EP89: ACICO Group - Building Trust Internally and Externally

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

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This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for weekly episodes.

I am your host, Lydia, and joining us today is Ahmad Rajab of ACICO Group. Welcome to the show Ahmad. Thank you so much for joining us.

Ahmad: It's an absolute pleasure to be here with you. Thank you.

The Path to HR - From Engineering to Human Resources

Lydia: So Ahmad, what's kept you in the people space? Walk us through your journey in this field.

Ahmad: I’ll tell you my story and how it’s related to what I do in life. Personally, I grew up in a multicultural family. My mother is Palestinian, my father is Kuwaiti. Having different backgrounds opened my eyes to different cultures. That was my first acceptance and welcoming of different cultures. I didn’t see it as a privilege back then. I felt I was missing something in my life. I’m not a typical Kuwaiti. But then I realized later on, especially now when I’m working, that it was a privilege to understand how to welcome and accept other cultures. That was the beginning.

Growing up in Kuwait, in a multicultural family, I then went to the States. I lived in the States for a while, studied, and got married to a Colombian woman. This was my second interaction, or exposure, to a different culture. I was blessed with a baby girl. The marriage didn’t last for a long time. I came back to Kuwait. I’m mentioning this part of my life to show how open I am to different cultures, languages, and backgrounds. I think this is essential if you want to work in HR, but we’ll come to that later on.

Personally, I’m a father of three. In addition to my firstborn daughter, I have two lovely daughters here in Kuwait. They’re six and four, and they’re the center of my life. I can’t wait every day to go back and play with them. In fact, I reserve some time every day to go back and play with them. Sometimes, I tend to work after they go to bed, which is fine. We have to catch up.

Professionally, I studied engineering. I didn’t know what Human Resources meant back then.

Lydia: Did you have aspirations to become an engineer back then?

Ahmad: Yes, exactly. But again, this inspiration is normally driven by the family. At a young age, you sometimes don’t know what’s best for you. You listen to your father, mother, friends, and colleagues. I chose engineering as my career, thinking that I would find myself in engineering later.

After I graduated, I returned and worked as an engineer in the petrochemical business. They saw that I was good at training, so they sent me to Houston, Texas to be certified. I came back and trained all the plants. I was good at it. I found passion in training. Shortly after that, I started interviewing on behalf of the maintenance department. Any engineer or any employee who wanted to join the maintenance, I used to interview them. I was certified to conduct proper interviews.

Then, shortly after that, they asked me to do job descriptions. Hold on, guys, wait a minute. I mean, I’m doing HR work, training, interviewing, and job descriptions. In fact, some days I was doing more HR work than in my original engineering job.

Lydia: I suppose that you enjoyed that?

Ahmad: I did find a passion in that. In 2006, I made the decision to move purely to 100% Human Resources. Since 2006, up to today, I’ve been through many industries and many functions of Human Resources. It wasn’t until six or seven years ago that I started to be in a managerial role. Now, I’m heading the Human Resources in general, not only specific functions.

When I first started in HR, it wasn’t the same as it is today. In the perception theory of Human Resources, it was personnel, archive, payroll - it was pretty much about the same thing. Yes, there were some initiatives to introduce the business partner concept here and there, and some initiatives to put HR on the strategic table. But it was never really implemented correctly. The perception of the market back then was not looking at HR as if they did have a seat at the table.

Lydia: It’s not a strategic role.

Ahmad: I consider myself one of the pioneers here in Kuwait who were able, with the help of others, to transform the perception of Human Resources from being personnel, payroll, and archiving to what we are today in terms of strategic planning, improving leadership, and developing a business.

These are the kinds of terminologies that we're applying today, not only at ACICO but all over Kuwait. My peers and I, of my age, have lived through this era, which is the last 15 to 20 years, and brought you up to speed with where we are today. I'm proud to be part of this generation and part of this change that I witnessed in Kuwait.

In addition, I was selected to teach Human Resources at one of the universities here in Kuwait, called Gulf University of Science and Technology. What's unique about this is that the university normally hires PhDs, and I don't have a PhD. I was pleased when I received a call, and they told me, "Ahmad, we're willing to bend the rules for you because we've heard about your experience. We want you to teach with us." I taught Human Resources at Gulf University for four years, and then just last year, I accepted this job.

Again, I find passion in training and transferring knowledge to people. In fact, I'll tell you a secret. Sometimes, when I'm not satisfied in my daily job due to the issues and problems we encounter, I find satisfaction when I go to the university at night, because my class is obviously at night.

Lydia: So, you’re teaching part-time?

Ahmad: I worked part-time, three times a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. To accommodate my busy schedule, the university tailor-made the classes for me. They scheduled them from 5 PM onwards, so five to six, six to seven. I really find satisfaction in standing up in front of the students, delivering the knowledge, and seeing the understanding of the content in their eyes. It provides satisfaction and pleases me in a way. I did that for four years, and then, of course, it ended when I joined ACICO last year.

Lydia: And that’s ACICO for last year, meaning the end of last year and now you’re in this role full-time again, right? You’re back to HR as a full time.

Ahmad: Yes, exactly.

Addressing Past Management Challenges to Revive Morale and Motivation

Lydia: There are so many experiences you just talked about, both personally and professionally, that add to your professional role and enrich them. So, in terms of growing as a person, I suppose HR can also have that cultural background, and those different points of view have also helped you see different perspectives when dealing with people. In your current role at ACICO, I understand that it involves construction and building materials. What are some of the key areas that you are prioritizing in the role?

Ahmad: Well, first of all, let me clarify how I took this position. It wasn’t a difficult interview, Lydia, it was reaching out for help. I received a call from the management of ASICO. They had heard about me and wanted to meet, so we started with a cup of coffee. The interview wasn’t really an interview; it was like reaching out to my best mate. They knew about me, they had many problems, and they wanted my help.

Really, as I saw it, I couldn’t have said no to that. It’s like they were asking for my help. So, how could I say no? And of course, I jumped at the opportunity with passion and a willingness to help. When I took over, I found that morale, motivation, and energy were down due to lousy management, especially from the past. But it was surfacing again, like the good things are surfacing. But that’s the culture that was there last year.

People were not really energized and motivated to work, to produce. There was no incentive scheme. People were recognized on a random basis; there were no policies for rewards and benefits. So, in the absence of a policy, I really inherited a pile of requests, random cases, and grievances, all of which required a thorough understanding and the setting up of a policy. So, that was my role when I first joined.

You need to have empathy, you need to understand, you need to actively listen to understand what’s going on around you, and assess the situation.

And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past six months. Today, we are trying hard to bring them together. I’m introducing some development for them. Not only development, but some engagement activities as well. We opened an Instagram account, especially for people, and we’re making weekly competitions, raffles, draws, gifts, and rewards. I made a cup of coffee with the CEO. So every week, people meet with the CEO to discuss things other than business. By the way, we now play Poudel from time to time. Training courses are back in business; we introduced training courses again after they were stopped for a long period of time.

In addition, of course, we’re enhancing the Benefits Scheme. Our benefit scheme is really outdated. It goes back to 2016. So, believe it or not, it went through COVID.

Lydia: And all in the HR or in the people space or in any business there is pre-pandemic life and there's a post-pandemic.

Ahmad: So, it required some update which I'm working on right now and I think we're progressing a lot.

Utilizing Survey Insights to Create a Roadmap for Action

Lydia: In terms of building or, rather, setting that foundation for all these policies to come to life, what are some of the steps that you have taken in this initial stage where you come in and you look at a plan that isn't coherent? Or a plan that you need to bring together so that you can set those processes in place? I mean, how long does it take? What steps go into that? Who are the stakeholders?

Ahmad: It's a good question. There is a formal way, or let's say; an official way, and there is an informal way. The formal way, which I prefer to be honest, is to conduct an engagement survey and you don't do it yourself; you ask a third party to do it for you. Why? So that people can give candid feedback. Because the moment they find out that you're doing the survey and you're seeing the results, don't expect much from them. They'll be afraid of retaliation, afraid of revenge.

Also, they will not really give you their honest and candid feedback. So, you have to assure them that it's done by a third party and you don't see the results. If you successfully get this message across, then you're getting good results. So, that's step number one. You do an engagement survey. The results of the engagement survey are your roadmap. So whatever you see, then you can set up your calendar for the year. You know what you can focus on. Is it engagement? Is it a reward? Is it retention? Is it succession? Is it missing talents? What are the key areas that we need to focus on?

The results of the engagement survey are your roadmap. So whatever you see, then you can set up your calendar for the year. You know what you can focus on. Is it engagement? Is it a reward? Is it retention? Is it succession? Is it missing talents? What are the key areas that we need to focus on?

So, that's the official way. The chances of missing the target here are minimal because you know what you have to focus on. The unofficial way here is meeting with managers and people on a frequent basis. You need to gain their trust. Irrespective of whether you're new to them or old. Maybe they've been promised so many times before, and nothing happened. They've witnessed so many management changes before, and nothing happened. But how would you assure them that this time would be different? This is a challenge.

How would you sit with them this time and say, "You know what? This time will be different." It's not easy, but it comes with active listening, empathy, and taking action. Even though maybe you don't achieve the targeted result or the desirable result, just by taking action, it's sometimes good enough for them. So, if you do take action in an effort to collect some thinking, and even though the desirable outcome is not achieved, the action itself is well recognized.

And that's the informal way. But a mix of both works well. So, you could do the engagement survey, and of course, meet people and do everything I just mentioned.

Lydia: That's the roadmap. Yes, that brings me to the second part of that. Sometimes it can be simultaneous or it can happen concurrently; building these foundations in-house as well as attracting top talent from outside. So, when you've got a challenge like this, how do you position the company? Or how do you position compensation and benefits to those whom you are attracting in terms of talent? You want these specialized skills. How do you go about that? And have you faced any of these experiences? I'm sure you have.

Ahmad: Big time. But to add water to the mud, not only when it comes to attracting talents, we don't only have internal issues, we also have external issues like I was about to talk about. For example, regulation issues. Now in Kuwait, unfortunately, some nationalities are banned from entering the country and working in the country. So, that limits my choices. So if I, with the internet today, login, I have access to the whole world. Now with the current regulation in Kuwait, that limits my choices. And sometimes I cannot get the best talent because of the limitations and nationalities. That's one thing.

The second thing is the standard of living in Kuwait. It's very nice. It's very balanced. If you want to raise a family, it's nice. If you want to live there, being single is also nice. But it's not always the preferred choice for the talents. The talents always prefer to go to Dubai and Doha and now, of course, Riyadh. And then if you don't get any of them, they are okay to settle for Kuwait. So, given this reason, it creates, puts effort, and puts pressure on my job to attract talent.

So, in addition to the internal issues that I have a solution for, I'm going to tell you now, that we have external issues regulation side, from the perspective of the standard forward, like I mentioned, exception. Yes, it's a perception by the way. And oftentimes, this perception is wrong, by the way, because the moment they come to Kuwait, they find a balanced life here, not like in Dubai, where the development, the freedom that the best economy in the world, and not like Doha, of course, it's kind of balanced, especially if you want to raise a family.

The third external reason that we are also facing, is that it's not a challenge, I would say it's a good challenge. The good challenge, of course, is the nationalization now. We live in a country with 60% of it is less than the age of 25. So, that puts pressure on the government to find them jobs. The government, in an effort to find them jobs, put a quota on us that we have to hire Kuwaitis. Now, irrespective of the business, the percentage changes, the quotas change. So in my case, for example, I have to hire a certain number of Kuwaitis.

Now the thing is, given the circumstances, some areas are automated, yet, I don't have experts in the field. So, I'm kind of in a dilemma here whether to buy or build. That's the question that we always ask, buy or build. Buying seems to be a viable option, but with the current circumstances that I just mentioned, might not be the best and easiest option. Building, yes, it's good. It's a good cause socially, that I'm doing good for the Kuwaiti community that I'm living in. But it takes time. It's not immediate.

So, you need to combine building and buying, especially if you're operating in Kuwait. You cannot count on only value because you will be limited. And you cannot count on only building because it will take time. So, you have to combine both.

Build Trust through Visual Identity to Align Perception with Reality

Lydia: You were talking earlier about ‘build or buy.’ So, in this current situation, we're looking at, there are so many of these things, which is a long process, I would presume, to build internally, as well as build externally and build that perception and employer brand.

But in terms of making sure that you've got your priorities in place, which one would you go for in a situation where you're looking at the immediate needs of an organization, but you're also looking at making sure that happens concurrently or there's a trickle-down benefit too?

Ahmad: Well, first of all, I have to be good friends with marketing. I have to shake hands with marketing. Why? Because they will help me in the internal branding. Okay, I have to assure the employees that number one, we have a new era, new management, new board of directors, and a new direction. They need to believe that. We were thinking with marketing about what's the best way to do that, and we even found to the extent of changing the logo, believe it or not.

Because if a company changes its logo, people, and employees, when they see a new logo, will associate change with a new logo. So, maybe it's not only enough that we say that we have a new face, new management, and new people, maybe also changing the logo. So, we are serious about change. And we are serious about sending the message that we are a new management, a new change, a new era. By doing so, hopefully, we can attract more and better talents.

Lydia: We've seen an evolving landscape of work, particularly in all these different changes and plenty of recent global events. What might be some key takeaways you’ve had in relation to employee engagement?

Ahmad: I would categorize them into two main themes, I would say. Theme number one; we've noticed that after COVID, people came back to the office. As employers, we saw them less engaged and less committed to coming to the office every day. Why? Because they still believe that they can be more productive at home. They've done it for almost one year. They worked from home remotely. And most of them succeeded. They got rewarded depending on the kind of business, though not all businesses can be done remotely. But for the businesses that can be done remotely, they've succeeded, they were more productive.

So now, bringing the same people to the office every day and telling them about the importance of engagement, the importance of harmony, the importance of seeing them every day, meeting them face to face, it might not really click with them. Because they've done it remotely, and they've succeeded. Because for them, they really don't see the value that we have, because we have the helicopter view. We're seeing things from our country, I'm seeing the culture in general, but from their perspective, they're just looking at their day-to-day work. And from their perspective, they can do it at home still. So, why do you have to bring me to the office every day? They don't see the reason, they don't see the value. And that's our struggle right now as an employer or as HR to convince them that there is the engagement part, the cultural part that we have to pay attention to, despite the COVID success that they've had.

Theme number two; dealing with Gen Z or Generation Z. Now we see them in the workforce. Of course, they're not only entry-level, surprisingly, though, they're growing in their career. Now you can see them at almost mid-level. Yes, almost mid-level. So Gen Z, dealing with them oftentimes requires more understanding. From what sense? From the sense that they are impatient. They want things fast. From another perspective, they think that they can multitask. They want to do things, they want to fill their day with more stuff. They want to work for more than one employer, they don't mind. So, dealing with this mindset also requires understanding how they think, maybe bending the rules sometimes to accommodate what they want, so they can be more productive.

So, I wouldn't say today, my takeaway or the theme that we should focus on is the theme, these two things that I just mentioned.

Understand Employee Resistance in Addressing the Nature of Change

Lydia: Now, in terms of change, it is great for those who are looking for change within the organization. In terms of engaging with employees who may not necessarily buy into this change, what happens then when you've got a group of employees, and not everybody is perhaps going to immediately look at change as a positive thing. So, for those who are resistant to change or a new way of doing things, what is the role of HR?

Ahmad: This is normally the case in every organization, and it's the nature of people that they're resistant to change. Because here we have people that have been in the company for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, they're in their comfort zone.

So who is Ahmad? Who's coming now? He doesn't know anything about the company and is trying to change. No, he's not going to succeed. He's going to leave and I'm going to stay. That's the perception. So, this is not unusual.

Just by being consistent in what you do, and being transparent in what you do, let them see changes, like I mentioned earlier, let them see changes. Yesterday, I took them on a retreat to one of the resorts here in Kuwait, to show how we closed 2023 and how to link the reward to 2023. One of the employees approached me and said, "Mr. Ahmad, I want to tell you something. I've been in the company for 23 years, I've never seen this before and I've never known how the work leads to performance."

So, this is just one example of the changes that we're trying to put out there and publish and speak about.

So be transparent, make them see some changes, and be consistent. Normally these people, if they're not going to change, they'll change.

Lydia: There's also that element of putting yourself out there, being seen, building your brand, so to speak, in terms of making sure that trust is being built. So, how important is personal branding, or the internal branding of your role? How would you be able to contribute to changes in the organization?

Ahmad: Luckily, I’m good at speaking, and I enjoy it. So, it comes with the job. It really helped a lot. For example, I appeared on LinkedIn and Instagram in the internal domain, and internal accounts, and spoke to the employees. They were very happy and pleased to finally see the face of HR. Of course, it tells them that I’m okay with talking, expressing, and telling them in both languages. In the past, they haven’t seen this before in a video, so this is new to them. In fact, to support what you said, Lydia, I made a video where I’m encouraging people to come and approach me and say anything that they want. This video is played all day long outside in the lobby.

Lydia: One time is not enough, you’ve got to repeat [the video].

Ahmad: Repeatedly in the lobby. But it's nice because people always associate now with Human Resources.

Leveraging AI for Efficiency

Lydia: So, moving on to the use of technology, I understand you’re in the foundational phase of building and taking it to a different level. So, in terms of using HR tech, or maybe in this instance, recruitment technology, or the increased usage of AI; we’re using chatbots all over the place.

So, in your experience, how has this impacted HR? You mentioned earlier also, that when you started out in HR, it was a totally different nature. Then you’ve got pre-pandemic HR, then you’ve got post-pandemic HR, then you’ve also got AI-influenced HR. So, in your experience, how has the proven technology or the use of AI impacted HR?

Ahmad: It went through phases. But let me talk to you about AI in general. AI has been a hot topic for the past, let’s say, seven to eight years. From an HR perspective, of course, it helps a lot in recruitment. When I say recruitment, I’m not talking about selection, the actual selection, because the actual selection here requires manual interaction.

You need face-to-face, eye-to-eye interaction to select the best nominee or the best candidate. But everything else, the entire process up until the selection, can be made more convenient with AI. For instance, role plays, interviews, screening, simulation, you name it, all these things can be done much better with the use of AI and are much more convenient. In the past, candidates used to search for employees. In recruitment, AI is used to search on the platform for a CV. It took them one hour or two hours, but now with AI, it takes a few minutes, and they get better quality, even better than the manual search.

So, screening, filtering, and even now role plays. For example, if you want to role play, if you want simulation, with VR technology, now, you could do it with AI. The results are fascinating and fantastic because you’ve never known that you can get so much out of AI in the screening world. In addition, there’s one thing, also the psychometric test. Now, linking the candidate to the job profile used to be done manually. But now, thanks to AI, you can exactly know if, for example, is a potential candidate to be the Human Resources Manager or not, immediately, and with much better accurate results thanks to AI and that’s from an HR perspective.

Lydia: That is also a way or pathway towards getting all the data and the analytics that you use to inform your strategies. So, in terms of using this data, is this a treasure trove that you get from all the technologies that you would have used in your processes? I mean, in what ways do you benefit from that? Or in what ways does that sharpen the strategies that were put in place?

Ahmad: There are so many various things.

I think one of the major issues we have in Human Resources is to secure positions for your talents. This is a million-dollar question here. Most organizations today struggle to retain their talents and find them positions. Because look at the pyramid, for example, the base of the pyramid is huge. But it’s not all at the top. So, not all the people will go up, obviously, it will be more challenging for them to keep going. There is one CEO for the organization, but there are many soldiers.

So, the biggest problem I’m currently facing is how to retain this talent, middle management, where to push them up, there is no room sometimes. So with AI, AI can determine exactly who’s the best qualified and it can determine exactly what my choices are, it will help me, and it will open my eyes to things that I haven’t seen before. Maybe expanding horizontally, expanding diagonally, or expanding gave me three choices that were not possible before.  With the old-fashioned thinking before, I used to always think vertically, where would they go next. But with AI and linking the competencies to the job profile, there are other possibilities now that are on the table. Not only that. So yes, AI does help with that.

Lydia: In terms of also making sure that you are either building or buying for specific talents that come in.

Ahmad: It was easy, for a simple reason. If the gap is huge between the job profile and the candidate, then you might as well settle for buying from the market, because the building will take a very long time, and often time it's even not achievable. So then, buying would be the most feasible choice.

Empower Employees to Drive Motivation and Productivity

Lydia: In terms of fostering a performance-driven culture, a lot of this comes down to your immediate supervisor. But in terms of HR, what role can HR play in fostering that kind of performance-driven culture? You talked earlier about making sure there are leadership development and development plans in place, putting all those in place so that people can look upwards or even look at the same level to see where they can go next. So, what kind of role can HR play in fostering performance within a culture?

Ahmad: It’s easier said than done. But the solution seems to be very easy, but oftentimes it’s difficult. Pay per performance. That’s it, you just pay for performance, you structure rewards based on performance, not based on time, not based on age, not based on anything else, male or female, not based on anything else, but based on performance. You structure your bonus scheme based on performance, you structure your merit increase on performance, your incentive program on performance, and all the rewards, you will link to performance rather than other variable factors. So, if the people see that they will be rewarded if they achieve, of course, they will be incentivized to do more, of course, they will work harder to do more. And if you manage to not only create this policy but also to implement it and let them understand this policy, then you hit the jackpot.

Lydia: We spoke a lot about all these anecdotes that you had while building your experiences, looking into recreating a whole new structure, or building that trust internally for a team. But it also comes with years of experience in recruitment and imparting that knowledge to a whole group of new people in universities themselves.

So finally, just as a final question, what advice would you give someone who’s starting out in the people space today? Today is clearly, as you defined earlier, a different day from three years ago on this very same day. So there are so many changes that are taking place, maybe even the role of HR has changed. So, what advice would you give someone who started out today?

Ahmad: Have a heart. This is the biggest and most important piece of advice that I’m giving to youngsters and people who are entering HR for the first time. Have a heart, empathize, listen, and not only listen but actively listen, with the willingness to jump in and help and engage. So, I haven’t mentioned anything technical at all. Everything I mentioned is only soft skills. Okay, so heart, empathy, intellectual, interpersonal, interpersonal skills in general.

Lydia: Some points of view say that these soft skills are in fact hard skills nowadays.

Ahmad: Exactly. So, interpersonal skills, and people know themselves. For example, when I was an engineer, I naturally found myself in Human Resources, because that comes naturally. If you have that, you will find you will excel in HR.

If you have these soft skills, or I would say behavioral skills. Maybe I should turn my face away from soft skills because they’re not soft, like you rightly said, they are behavioral skills, and those skills, if you have them, then you will excel in the job because the technical aspect will always follow how you can deal with the HR issues.

Technically, this will always follow. I mean, I’m not worried about that, but I’m worried about the behavior. HR is not as it used to be called 25 years ago, HR now is an advisor, is a business partner and if you have what it takes, then yes, you are ready.

Lydia: Thank you so much for your time and your insights. I think it's been generous and a very insightful audience. So, for those who listening in and who might want to connect with you later, where can they find you?

Ahmad: I'm happy to respond on LinkedIn, but please give me some time. Sometimes I don't respond on the same day. It takes me about a day or two because of my busy schedule. But of course, they are very welcome to connect anytime.

Lydia: Excellent. Thanks again. It's been great. It's been a great pleasure having you.

Ahmad: You're welcome, Lydia. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you so much.

Lydia: We have been in conversation with Ahmad Rajab of ACICO Group. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All-In Recruitment.