Seminar Fruits

The seminar took longer that was originally planned for it. It went on okay, while of course there were some sides of it that cried from improvement. The tone of voice of the presenter was so monotonous and tired and it lacked energy and enthusiasm. The presenter also did not let the audience interact with him except in a very limited manner. Both those points caused the seminar to be rather boring and made the audience feel rather sleepy and it was more like attending some old boring lecture at the days of university. Another drawback was the inability of the presenter to simplify the concepts enough or present them in a clear way. A lot of 'floating' words were used without giving clear meanings or putting them in context.

One of the main draw backs was lack of focus on specific points of interest and of high practical value. The session was more like a monotonous sequential listing of points. The PowerPoint presentation on the laptop was not a good tool. It was just a tool for more boredom as the presenter went through it trying to talk about its content point by point. Interest however started to increase after the first part of the seminar as the presenter moved from the PowerPoint presentation on the laptop and used the whiteboard to illustrate his concepts. This was a much better way of communication and grabbing people's attention and interest.

Seminar Kick Off

Today is time for the first seminar or let's say mini-seminar as we've hinted upon it before when introducing the concept of mini-seminars and our attempt to integrate it into the work system. I'm looking forward to the results of that 'mini-seminar' and hope it would turn out fine. I'm preparing evaluation forms to give to attendees in order to fill after attending the seminar.

My aim from the seminars is to enhance communication between team members, give them a break from their mono-type coding work and revitalize their energy. Of course the content of the seminar itself will have its positive effect on them not only when the technical subject touches on their current work directly, but even when it talks about some part of technology which is used for developing part of the system that the developer is not working on. In this latter case, the seminar will broaden the scope of the developer and make him see the other side of the story. This in turn will have an indirect positive effect on his own work after that.

Update: I now managed to finalize the seminar evaluation form. Instead of making it in Word, I switched to Excel which I found to be a better idea. The main reason for this switch is to enable me to make calculate statistics easily from the collected evaluation forms after attendees have filled them.

Case Study

Problem
Deadlines are not being met.

Analysis
After analyzing he situation, it was clear that the reason behind the inability to meet deadlines was the absence of a system for allocating and keeping track of task.

Solution
We started researching methodologies for describing and documenting the system in a clear unambiguous manner. We then delivered seminars to the whole team on such methodologies and their basic concepts. Next, we started implementing such concepts in the project. An agile methodology was followed for developing, documenting and keeping track of the project progress.

Results
Deadlines were met within a much narrower margin. Project was delivered on time. A bonus was that developers were less anxious during development as the path was much clearer in front of them. We also got productivity increases as a result of the added clarity of the project components, enhanced communication and reduced time had previously been wasted in redesigning parts of the projects that did not fit with other parts due to absence of comprehensive planning before starting on the development phase.

Weekend Refreshes

I'm back from the weekend. Wow, how refreshing. It's nice and refreshing to have a weekend. One feels revitalized back at work. I intend to do some good stuff at work now that my brain is revitalized once more.

Role of HR Consultant

My role as an HR Consultant is to attract, develop and keep great employees for the company.

CV Rush

In less than 8 hours of posting my job ad at the Egypt-IT-Jobs Yahoo! group, I've received over 50 CVs. How amazing!

I've noticed however that most CVs are applying for the fist job mentioned in the ad. Perhaps the first job attracts the attention more. Maybe I should be putting the more important jobs at the beginning of the ad. I'm not sure however if the high number of CVs that were sent applying for the fist job in the ad is a result of this or if it's simply due to the availability of more professionals for the first job in the ad. In any case, the job we put at first was indeed the one we wanted to fill most.

I'm glad the results look good. Hope screening and selection goes safely and smoothly till the end. I hope we get the most suitable members to our teams.

Job Ad Sent

Today at last I finally sent the job ad after putting a lot of energy and work into designing it. It contains 7 different positions with detailed and focused requirements set for each one of them. I hope we get great results from them God willing.

HR in Ramadan

Companies start crying out for HR people in Ramadan. This is when performance drops start to show they heads. Perhaps the best time to market ones recruitment services is in mid Ramadan of every year.

Time Wasters

A Pain in the Neck
No. Today a lot of time was wasted. The majority of time wasted was in configuring my email account to work from the Outlook client on the Exchange server. Finally it did work, but after eating up a lot of time and good will. Perhaps automating such tasks and creating a policy and procedure for them would be best. It would save a lot of company time not to mention the headache.

Exchange Server
I admit though that after everything was setup and working it was a breeze. So happy now to have everything working now on the Exchange server like magic. Kudoz for team members who have helped me and done the troublesome configuration process for me.

Mini-Seminars
Today we've done something nice. We've agreed at last to start testing the grounds on letting team members conduct mini-seminars on technical topics. I like to think of it as what Google have and call TechTalk. I got the inspiration for it from them anyway.

English Test
I've also started working on creating the English test for use during screening of candidate developers. It'll be short passages taken from technical books with multiple choice questions on them to determine comprehension abilities of applicants.

Writing Technical Job Ads

Yesterday, I sat down with the Senior Developers to determine the company's requirements of new recruits. It's best to consult with the people who are senior and those whom have their hands and minds involved inside the project. That's something I had learned during my work at Sharm in the HR department of a 1600-employee operation. It was a piece of advice given to me by the HR Director. Indeed, it does bring good results. Not only does it help tailor solutions to the real problems, but it also makes people feel better for being consulted and see results in a more favorable way in addition of course to producing better results.

Today I started outlining the job ad for the several positions required. Due to my insider knowledge of IT technology and programming I was able to write deeper and better targeted job ads, specially in the requirements section. My insider knowledge of programming and IT technologies gave me an edge. I started fleshing out the outline with bits and pieces from what I had gathered yesterday from the input of the senior developers in addition to my own knowledge of the available talent pool in the market and their profiles. After adding points to the job ad here and there and finding it has flashed up reasonably well, I showed it to one of the senior developers for feedback whom in tern also showed it to another developer within his team. They gave me some more suggestions and additions most of which I took into consideration and edited the job ad accordingly. I finally submitted the final draft of the job ad to the other senior developer (who is higher in rank than the firs one) to have a final look. Probably I'll be posting the ad tomorrow God willing if he gives me feedback on the ad by then.

It's been tough work, but the results I believe are promising and exciting. It is quite rewarding to find some deep and hard work evolve finally into a nice piece of work, it's like the feeling you get after completing working on a work of art!

Refining Clouds

Today I started to create some clouds then refined, re-refined then created more smoke then refined some more. The end result are a bunch of open-ended documents in different parts of the HR function. These documents are the seeds and skeleton of the HR documents and forms. They are the core upon which the whole system will be built.

HR from Scratch

Starting an HR department from scratch is a tough task even if it's only in a tiny company. One has to design and build all sorts of HR forms from scratch, build if even a simple information system to keep track of employee information even if such system is nothing but a bunch of spreadsheets in Excel.

Then one has to took into the ailing problems of employees that had been accumulated over time in the absence of any proper HR function. One has to work in parallel trying to give instant relief from such ailing pains while at the same time working on a more long term remedy for such problems by treating them from the source. This way there would be a balance between achieving long term stable goals while at the same time showing fast results in no time.

Google Pizza

Google's HR hand reaches far and wide, grabbing the eggs even before they hatch. It does so not by offering any sort of poultry food (no pigeons involved here) but this time it offers pizza instead.

CiteHR

While searching Yahoo! for "competency mapping," I stumbpled upon this forum which surprisingly came near the top of the Yahoo! search results and had a good piece of writing about competency mapping, even better than that present in 'normal' web sites! The site HR forum site name is CiteHR.

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.