Employee of the Month

At first I told myself there was no use in this Employee Party that is held each month. Some employees are selected as employees of the month and given certificates and some cash during the party. I though this process of offering some kind of recognition to employees of the month is just another routine tasteless thing that is uselessly done.

Yesterday, during the Employees' Party, I gave it a second thought. At first I did not want to attend this party, but I just had to, I was ordered by my boss to attend as I'm working in the HR department. I was standing near the place where employees of the month received their certificates plus cash prize. I saw for myself how happy they were getting this kind of recognition and shaking hands with the General Manager, HR Director and other key persons there. Their colleagues clapped for them and cheared loadly while they came out to receive their crtificates.

Although I was just standing there watching not really interested and not doing much at first, yet after a short while I found myself clapping with the people and feeling happy. It's like the stream of feeling happy spread out of these employees of the month and their colleagues and resonated inside me.

We stayed for some extra time after the party ended clapping with the music and dancing around. It was mostly HR staff. Then we left the place with a nice feeling of happiness. What made it feel nice too and made us stay for this extra while was that one of the HR staff was selected as employee of the month. His happiness was just indescribable.

I have now changed my mind. Making an employee party and selecting an employee of the month is not just another routine task to be done. It's something that does really matter to our staff and does make a difference.

Investigation

One employee talks to the other in the phone in an inappropriate way. The second employee delivers a written complaint about the insident to the HR department. Our work starts from here to investigate this complaint.

We start by reading the written complaint carefully and trying to determine which parts sound logical and which appear to be exagerations or untruths. We then call for the first employee whom the complaint is against. We crossexamine him then he signs on what he said. We then crossexamine the second employee who wrote the complaint and also let him sign on what he said.

After this, we may also make hearings from other employees who have witnessed what hapenned. They also sign on what they said. Finally, we look into all of this to determine who was in fault. The employee who is found mistaken is penalized according to the penalties chart.

Before going through all this long process, and after reading the initial complaint report we try first to fix things between those two employees in an unofficial way. Only when this does not work do we revert to making an official, and time consuming, investigation that may in some cases penalize both employees at the same time if they were both found in violation of the rules and regulations of the place.

Organization Chart: Visio Style

Using PowerPoint to draw the organization chart was really tedious, specially in a place where there are over 1500 employees! Visio seems like a breez. I was finally able to download a trial version and let Visio create organization charts automatically from data in an Excel file! Now I'm satisfied.

But it seems humans are always greedy for more. After the first feelings of extacy on seeing the automatically generated organization chart, I found that it still needed adjustment. First of all, there was no way of determining the "level" of the employee. My wish was that employees of the same level be on the same vertical level in the chart. But it seems that this was not possible and even not present in organization charts at all whether automatically or manually generated. Some other features were also absent such as specifying in the Excel file if the person was an assistant or a secretary so that it could be placed in a special way in the organization chart.

Perhaps after all I might discover that Visio does some of the features I need but just don't know how to use it to do them. Yet most probably it'll still lack some features that I do need. Anyway, nothing's perfect in life after all. Perhap's I'd just have to do those adjustments by hand after visio does the tough work. At least now I'll not have to struggle any more with PowerPoint's primitive organization chart creation features.

Exit Interviews

The form we have for exit interviews needs to be updated. In addition to recording in it the dates of hiring and departing we try to evaluate things such as the salary, benefits and working conditions of the ex employee on an excellent-good-average-poor scale. Also, we record whether the resignation was voluntary or involuntary, of course the name and number of the employee as well as the reason for his/her leaving. We also ask about what was good in the place and what will the employee miss here when he/she leaves.

A question is also present to determine whether adequate training was received and how it may be enhanced. The form is finally signed by both the interviewee and the interviewer and the date of the interview is recorded on the form.

At the end of each month, an exit interview report is made summarizing the number of people who left from each department and the reasons for their departure.

Exit interviews are fine but the form we are using right now can be enhanced a lot. Perhaps I ought to read more about exit interviews and attempt some enhancements to the exit interview form currently in use.

Hiring Process

There are 4 levels of screening tests. Each one is for specific positions. Test A is the most difficult, while D is the easiest. The test should be completed in 20 minutes. They test proficiency in the English language. This written test is followed by a verbal one to determine the verbal proficiency in the English language of the Applicant.

The procedure of applying for a job here is as follows. It starts by the applicant emailing or faxing his or her CV, or giving it by hand or through someone. In any case, they all end up in the HR Department. Then the CV is checked. If it is found promising, the applicant is phoned for an interview. If the applicant is not in Sharm, he/she is brought here by the company's bus from Cairo and accomodated in the Hotel till the interview ends. When the applicant arrives, he/she fills in an application form then takes the screening test followed by the verbal one. His or her CV together with the screening test form which also includes the results of the verbal test are all stapled together with the application form. This bundle is then delivered to the manager of the department to which the applicant is applying for. The application includes the applicant's photo. The department manager then makes another interview with the applicant based on which he/she either signs or rejects the application. The applicant may or may not also be interviewed before or after this by the HR Director.

If the application was signed by the department manager, it is then signed by the HR Director followed by the signature of the general manager. Then and only then does the hiring procedure of this person start. The applicant delivers his or her birth certificate, 12 photos, highest education certificate, security clearance and in case of males a certificate showing the completion of or exemption from military service. That's all.

The HR Department then takes care of filling appropriate forms for this newly hired employee and putting everything in a newly created employee paper file. In addition of course to recording all necessary data on a software system.

Performance

Set belief system. Set vision. Set mission. Set goals (smart ones). Set objectives. Design strategies for meeting objectives.

Link everything together. Start implementing strategies to meet objectives within the framework of mission, vision and belief system.

Monitor performance while implementation is in action. Refine strategies based on analysis of feedback. May also refine objective, goals, mission and even vision based on analysis of feedback.

Keep everything dynamically integrated. Analysis of feedback from performance monitoring will be echoed back and integrated into the work system to refine it.

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The above system will guarantee you optimum performance with minimal effort and cost.

• Why this system is guaranteed to work?


• How is this system implemented? I need examples of it in action.

CVs

Excel seemed like a good way to keep a record of incoming CVs. They came mostly via fax, some by email. Some people also called to ask for work, but I told them to fax their CVs. Email is not widely accessible specially for positions such as waters bus boys housemen or the like.

I started by creating an Excel file that had fields for name, date of birth (which I converted to age by a simple formula), education, marital status, languages ... etc. I should also have added one or more fields for experience, previous work experience. But I left this for later on for it seemed too consuming a job and I wanted to hurry up and enter the largest number of CVs first then perhaps get back later on and refine the data add experiene fields and so on.

Actually, the 'project' collapsed as there were too many CVs to enter at one time and I just gave it all up. Perhaps if I was in charge of getting the CVs right from the beginning this would not have hapenned. Yes, but this is a pretext I'm saying to myself. I could have still persisted on putting the CVs into Excel. Silly me.

Policies & Procedures

A place with not policies and procedures faces many problems. Organization is important. When it is a big organization, policies, procedures become even more important.

I had an idea about creating policies & procedures for the place I work at. I wanted to model it on the way software applications are being built these days.

I've been delivering training for a while at IBM Authorized Training Centers in Cairo. Among the courses I enjoyed most was Object Oriented Analysis & Design.

Organization Chart

Using the Diagram tool in PowerPoint or Word to make an organization chart seemed a good idea. But after playing with it for a while I discovered that it is so limited. It really annoyed me. It was tricky and I was unable to draw things with it as I wanted. At the end I gave it all up and tried to search for other organization chart creation tools on the net. I found a couple, and tried their trial versions but still was not so comfortable.

I knew that Visio was one software good for the task. But unfortunately I did not have it installed. Perhaps I can try it and see how well it will work. It's important too that the tool be easy to use and not just have too many features.

Connecting Visio to a database from which to read positions of employees and automatically and dynamically create organization charts seems like a breeze. I hope one day I'll be doing that. It will make things much better.

For now, maybe I'll just have to settle for the diagram tool in PowerPoint.

Casual Staff

Yesterday I was sitting with the supervisor of the 340 casual F&B staff who came from Cairo to help out during this week. He told me that stff should rest in order to give better performance.

A more interesting topic he talked about was that many hotels are now expanding and new ones are opening all over Cairo. He specifically mentioned Al Haram area as a particilar place where a lot of tourism is going on.

I had tea after dinner with him. It was a good evening.

Salary Survey

Yesterday was my first time to do a salary survey. I did it via phone. I wanted to know the salary range of IT department staff working in different hotels. So, I called a dozen or so hotels. Most of them did not want to realease any salary information and told me that it was confidential despite my mentioning my name and the name of the place I work at and that I work at the HR Department! Other hotels though were more cooperative and gave me either salary ranges for different IT positions they have or actual salary values for the positions. The final survey was full of hoels, but at least I had my first try with conducting salary surveys.

First Day

Doing an exit interview for someone. That's one of the things I do. Conducting a screening test for another, that's something else I do. Making a salary survey, still another thing. Day to day HR activities can some times be interesting. They involve interacting with people. They also involve interacting with computers and paper. This place I'll use to post my daily thoughts about HR activities I'm performing. Also thought on how I imagine how things should be done or my fantasies about doing all things that are HR. It may include far fetched dreams, but there is no harm in stretching one's imagination, as long as such ideas won't be implemented except after trimming and evolving to become more realistic and applicable in the real world. I also hope that this small place be a tiny hub around which HR tidbits are exchanged in the Egyptian HR community.