HR Manager
Etihad Rail DB
Total years of experience :24 years, 4 months
• Managing the full suite of HR related policies and processes across the company.
• Reviewed and suggested improvements to policies and processes.
• Improved relationships with DB Germany and UK HR colleagues.
•Secretary of the Human Resources and Disciplinary Committees.
• Mentoring inexperienced Emirati acting HR Director.
In addition to my previous role I was asked to take on responsibility for the Qatar business, along with responsibility for HR policy across the region. Currently I am reviewing all of our polices to ensure compliance with the GCC Labour Laws and looking to bring international best practice to many of them; using the policies that the group uses elsewhere in the world as a starting point.
The Middle East board decided to create a new position to oversee all HR activities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, reporting to the Country MDs and the Mobilisation Director, based in Riyadh. The role manages HR representatives in Riyadh, Jeddah, Al Khobar and Bahrain and entails significant travel between these locations and the head office in Dubai, and regular direct contact with our Board members. KSA is a key developing country for Atkins and had very little ‘KSA specific’ policies and procedures. My first task was to develop an attractive remuneration policy in order to enable us to move staff more easily from other parts of the Atkins group to KSA. This consisted of developing salary scales and an interim set of terms and conditions for staff until they were able to secure residency visas. We have also focussed on the on-boarding process, ensuring that employees are given as much help as possible in moving to a challenging country. Current tasks include the role out of a centralised HR helpdesk, based in Dubai, a programme to improve Line Managers’ understanding of their people management responsibilities and the support that HR can give to them, developing and rolling out our Saudisation plan, and dealing with a major grievance matter between local staff and expatriates. HR support for Bahrain has recently involved dealing with a number of redundancies and offering pastoral support to those directly affected and those remaining in the business. I addition I have had responsibility for the resourcing side of several significant sales bids for major projects in KSA.
This was a new role created to put in place a framework to support the rapid mobilisation of resources on to any new contracts won by Atkins across the whole Middle East. Reviewed and implemented standard processes in order to streamline the movement of staff to new locations, focussing on the often difficult issue of personal terms and conditions for employees. Additionally given responsibility for the Immigration Team in Qatar, which subsequently managed to break the deadlock on obtaining residency visa, with a grant of over 800 visas secured within a couple of weeks.
Primarily focussed on the mobilisation and on-boarding of over 300 new staff, both from within the Atkins group globally and external hires, my role also included reviewing and creating new HR policies for Qatar and offering operational HR support to the new staff. The first milestone I achieved was the development and delivery of a new employee induction event, designed to help new employees orientate themselves with Atkins and Qatar.
My role was to act as the Human Resources Subject Matter Expert for the Western Region Municipality (WRM), Abu Dhabi, UAE on their Business Process Re-engineering project. The final deliverable was a set of leading practice HR processes that were specifically tailored to the WRM’s needs, based upon the UAE Labour Laws and local customs and practice; and a HR department staffed with employees that know how to best use these new processes in order to deliver the best possible service to their clients. At WRM’s request many current processes were documented and mapped ‘As-Is’ for the first time. Specific attention was being paid to Key Performance Indicators. The role also involved acting as a coach/mentor to all levels of HR staff, from fresh graduates to HR Manager, both local and expatriate. Also worked for the WRM General Manager in assisting him in improving the operation of his direct support staff and their processes.
Role primarily focused on business development, specifically within the human resources arena in the UAE and wider GCC. Assisted with the formation of a joint venture between Sundus and Executive Surf that is offering international headhunting services; primarily helping to obtain skilled workers from outside of the GCC. Also worked on an internal consulting project to re-organise the company and document and re-engineer its current Finance, Sales and Customer Management and processes.
Responsible for HR, Finance, Contracts and general Administration matters for the Centre of Excellence (CoE), which was spun-off from the Department of Civil Service. In addition to the daily operational tasks the main focus was on defining how the CoE fitted into the Government’s wider development plan by working with an external consultant to help us shape our future, developing the policies and procedures to support this and on moving the Centre to newer, larger premises.
The Department of Civil Service (DCS) was the Abu Dhabi Government department responsible the formulation and implementation of HR policies and procedures across 42 entities and over 10, 000 staff. I was initially brought in to work in the Project Management Office to help build a programme mentality to deliver the DCS’ Strategic Initiatives and to be responsible for the Project Management of the HR initiatives within the Department’s Strategic Plan. Appointed HR & Administration Manager by the Undersecretary to improve the performance of the HR Division. My overall responsibilities included providing HR services to over 100 senior HR experts (predominantly expats) within DCS and more specifically to reshape the HR Division and mentor the UAE Nationals that worked within it, exposing them to international practices and instilling the concept of customer service in the team. This involved properly documenting and mapping the current processes and applying leading practice to them in order to provide a quality service to our employees and to re-align the team’s roles and responsibilities. Participated in a project to map, document and train all employees on the finance and procurement processes within DCS. A major activity was the statistical review of the employee’s performance relative to the wider government employees. I was also an active member of the HR Committee, being part of the team that makes recommendations to changes in the Civil Service HR Policies & Procedures. I had a lead role in the formulation of the DCS 2009-2013 Strategy, working with GSEC and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Requested by NCP Services (UAE) to assist them with their tender for the Paid Parking Management Programme with the Department of Municipalities and Agriculture in Abu Dhabi. My role was to advise NCP on the UAE Labour Laws and general local HR practices (with particular reference to the challenges of creating a team to be formed around individuals who would all be new expats), as well as give general UAE related advice and suggest companies or individuals that NCP should speak to in order to assist them in their pursuit of the contract and help them plan their start-up operations in the event that they were awarded the contract.
Solely responsible for setting up the HR department when Injazat was founded (a joint venture between EDS & Mubadala), using international best practices from EDS and developing and localising the processes and procedures as required to suit the UAE Labour Law and customs; this resulted in a set of documented and mapped processes. Implemented a standalone HR system and Performance Management System, introducing the concept of linking pay to performance to many employees for the first time. Had responsibility for Real Estate group and successfully obtained and fitted out new office facilities. Took company from 4 employees to 500, along the way personally performed the transition of employees from 6 local companies, along with EDSers from the world over, into Injazat Data Systems. Particular attention was paid to embedding the expatriate experts into the company as this was deemed to be key to successful knowledge transfer to the local employees - a key tenent of Mubadala’s philosophy. Actively focussed on the development of UAE Nationals implementing a Career Development Programme and growing the percentage of UAE Nationals to 40% of the staff. Participated, as part of the Executive Management, team in securing over US$ 300 Million of contracts; I also had to function as the HR Business Development Manager and contributed to all pursuits within Injazat, often presenting to future staff and clients senior Exec’s. Directly accountable to the Board of Directors for the company’s overall performance along with the other Exec Managers. Handed department over to a UAE National as part of Injazat’s plan to Emiratise the senior Executive positions. Appointed as Business Development Manager responsible for the full sales cycle on various IT Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing pursuits in the UAE, from solutioning, through proposal development, costing and pricing to presenting to prospects; recognised as the HR specialist for all sales opportunities.
Business Development Manager supporting EDS’ sales efforts in the Middle East; predominantly focussing on the HR aspects of pursuits. Developed the ability to respond to Request for Proposals, cost and price deals, follow and gain corporate governance and present and sell a solution to a client. Responsible for the local HR transitions of York International and Fonterra, along with the global Abn Amro deal. Part of the consultancy team that won and delivered the consultancy project for the UAE Offsets Group (UOG) that went on to become Injazat Data Systems. My role in the consultancy was primarily with the HR aspects of the current UOG IT department employees and how they might be transitioned from various separate semi-government companies into a single, non-governmental entity, but was also involved in documenting the As-Is IT processes discovered. Assisted the UAE Country Manager in all aspects of UAE Labour Law compliance and general HR tasks, liaising with the central HR functions in Bahrain and the UK as a local expert in expatriate matters.