn," Badram said. "You need to allow and engage people to be active." The Human Resources Committee hosted Mr. Hany Mahmoud, director of human resources at Click GSM, on March 28 at the Conrad Hotel to discuss "staffing for high performance." "You cannot satisfy your customers without satisfying your employees," Mahmoud said. Therefore, to serve customers best, employers must put their own people first. Mahmoud spoke about the pros and cons of having a "people plan" for the running of a company. This kind of plan identifies where within the company the talent and management potential is for key jobs. It provides a link between business strategy and individual career and performance development while helping to challenge and review organizational structures. He said that without a people plan, companies tend to panic and hire new employees as a band-aid solution to a larger problem. "There is career planning for every employee," he said with regard to the plan. "After hiring candidates, you start taking care of their careers, and this gives them a feeling of security that will encourage them to stay and grow within the company." The company, he added, needs to provide strong, positive leadership and management styles, fair and competitive compensation, as well as strong, ongoing training. The Successful Career Women and Human Resources committees held a meeting on March 25 at the Cairo Marriott Hotel on "The secrets of personal power," with Dr. Ibrahim El Fiki, founder and president of Cheops International Seminars Inc. and president of the Canadian and American Neuro-Linguistic Centers. Dr. El Fiki began the meeting by saying that most people live stressful lives because they think of past failures rather than possible future successes. Doing so causes them to feel imbalanced and anxious. "To decide to think positively is great, but you should also act positively. That’s what makes all the difference, since actions speak louder than words," he said. Dr. El Fiki also discussed something that he calls unconscious laws – the way people constantly think about a subject, to the extent that its positive or negative aspects become reflected in their daily lives. "When you often think about something, it becomes a belief, and therefore when you believe in something you expect it, and once you do, it starts expanding." Dr. El Fiki concluded his talk – enhanced by a colorful PowerPoint presentation complete with intense sound effects – by advising that people should not think about the past, because it is only brought into the present. Instead, we should all "live every moment with passion and appreciate life. So live, love, laugh, learn and let go." The Human Resources Committee held a meeting on January 11 at the AmCham building to discuss "The HAY job evaluation method as a tool for setting compensation strategy." Ms. Mushira El Bardai, co-chair of the HR Committee and HR director at the American University in Cairo, said that what had triggered AUC to study its compensation system was that managers’ salaries were not competitive in the market and there were salary inequities within the university. The objective of the HAY method was to design a compensation system for management based on market rate, formal measurement of job content, performance and individual contribution. Featured guest speaker Ms. Magda Abdel Fattah, associate director of human resources at AUC, presented the HAY job evaluation method. She said that after researching the market, AUC chose the HAY job evaluation system because it is the most widely used and credible system internationally. However, there were still special factors to be considered, such as the time in which the salary structure was needed, the managerial nature of the positions and the university culture. Ms. Abdel Fattah also explained the meaning of job evaluation. "Job evaluation is a system for ranking jobs logically and fairly by comparing one job to another or against a predetermined scale to understand the relative worth of jobs to an organization," she said. The session concluded with discussions of lessons learned from the experience. Ms. El Bardai said "it was a difficult process, but once the project is done, you realize reality and must face it." Copies of the presentation are available upon request. Please contact Ms. Shahira Rifaat at the Chamber (Tel: 3338-1050). Planning your personal and professional journey To plan your personal and professional journey is the greatest gift you can give yourself. This was the focus of a workshop held at the AmCham building on January 18. Lasting three hours, the workshop, jointly organized by the Successful Career Women and Human Resource committees, helped women focus on ways to identify and target their goals. Under the direction of Laurie Tapozada and Nadia Haridi, managing directors of HR First International, participants were asked to invest all of themselves through a series of activities that required total honesty. One activity asked the women to write about all they had ever wanted to be, do or have, while another required them to cut photos from magazines to make a collage. This was to help them visualize their desires and get a heightened sense of self-understanding. |
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