Muhammad Usman Zafar

Main Accountabilities:

Promoted to establish and lead the Rewards & Recognition Department encompassing diverse functions of C&B, Payroll Administration, Employee Engagement, HR Analytics and Manpower planning & Budgeting. Act as an advisor to Executive Director HR and CXOs for special assignments pertaining to Organization Development.

Achievements:
• Facilitated the development and implementation of HR Strategy through framework development and documentation of entire HR Strategy document containing KPIs, Key Initiatives and monitoring protocols.
• Successfully revamped the total rewards framework with the implementation of revised job descriptions, new job grades as per Mercer IPE, market based salary ranges, enhanced employee benefits and revision of various allowances.
• Developed job family and categorization framework to streamline job classification, develop job descriptions database, depict career maps, ensure consistency in job titles and improve internal benchmarking and communication.
• Led the initial discussions and shortlisting of consulting firms to revamp company’s strategy and organization structure.
• Overseen design and implementation of various HR Projects such as launch of HR Clinic, HR Process Automation and Optimization, Development of HR Manual, HR Wallboard and Employee Engagement Initiatives.
• Prepared, managed and forecasted the annual manpower budget of AED 400 million approx. and contributed towards realizing total net saving of AED 20 Million through identification of cost drivers, optimized monitoring & control mechanism, outsourcing and restructuring.
• Contributed towards technical assessment, cost & benefit analysis, price negotiation and implementation of contracted services such as outsourcing of payroll function, temporary & permanent workforce outsourcing, employee engagement app. (xoxoday) and deployment of HRIS.
• Revised incentive schemes and introduced career progression framework for customer care and sales staff to reduce abandon rate from 20% to 5% and increased customer retention.
• Orchestrated company wide off-cycle compensation adjustment process, targeting critical talent for bonuses, base salary increases, and other incentives to ensure retention of top performing employees.
• Established HR Analytics framework and translated into a dynamic dashboard to measure KPIs for efficiency, effectiveness and impact of HR practices.
• Achieved overall high level of employee engagement score (4 out of 5) through various initiatives to address key concerns such as work-life balance, employee recognition, physical fitness and revision of HR policies for employee centricity.

- Providing expert advice on all facets of HR to the C-Level executives to identify and solve manpower related issues impacting business deliverables.
- Conducting regular meetings with assigned Business Units to keep the stakeholders engaged on matters pertaining to R&S, Performance Management, , L&D, C&B and employee relations issues of their staff.
- Monitor employee engagement levels and make recommendations to address immediate as well as long term concerns for improved employee experience to drive business results.
- Reviewing manpower requirement requests from business units to validate the business case in accordance with business plan, budget constraints and workload assessment studies.
- Recommend changes in the employee bonuses and incentive programs to accelerate business expansion and employee motivation.
- Reviewing organizational restructures, manpower requirements, job levels and job titling requests to suggest amicable solutions.
- Conduct Training Needs Assessments to address core issues as per performance improvement initiatives.
- Managing employee relations matters such as performance and behavior issues as per the law and company policies

Main Accountabilities
Guiding, maintaining and facilitating Job Evaluation exercise for all level of jobs using the HAY methodology (for senior jobs) and MEIRC (for more junior jobs).
Compensation Survey: Focal point of contact for annual compilation of compensation related data with ADNOC HQ and Hay Consultants.
Providing specialist advice and guidance on all aspects of Compensation and Job Grading.
Maintaining system to draft, review and approve job descriptions.
Providing expertise on job design, workforce mobilization, organization restructuring, competency profiling, career pathing and salary surveys.
Data Cleansing: Ensure that offline and online data is reconciled. Define parameters to store information in a consistent & reliable manner.

Achievements:
Job Descriptions and Job Evaluation: Improved the policies, procedures and forms to improve validity of job descriptions and reliability of job evaluation system.
Benchmarking: Proposed and developed procedures for improvement in internal and external benchmarking.
Career Ladder Development: Worked with Manpower Development team to identify jobs for development of career ladders across the company.
Job Design: Facilitating the organization development team in matters pertaining to designing, labeling and defining jobs/roles for the purpose of standardization.
Introduction and development of Job Family System: Focal point in identifying the need to implement job family system and then develop a complete framework for categorizing jobs. The project will be completed by the end of 2016.

Abacus Consulting is the largest consulting, technology and outsourcing firm in Pakistan, both in terms of revenue and staff numbers. As part of Human Capital Solution (HCS) business vertical my role is designed to provide consulting services in following areas.

• Talent Sourcing: (Workforce Planning; Recruitment & Selection; Induction)
• Talent Management: (Compensation Management; Performance Management: Succession Planning: Retention Management)
• Talent Development: (Competency Management; Development Planning; Leadership Development)

Major Responsibilities:

• Project Design & Delivery:
o Understand clients’ needs by studying TORs, holding discussions with stakeholders, collecting & analyzing preliminary & secondary data.
o Address client’s needs by developing & proposing HR solutions/ approaches/ methodologies according that best meets the clients’ expectations via technical proposal.
o Prepare project plan by identify timelines, deliverables, milestones, total man-days and provide financial estimates through Job Order Costing to the team leader.

• Project Delivery:
o Consistently meeting client expectations via providing ground level support, coordination, follow-ups, progress reporting on project milestones to ensure timely delivery of technical and analytical results;
o Demonstrate value creation for clients via providing training to counterpart teams on various tools and methodologies to transfer knowledge and build their skills to carry out newly implemented procedures.
• Client Relation:
o Proactively developing relationships with clients that result in the highest levels of client satisfaction and/or add-on work;
o Building credibility and trust with clients;
• Innovation:
o Changing / adapting current models, tools and techniques to meet the clients’ demands / needs;
o Combining methodology to new approaches as a response to client or Firm needs;
o Delivering new insights in the application of current models, tools and techniques.

Army Welfare Trust is one of the largest business conglomerates of Pakistan which operates 30 + companies/projects with total staff strength of more than 10, 000. Its diverse portfolio encompasses over various sectors such as Cement, Pharmaceutical, Aviation, Financial, Insurance, Real Estate, Services, Oil and gas sectors.

Major Responsibilities:

• Ensuring that a comprehensive and a practical performance management system is developed, implemented and maintained with clear outcomes.
• Designing Learning and Development strategy to improve existing skills and knowledge of the workforce and aligning the strategy with overall business strategy.
• Assisting in Re-designing Compensation Structure for the purpose of achieving standardized and an effective compensation package.
• Facilitating Change Management initiatives by evolving, eliminating or redesigning legacy systems for organizational development through business process reengineering and restructuring exercise
• Developing and improving the existing HR systems for maximum efficiency.