We would like to thank everyone who attended our strategic HR workshop on 27th September “HR – A Paradigm “; the contributions, inputs and questions from all attendees were very much appreciated.

• HR for non HR Managers
• Organisation Design
• Manpower Planning
• Recruitment & Selection
• Performance Management
• Training Needs Analysis

In today’s busy and often uncertain times, why are people willing to give up their own time to mentor or coach others at no cost or perceived benefit for themselves? Is this a one way street? Some will even argue that despite having the support of a Coach or Mentor, they still have to do things for themselves. So what’s the benefit in that?

Coaching and Mentoring are often used as interchangeable words however there is a difference. Before we look the importance of these very valuables activities, let’s identify what the key differences are so that we can differentiate and better understand the benefits for everyone involved.

Mentoring

• Mentoring tends to be focused on the relationship between the Mentor and the Mentee and seeks to provide a safe environment for the Mentee to discuss or share any issues that may affect his/her professional and personal development .
• The relationship between the Mentor and Mentee tends to be for a longer period of time and can continue indefinitely.
• The nature of meetings can be more informal and meetings tend to take place when the Mentee needs advice, support or guidance.
• The agenda is set by the mentee, with the Mentor providing support and guidance to prepare them for future roles.
• The Mentor is usually a more senior person with more experience and/or qualification than the Mentee.
• A Mentor is like a sounding board. S/he can give advice but the Mentee is free to pick and choose what they do.

Coaching

• Coaching tends to be task orientated focusing on developing a specific issue or area of development and provides an opportunity for the Coachee to develop his/her skills by learning from the Coach.
• The relationship between Coach and Coachee tends to be for a shorter, fixed period of time.
• The nature of meetings are more structured and tend to take place on a more regular basis.
• The agenda is focused on achieving specific, immediate goals.
• The Coach does not need to have experience in the Coachees job role, unless the coaching is specific and skills-focused.
• A Coach tries to direct a person to an end result, The Coachee may choose how to get there, but the Coach assesses and monitors progress giving advice when needed.

Whatever the differences, both coaching and mentoring have a very valid role to play in today’s work environment. For years, coaching and mentoring programmes have been used as a way to guide people and to transfer knowledge from one person to another.

So let’s look at some of the benefits for everyone involved; the Coach, the Coachee, the Mentor, the Mentee and the Organisation.

Employee Morale

Coaching and mentoring can have a direct impact on increasing an employee’s morale which in turn can help boost an employee’s commitment to the organisation. This can ultimately result in an increase in performance, productivity and potentially, retention.

Organisational Culture

Getting to understand and embrace the culture of a new organisation can sometimes prove to be very difficult and a new employee can really benefit from having someone they can go to for information.  Both the Coach and Mentor can to be an excellent source of information. This can include more formal information such as the organisation structure, company policies and procedures but equally as important, they can share information about things that aren’t written into a manual or covered in the induction programme; The ‘how things work around here’ and the do’s and don’ts  of the organisation.

Knowledge Transfer

Both coaching and mentoring programmes can provide employees with knowledge and insights that cannot be learnt in the classroom or by reading a book. By sharing real-life examples and on the job knowledge, these interventions can bridge the gap between theory and actual business practices.

Skills Development

Taking advantage of the expertise and knowledge of experienced professionals can help bring younger or less experienced employees up to speed very quickly. On top of developing employees, coaching and mentoring can improve the overall performance of a team by helping  to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each employee. Mangers can then use this to capitalize on the resources within the team

 Retention

Coaching and mentoring programmes can encourage loyalty to the company. Through mentoring in particular, senior, more experienced professionals can help to mould the career of a Mentee and as a result the individual is likely to feel a greater sense of connection and commitment to the organisation

 Leadership Skills

The Coach and Mentor can also benefit from these programmes as the process can help to enhance their leadership skills and help them stay in touch with the day to day reality of the business across all levels of the organisation

Sense of Satisfaction

Those serving as the Coach or Mentor can gain a lot of personal and professional satisfaction by sharing their expertise with others.  Having acted as both a Coach and Mentor, the satisfaction achieved in helping and guiding someone else by using your own experience and expertise is a very motivating and rewarding feeling

So what are the key skills and attributes you should look for when picking a Coach or Mentor to work with you to support your development?

Chemistry between both parties is very important so don’t ignore this however here are my top tips of what you should look for when selecting your Coach or Mentor.

A good Mentor will:

• Lead by example
• Motivate and inspire you
• Give advice based on experience
• Be prepared to give you open honest feedback
• Have a good network of people to tap into
• Be a seasoned professional and teach you what you can’t learn in the classroom
• Has time and energy and the desire to help you achieve / succeed

A good Coach will:

• Be organised and process driven
• Be committed to supporting your development
• Be a good listener
• Be prepared to give you open honest feedback
• Be knowledgeable / skilled
• Be patient and flexible
• Be firm and realistic

What is Succession Planning?

Succession planning is the process whereby an organisation ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. In any succession planning process, you should look for employees whom you can develop by increasing their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepare them for an advancement or promotion into ever more challenging roles in the business.

Actively ensuring succession planning guarantees that employees are constantly developed to fill each needed role in the organisation. As a company expands, loses key employees, creates new job opportunities – succession planning assures that employees are ready and available to fill new roles.

Who Needs Succession Planning?

All organisations, no matter their size, need succession planning. While it is less likely that you will have potential successors for every role in a 10 person company, you can minimally cross-train, which will keep the mission on track if a key employee leaves.

Many companies have not introduced the concept of succession planning in their organisations. Others plan informally and verbally for succession for key roles. The advantage to a more formalised system is that there is more of a commitment to groom and develop an employee so that they are ready to take over. Organisationally, it allows all managers to know who the key employees are in all areas of the business, which allows them to consider strong players when any key role opens up.

Effective, proactive succession planning leaves your organization well prepared for all contingencies. Successful succession planning builds bench strength.

Develop Employees for Succession Planning

To develop the employees needed for succession planning, you can use such practices as lateral moves, assignment to special projects, team leadership roles, and both internal and external training and development opportunities.

Through the succession planning process, you also retain higher performing employees because they appreciate the time, attention, and development that you are investing in them. Employees are motivated and engaged when they can see a career path for their continued growth and development.

Are you ready to start succession planning in your organisation? Contact us today.

Thank you to everyone who visited us at the 4th Annual Gov HR Summit which took place in Abu Dhabi at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

The UAE’s Minister of Happiness, Ohood Al Roumi, says this about her role and what she is trying to achieve during her time in office:

“Happiness is a serious job for governments,” said Ms Al Roumi. “The main job for the government is to create happiness. In 2011, the UN encouraged the member countries to look at happiness for a holistic approach for development.”

Ms Al Roumi, said: “The role of the government is to create an environment where people can flourish – can reach their potential – and choose to be happy.”

During the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, announced that Minister of State for Happiness will have the responsibility to “align and drive government policy to create social good and satisfaction”.

“We want a government that works on building the skills of its people, aside from providing services … a government focused on putting the happiness of citizens at the forefront of its priorities,” Sheikh Mohammed.

The UAE is ranked as the 28th happiest country in the world, according to last year’s UN World Happiness Report. Denmark, Switzerland and Iceland occupied the top three slots. The UAE was the happiest country in the region.
READ MORE >>

Are you jumping out of bed to get to work? Do you feel fulfilled and fully engaged in your job? Do you feel you contribute to your company’s mission? If your answer is “no” to any of the questions above, then maybe it’s time to reassess your work experience!

With most of us spending 80% of our time at work, it’s essential to recognize our happiness in and outside of the work place. A 2012 Gallup survey of MENA workers found that 55% of MENA Region’s employees are “Not Engaged” and 35% of Employees are “Actively Disengaged”.

Gallup defines Engaged vs Not Engaged vs Actively Disengaged employees as:

ENGAGED

Employees who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.

NOT ENGAGED

Employees who are essentially “checked out”. They’re sleepwalking through their workday, putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.

ACTIVELY DISENGAGED

Employees who aren’t just unhappy at work, they are busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these employees undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish.

It’s a universal belief most people just want to be happy in their lives. Extensive studies and over twenty years of research within the science of happiness and positive psychology suggest that there are actually tangible ways to increase the level of happiness in our lives.

Happiness is also very profitable for business. Outcomes of increased levels of happiness of employees at work directly correlate to increased efficiency including:

• 300% more innovation [HBR]
• 37% increase in sales [Martin Seligman]
• 31% increase in productivity [Greenberg & Arawaka]

and decreasing everything that you don’t want including:
• 125 less burnout [HBR]
• 66% fewer sick leaves [Forbes]
• 51% less turnover [Gallup]

According to Rabea S Nawaz, Chief Evangelist at The Happiness Fitt, happiness at work is a total win-win. Content, engaged employees are healthier, more productive, innovative, likely to go above and beyond their responsibilities and be team players. In turn, happy employees help create a positive atmosphere at work, which in essence is the foundation of the culture of an organization. Work culture isn’t just that fluffy, feel good stuff that happens at company outings or team building events, it is the root of your business that impacts the bottom line. In the United States alone unhappy employees result in $500 billion dollars of loss in productivity (Gallup 2012).

Creating a culture of happiness where employees can thrive must be equally prioritized with building a profitable company and a recognized brand. Companies that adopt a happiness business model understand that Happy Employees = Happy Customers = More Profits!!

We are very fortunate to be living in a country where our leaders value and promote the concept of Happiness. His Highness Sheikh Mohammad’s goal for 2021 is: to be ranked in the top 5 countries in the Happiness Index with the UAE considered a “City of Happy, Creative & Empowered People”. In February 2016, UAE appointed its’first Happiness Minister, Her Excellency Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, whose mandate is Corporate Happiness Culture at Workplaces and Happy Positive Staff.

If you would like to know how to engage your employees and create happiness in the workplace contact us at marketing@peoplefirstme.com

PeopleFirst HR Consultancy is working in collaboration with The Happiness Fit to make people happy, for more information visit thehappinessfitt.com

Article Credits to Rabea S Nawaz, Chief Evangelist at The Happiness Fitt

The New Year brings new beginnings, new goals, new resolutions, new plans and new dreams! Here are People First’s top 5 New Year’s “work” resolutions:

1) Be happy and do your best every day
Instead of focusing on what keeps you up at night, look at what motivates and makes you happy at work every day.

How?
Here are 3 questions that we suggest you ask yourself to help you stay on track to having a happy, motivating, productive work experience:

• Do I know what is expected of me at work?
• Do I have the materials and equipment I need to complete my work?
• Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

People who can positively answer these questions are more likely to be happy and productive at work.

2) Network and make professional contacts
Look up colleagues with whom you have lost touch and meet other professionals within your industry. Make sure you attend at least one professional meeting each month, you will benefit from the relationships you develop from these meetings. It is not enough just to join, you need to actively participate in reaping the rewards from professional collaboration.

How?
Look up these local HR & business networking groups in Dubai and sign up:

• CIPD Middle East
• The British Business Group
• GCC Business Council
• The Human Resource Forum

3) Stimulate your mind every day
It is easy to get stuck in a routine doing the same thing – read to continue to learn and grow.

How?
Read news and articles related to your industry
Debate ways of working with your colleagues
Research what your competitors are doing
Read business books or periodicals on a monthly basis

4) Take up a new hobby or activity this year
As managers or business professionals, it’s easy to get caught up in helping and supporting others throughout the day. Set time aside for yourself every day, it could be to exercise, or to go for a walk, write in a journal or event take up a hobby. Engaging in a new hobby provides a great outlet for releasing stress. By focusing on a non-work-related task, you’re giving your mind something else to focus on.

How?
Here’s a list to help you get started: https://www.meetup.com/cities/ae/dubai/hobbies-crafts/

5) Get organised
Track your to-do list, daily engagements and life goals; whether you choose a paper method or an electronic method, tracking your daily activities against your most important goals is critical so that you ensure you accomplish your most important priorities.

How?
Use a planner, whether in Microsoft Office Outlook, Google Calendar or on your smartphone – it will allow you to empty much of the daily detail from your mind. Clearing your mind will give you more room for critical thinking.

Tis the season to be…well informed. We all love Christmas, but how much do any of us actually know about why Christmas is the way it is? Here are 20 facts about Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and Rudolph that you (probably) didn’t know. Smarten up!

1. Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, a Christian bishop living in (what is now) Turkey in the fourth century AD. St. Nicholas had inherited a great deal of wealth and was known for giving it away to help the needy. When sainted, he became the protector of children.

2. After his death, the legend of St. Nicholas spread. St. Nick’s name became Sint-Nicolaas in Dutch, or Sinter Klaas for short. Which is only a hop, skip, and jump to Santa Claus.

3. Santa Claus delivering presents comes from Holland’s celebration of St. Nicholas’ feast day on December 6th. Children would leave shoes out the night before and, in the morning, would find little gifts that St. Nicholas would leave them. One of the reasons we leave milk and cookies for Santa is because Dutch kids would leave food and drink for St. Nicholas on his feast day.

4. Though Santa Claus has worn blue and white and green in the past, his traditional red suit came from a 1930s ad by Coca Cola.

5. And the image of him Santa Claus flying in a sleigh started in 1819…and was dreamt up by the same author who created the Headless Horseman, Washington Irving.

6. Germans are thought to be the first to bring “Christmas trees” into their homes at the holidays and decorate them with cookies and lights. The Christmas tree made its way to America in the 1830s but wasn’t popular until 1846, after Germany’s Prince Albert brought it to England when he married Queen Victoria. The two were sketched in front of a Christmas tree and the tradition instantly became popular. (Royal fever was real even back then!)

7. Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.

8. There are approximately 21,000 Christmas tree farms in the United States. In 2008, nearly 45 million Christmas trees were planted, adding to the existing 400 million trees.

9. Approximately 30-35 million real (living) Christmas trees are sold each year in the U.S.

10. The well-known reason we give presents at Christmas is to symbolize the gifts given to baby Jesus by the three wise men.

11. During the Christmas season, nearly 28 sets of LEGO are sold every second.

12. And stockings come from this story: A poor man with three daughters couldn’t afford the dowry to have them married. One night, St. Nicholas dropped a bag of gold down the man’s chimney so that his oldest daughter would be able to get married, and the bag fell into a stocking that was drying by the fire.

13. Rudolph was actually conceived by a department store, Montgomery Ward, as a marketing gimmick to get kids to buy holiday coloring books.

14. Rudolph was almost named Rollo or Reginald. Reginald the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

15. According to data analyzed from Facebook posts, two weeks before Christmas is one of the two most popular times for couples to break up. However, Christmas Day is the least favorite day for breakups.
16. Christmas is a contraction of “Christ’s Mass,” which is derived from the Old English Cristes mæsse (first recorded in 1038). The letter “X” in Greek is the first letter of Christ, and “Xmas” has been used as an abbreviation for Christmas since the mid-1500s.

17. In A.D. 350, Pope Julius I, bishop of Rome, proclaimed December 25 the official celebration date for the birthday of Christ, although historical records indicate that Christ’s birth was probably around springtime in March.

18. Ancient people, considered mistletoe sacred because it remains green and bears fruit during the winter when all other plants appear to die.

19. “Silent Night” is the most recorded Christmas song in history, with over 733 different versions copyrighted since 1978. Legend has it that “Silent Night” was written by a Father Joseph Mohr in Austria, who was determined to have music at his Christmas service after his organ broke. In reality, a priest wrote it while stationed at a pilgrim church in Austria.

20. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is considered to be the most popular Christmas song now. In the music video, Santa is played by Mariah’s then-husband, Tommy Mottola and the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Jim Carrey version.

Last month PeopleFirst HR Consultancy conducted Performance Management training for one of its Oman-based clients. After reviewing the client’s performance management framework, a bespoke training programme was developed to address the findings of the review and train employees and managers with the right skills and knowledge to effectively manage performance across the organisation.

Over the course of two months, PeopleFirst has delivered eight bespoke training sessions which included both employee town-hall sessions and a full day programme for senior managers.

Employee development is a key factor that contributes to increased organisational performance and therefore organisations should continuously strive to increase their employees’ skills and capabilities through ongoing development and training programmes

If you want to find out more on how we can help your organisation to improve performance and enhance the skills and capabilities of your employees please contact us at marketing@peoplefirstme.com

Why is job evaluation & grading important?

Job evaluation and grading is a systematic process which helps to determine the size and value or worth of a job role in relation to other job roles in the organisation. It can help an organisation with the following important aspects of managing its people in line with best practices.

Job evaluation and grading provides:

• A structured approach to rank each job in an organisation in order of hierarchy/size
• A logical approach for creating a grading structure in which all job roles in the organisation can be plotted based on their hierarchy/size
• A logical basis on which to make decisions related to pay and benefits
• A structured approach on which to create a compensation and benefits framework and/or policy
• A basis on which to compare a jobs internally and externally
• The basis on which to benchmark compensation and benefits to the market
• The basis on which to create a structured titling nomenclature
• Details on how employees can progress through the different levels of the organisation

How can we help you?

The first step to job evaluation and grading is to develop comprehensive job descriptions that can be used to evaluate the size/scope of each role. PeopleFirst has extensive experience in developing job descriptions for a wide range of industry sectors and provides training to managers and HR teams on how to develop and maintain up to date job descriptions.

Our experience in conducting job evaluation and developing grading structures includes small, medium and large organisations across a diverse range of industry sectors. We conduct salary benchmarking for government, semi government and  private sector organisations across the GCC & wider Middle East region and have experience of successfully working with organisations to develop strategies to attract and retain talent.

If you have questions about job evaluation and grading, contact us:

T: +971 4 4475210
www.peoplefirstme.com
info@peoplefirstme.com