Zain Group, a leading mobile telecom innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, announces that the company’s Director of Human Resources, Maryam Saif, has been recognized as this year’s recipient of the HR Professional of the Year for the private sector at the annual MENA HR Excellence Awards. The event is organized by the international business facilitation experts Naseba Group.
The honor was bestowed at a gala event held on 26 May in Dubai in conjunction with the 11th Annual Human Capital Forum MENA. The judging panel singled out Mrs. Saif for her successful efforts in aligning the HR function with Zain’s strategic direction, promoting a people-centric culture, implementation of numerous innovative programs, engagement of employees in various activities and for her passionate focus on the overall development and well-being of staff.
Since joining Zain Group three years ago, Mrs. Saif has had a marked impact on the organization and its 7,000 staff who are spread across eight countries through numerous far-reaching and progressive HR initiatives. Under her stewardship, Zain implemented a back-to-basics program focused on policies, procedures and structures. Thereafter she led the company’s highly impactful engagement campaign under the theme ‘Together’, which resulted in a Group-wide response rate of over 90% and engagement score of 76% compared to the global norm of 69%. This exercise provided a meaningful framework for people to relate to the organization and make sense of the employment dynamic.
Mrs. Saif was also the architect of the launch of the new ‘multiple flavors of wonderful’ Zain careers site, which was promoted heavily on social media, positioning Zain as an employer of choice that subsequently resulted in the company being ranked by LinkedIn in the top 100 Most In-Demand Employers in the MENA region. Together with her team, the Zainers 2.0 Program was launched, focusing on the recruitment and development of elite students in Kuwait. The program also introduced developmental assignments that were aimed at employees who are keen to hone their skills and gain international experience across the Group.
Commenting on this recognition, Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer said, “Talent development and inspiring employees to achieve excellence through engagement is a key focus of Zain’s strategy as it will drive innovation through the company,supporting our aspirations to becoming a digital lifestyle operator. The company has become a much more engaging and enjoyable place to work and we owe much of that to Mrs. Saif’s tireless efforts. This recognition by Naseba confirms that Zain’s employees are in safe hands given her dedication and belief in investing in people and technology.”
Other Zain HR related initiatives include the hosting of a number of live tweet sessions and blogs through LinkedIn, all in line with the utilization of the two dedicated HR channels related to social media activities, which are @ZainCareers Twitter account and the Zain page on LinkedIn.
During 2015, Zain Group also introduced a capability framework that identifies core and leadership competencies to support the company’s strategic initiatives and provide a standard by which to measure present performance and identify the kind of activity required in the future. The business objectives set out ‘what’ is needed and the competency framework establishes ‘how’ people need to work to achieve these objectives in the year ahead. The core and leadership competencies outlined in the framework point to the behavior all Zainers are encouraged to adopt in order to perform their roles effectively. They reflect Zain’s current priorities and a benchmark for best practice.
Source: Zain
