Global Arab Network | Saudi HR Leaders honoured at the Kingdom HR Awards Summit in Riyadh

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Saudi HR Leaders honoured at the Kingdom HR Awards Summit in Riyadh

Global Arab Network - - George Haddad

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 11:57

Saudi_HR_Leaders_honoured_at_the_Kingdom_HR_Awards_Summit_in_Riyadh

The Kingdom HR Excellence Awards have taken place at the Holiday Inn in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in partnership with monster.com, the premier global online employment solution.

The glittering awards ceremony, held on Tuesday, December 15th as part of the ‘Kingdom HR Gathering and Awards Summit’ produced by business information company naseba, saw several of the country’s top HR Leaders and organisations walk away with coveted HR Excellence titles.

The Best Talent Management Strategy Award was presented to the National Commercial Bank. This organisation recognised the need to break down its silos and aimed at unifying all talent practices under a strategic talent management direction while taking into account its business impact. This was done by implementing an efficient and timely process that provides the businesses with the support to help make decisions regarding performance, potential, development, compensation, and succession. With an excellent retention rate of an average of 77% through the Management associate program, corporate associate program and INSEAD management leadership program, the bank has set the foundation of an excellent talent map of the company.

The Best Saudisation Friendly Initiative was given to a group of company called Saudi Transformers Company (STC), Wahah Electric Supply Co. of Saudi Arabia (WESCOSA) and Electrical Industries Company (EIC), which created a program called ‘training for nation’ with an aim to provide a training for young and promising Saudi nationals graduating from different industrial schools, colleges and universities in Saudi Arabia. Saudis who enrolled in this program are given hands on training with pay for 6 months along with certification. The judges were particularly impressed by the fact that the winning organisation is one of the only companies in the region that train Saudi nationals with no commercial return and are thereby contributing towards developing the community as a whole.

The Award labelled Best Training Strategy was given to Al Sawani Group. According to the judges, the Group has taken numerous steps in ensuring that they create an ultimate employee experience leading to a customer centric spirit which translates into sustainable profits. In 2009 the company realized the importance for retailing companies to figure out a solution to curb the effects of an economic recession by offering a service that is unmatched by any other competitors. The only way for a company to deliver in these times is through continuous innovation, training, and constant deep rooting of company values. Al Sawani Group created numerous training programs including an All-Star Retail Sales Training Program, a series of role-playing situational movies, a media channel that boosts the group’s employee engagement levels by means of producing movies, videos, and other behind-the-scenes footages to show the employees and the consumers what the group is all about.

The HR Director of the Year Award was taken home by Abdulrahman Mohammad Alrefaie, HR Director of Azizia Panda United. Mr Alrefaie has contributed in adding more than SAR 70 million to the bottom line of the company by savings in labor cost through implementing the people productivity measures in the company over the past 18 months. He also successfully managed to execute two mergers where the HR department played a key role in aligning cultures, fill any shortage in manpower, train big number of new people in a very short time as well as align pay and benefits of all new people amongst others. One of the most successful stories in the acquisition of Geant stores was to fill the shortage in manpower where the company recruited more than 2500 people in less than 100 days to meet the target date for opening the ten stores under the company’s brand. Mr Alrefaie also took various initiatives such as the internal promotion of 75% of the staff, the increase in 50% of the Saudisation rate, the implementation of a new performance management system, and the improvement of the employee morale by extracurricular activities.
The Kingdom Employer of the year - private sector Award was presented to Procter & Gamble for introducing key initiatives such as TANGO to improve on the PVP’s (Purpose, Values & Principles) of the employees paving the way for greater employee engagement. Their wellness program focusing on health, nutrition, fitness and relaxation created a fresh and fun feeling amongst the employees. This in turn resulted in healthier, more open and constructive relations. Healthier employees are happy employees and strong management relations result in greater business understanding. The organisation truly stands by its principle of improving the lives of its customers and also of the employees on a daily basis.

The Kingdom Employer of the year - public sector Award was given to Samba Financial Group. This organisation has consistently maintained high Saudisation ratio of 88%, provided job opportunities to disabled and extended facilities to equally compete with their colleagues, and introduced a Saudi youth training program to provide intensive training to fresh graduates. The company was the first one to introduce the deferred compensation program in their sector along with the implementation of numerous training programs for employee engagement and ensuring a common sense of drive amongst employees at all levels to contribute to making this organisation a world class institution.

Finally, the preferred CEO of the year 2009 Award was taken home by Eisa Al Eisa, Managing Director and CEO for Samba Financial Group. The vision of this award is to recognise a leading CEO who has worked hand in hand with the HR head as a business partner to bring the overall transformation to the HR function and worked towards making the organisation people centric. Mr Al Eisa harnessed the power of people by liberating them from management layers, bureaucratic shackles and functional barriers. To all internal and external stakeholders of this company, he is the personification of corporate leadership, with his inspirational thinking, business acumen, and institution, integrity and the indispensable ingredients of people empowerment and talent management.

Global Arab Network

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