Firas Zaytoun

General Distributor for Mercedes-Benz, Jeep and Fiat in Abu Dhabi. The Group also operates in Real Estate, Oil and Gas, Hospitality and Travel and Tourism.

• HR Strategic Leadership: setting HR organizational structure, operating model, annual budget, initiatives and annual Balance Score Card.
• Business Partnership: ability to build excellent relations with business leaders, supporting the business with requirements pertaining to manpower, recruitment, performance, training, and all HR related matters.
• Talent Acquisition: Manage the end to end recruitment process by leading a team of internal recruiters responsible for sourcing, interviewing and selection of employees along with hiring business.
• Training and Development: Lead the overall Talent Management and Development strategy, setting development framework, implementation of all learning initiatives including Leadership Development, high potential programs, in-house training programs, and public programs.
• Performance Management: managing the annual performance cycle, track monthly KPIs for targets of front line; ensure performance actions are implemented including performance training, and poor performance management actions.
• Employee Services: handle employees’ grievance, complaints and investigations, produce audit reports and take necessary actions. Ensure on-boarding of new employees is smooth and provide best on-boarding experience.
• Emiratization: Set Emiratization strategy, hiring and training UAE Nationals for deployment to the business.
• Government Relations: work closely with Government Relations to ensure Labor law compliance, and tracking all recruitment applications pending approvals, and visas.
• Special Projects: Job Evaluation with Towers Watson, with the scope of reevaluating jobs, through conducting organizational health check, reengineer the grading structure, salary structure, review of job descriptions, and identification of behavioral competencies for each job.

Achievements:
• Lead Al Fahim Group to be awarded Happiest Work Environment for best Initiatives award in UAE by the ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization, and GCC Gov Awards. This had impact on al Fahim Employer brand making the talent attraction more efficient.
• Lead Al Fahim to be awarded the Emiratization partnership with ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization for Silver Category, benefiting the Group from facilities offered by the government.
• Participated in the optimization exercise which saw the Group saving 8M AED on overhead cost without having business disruption.
• Setup and implemented Talent Management at Al Fahim Group, for the first time, the Group has Succession Planning Framework, with successors identified carrying career development plans in preparation for future leaders’ role.
• Advocated and inspired the implementation of Business Partnership operating model which result in operational flexibility and more efficiency while maintaining the governance of HR operations.

Organization: National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi - UAE January 2010 till Mar 2015
Designation Chronology:
- Manager, Group Talent - HR: March 2014 - March 2015
- Business Process Management - Sr. Business Process Analyst: July 2013 - February 2014
- Academy Manager, Learning & Development - HR: June 2012 - July 2013
- Team Leader, Learning & Development - HR: January 2010 - June 2012 (Acting Academy Manager)

Learning and Development:
• Conducted Training Needs Analysis with Business units.
• Developed training programs through different modes of delivery achieving 93% satisfaction rate on the quality and relevancy of training.
• Designed learning roadmaps for specific divisions and roles as part of internal certification program for braches network, audit and compliance, risk management and HR Divisions.
• Built Learning and Development Delivery schedule and setting up the logistics for managing training coordination.
• Managed NBAD Academy training programs coordination through leading a team of 11, achieving more than 30, 000 training days
• Evaluated training programs as part of ROI measurement using Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation.
• Oversee the management of external training programs, locally and internationally, and employees’ educational support.
• Established E-learning strategy and approach, setup the e-learning platform, designed custom content and selected licensed based access programs offered internally resulting in achieving more than 12000 e-learning hours.

Talent Management:
• Developed Talent Management Policy, process and cycle on the basis of 4 and 9 box grid potential/performance identification.
• Performed Talent Reviews with the business, managed the entry of employees to talent pool and the exits.
• Designed and program managed Assessment centers to validate talents, reviewed individual reports and discussed with employees and line managers.
• Identified with employees, line managers and HRBPs Career Development Plans for high talents in preparation for their future role as part of succession planning.
• Implemented Behavioral Competency Framework through the design of programs conducted to all bank employees.
• Managed the strategic alignment of Talent Interventions with Human Capital Strategy, identified dependencies and produced projects plans.

Operations:
• Implemented Oracle Learning Management System by managing the entire project from business perspective.
• Setup on E-learning operations, implementing Web Based LMS for content delivery.
• Produced NBAD Academy Balanced Score Card in alignment with Group HR BSC.
• Designed Department Policies, Process and established the standard reporting criteria, produced Monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
• Oversee the audit and monitoring of execution of all initiatives carried by Group Talent, ensured compliance to standards as part of quality control.

Key Achievements:

• Key member in the creation of learning culture starting 2010 at NBAD. I have managed NBAD Academy to deliver recognizable success in the quality and quantity of development programs, generating more than 30000 training days, training more than 70% of the bank employees and achieving 93% satisfactory rate in relevancy of programs and quality of delivery.
• I have established the E-learning function in 2012 - 2013 at NBAD, setting strategy, approach, operations and LMS. This was the foundation to the blended solutions that the bank adopted later.
• In 2012, Lead the implementation of Learning Management System, Talent Management System and Career Development Plans application, including the design of Policies and Processes, training users and go live.

-Work with the training team to create a training and development schedule.
-Designing and developing training and development programs according to organization’s and the individual's needs.
-Managing the delivery of training and development programs.
-Monitoring and reviewing the progress of trainees through questionnaires and discussions.
-Evaluate the training program and conduct analysis that helps the development of trainings.
-Revising programs as necessary, in order to adapt to the changes that occur in the work environment.
-Consider the costs of planned programs to keep within budgets.

UAE Nationals Development Program - Certificate in Insurance from Chartered Insurance Institute - CII
-Overall coordination of the program schedule.
-Advising trainees and supporting during the classroom training, self-study period and work placement.
-Overall administration of the program including vendor management and logistics management .

Training Specialist
-Develop and maintain up to date training portfolio on all ADCB products and systems.
-Train new staff about bank’s products, processes and procedures in preparation for taking inward calls.
-Arrange refresher training sessions for the existing products, promotion and processes for all staff.
-Generating monthly reports for management, preparing monthly training plan for cross training and refresher training and ensure records available for audit purposes.
-Ensure quality service (service excellence) through call monitoring.
-Redesigning processes and system testing for lean process.

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