HR Management Training in Egypt

Last week I started delivering an intensive HR Management training course to FGF trainees through Talal Abu Ghazaleh Professional Training Group. It is an intensive 13-day training course held at the FGF facilities inside Cairo University.

The aim of the course is to introduce new comers to HR to the field of Human Resources Management. Through six modules, the intensive HRM training course introduces trainees to some of the fundamental concepts of HR management including recruitment, job analysis, training and development, performance management and compensation and benefits. Other topics covered during the training are designing orientation programs, writing job descriptions, c0nducting interviews among other things.

I have attempted to use an interactive workshop approach to the training emphasizing teamwork, critical thinking and problem solving skills. The aim was to equip trainees not only with basic HR awareness but also with the confidence to tackle new situations they would probably be facing at an HR department.

Trainees seamed to enjoy group activities most. Trainees were divided into groups, provided with directions and given time to work together. They produced some creative presentations which got better and more creative with each further training session. Their presentations explained recruitment processes, commented on case studies, explained methods of job analysis and designed orientation programs for actual organizations. Role play was another activity that helped trainees experience performing some basic HR roles such as interviewing candidates.

I am planning to add some tips for HR trainers later on my Born Trainer website.

Resala Nasr City - Now Open!

I am excited to announce that at long last, Resala has opened its Nasr City branch.

Resala is an unconventional youth-fueled charity organization that is expanding at a staggering speed while maintaining its stability at the same time. The Nasr City branch marks the seventh Resala branch in Cairo and the thirty second Resala branch in Egypt. Each Resala branch is a whole building with several services present in each floor. Services offered include:

• Free computer courses.
• Illiteracy courses.
• Free private lessons for school students.
• Services for the blind, the deaf and children of special needs.
• Hosting and bringing up of orphaned children.
• Collecting and distributing used clothes to the poor.
• Distributing food for the poor.
• A regular monthly blood donation campaign.
• Direct assistance to poor families.
• Free medical checkups.
• ... and much much more

The above are just a few of the many activities that Resala offers in each of its rapidly expanding number of branches across Egypt.

Even the traditional service of taking care of orphaned children, Resala implements it in a nontraditional way. Each orphaned child in every Resala branch has a number of big brothers and big sisters whom take full responsibility of visiting him/her, applying for his/her school, taking him/her to the doctor ... etc and visiting him/her on a regular basis.

Another successful Resala initiative was the 10 LE initiative. Each volunteers participating in this initiative agree to donate 10 LE to Resala each month. Although the amount of money is small from each volunteer, yet the stability of the income to Resala helps it to survive and be able to offer its many services to community in a stable way. Of course those who want their monthly payment to be more (or less) than 10 LE per month may do so. The idea is to have a constant income to enable better planning instead of getting random burst of donations. A collector can be sent to your house to collect the donation.

The used clothes project is also one of the most successful activities at Resala. If you want to donate your used clothes, you do not have to bring them yourself to a Resala branch, all you have to do is just call Resala and tell them you have some used clothes you would like to donate and they will send someone to you to collect your used clothes.

The idea behind Resala started several years ago by Dr Sherif Abdel Azim (PhD) who lectured at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University where Resala was born. He now lectures at the AUC. Resala was and is still fueled mainly by university students and fresh graduates yet younger and older volunteers also participate. Resala relies heavily on it's large and growing volunteer base to achieve its goals and offer its wide range of services to the community.

My first involvement with Resala was several years back at their Mohandiseen branch. I was involved in the training service they were launching there. A few years later, I was so glad that the Masr El Gedida (Heliopolis) branch of Resala was launched. It was much closer to my home than the Mohandiseen branch. I started volunteering there and delivered a number of computer courses. I also attended sign language training there in order to be able to communicate with the deaf.

My dream finally came true when the Nasr City branch of Resala opened last week. It is 15 minutes walking distance from my home. The Nasr City branch of Resala is located in 2 Zaki Rostom street from Hasanain Haikal street which is near the intersection of Abbas El Akkad and El Batrawy streets. Here is a map of its location:

View Larger Map

The vertical blue line is Abbas El Akkad street. The fork and knife sign is Genena Mall. The accessibility (wheel chair) sign is Resala Nasr City.

The Resala dream is to have a Resala branch in every corner of Egypt just as McDonald's.

If you would like to donate your used clothes or need to ask about anything related to Resala just call 19450 and the Resala branch nearest to you will answer.

Selling my IT Recruitment Agency

Due to some health issues, I've decided to go on a farming project away for computers, mobiles and the Cairo pollution. I have thus decided to sell my IT recruitment agency www.genie-jobs.com within the next two months.

CV Guidelines from Google

It's an amazing exercise for both HR professionals and software engineers to read and think about the CV writing guidelines provided by Google.

Massage Interviews

Now that's really interesting. The interviewing process can vary from a strictly formal procedure to a casual informal meeting with a number of candidates one after the other. Yet Google has broken the normal once again by having this interesting interview: a massage interview!

Wishcraft

Wishcraft is one of those many books about how to achieve your goals. Like all such books, it goes on trying to motivate you all the way along telling you that anybody can achieve his or her goals in life. Yet unlike most of these books, Wishcraft does not put the load on your "will power." Instead, it says that will power is not necessary and that can go along achieving your dreams without having any so called "will power."

Another interesting aspect of the book is that it does not say you can achieve just about any dream you may think of, but instead, it says that every one of us has a special dream, finding such a dream is the first step, then one can go along attempting to realize it. Trying to just randomly pick any goal will simply not work.

Instead of will power, Wishcraft shows you a practical method that can work for people, even those who do not have any sort of will power. Instead of relying on will power, one would use the support of other people and help him or her in achieving their dreams.

You may also read Wishcraft online.

Promoting the Company Culture

Google has a unique company culture that is well suited for young creative minds who are engineering great software. Google constantly promotes its internal culture giving the world a peek into it in the hope of attracting yet more bright and creative minds to join it.

One of the unique cool things at the Google work environment is free food. Google repeatedly stresses on this unique point and entices young minds by showing the diverse appetizing free food it offers its employees. Another point Google kept stressing in the last period was it's welcoming of pets, specially dogs, at its premises.

As if that was not enough, Google's stress on its free informal work environment did not stop there. Recently, Google has showed the world how caring a work environment it possesses by relating this story of a pet snake owned by a Google employee and how a thriving team spirit from colleagues at Google resulted in the pet snake being found at the end and returned to its owner.