Tell Us More About Your Background?
I grew up in Dubai and attended school here before returning back to Canada for University where I studied analytical chemistry and then did a degree in engineering. I then returned to Dubai in the 90’s to work for one of the big air conditioning suppliers here. It was a great market to be in.
In early 2000, Dubai Internet City was built. I was bored of working on-site in the heat and decided it was time for a change. So, believe it or not I saw an ad on Bayt.com (which had launched just a few months prior), for a salesperson. I applied, got invited for an interview and have been here ever since. I’ve been at Bayt.com for almost 13 years.
Tell Us More About Bayt.com
Bayt.com is an online job site. We were one of the first internet based companies in the region and we are also the largest job site in the Middle East. When i started working with Bayt we had 80,000 registered professionals on the website, today we have almost 17 million. The company has grown hugely and it has been really exciting to be part of that growth.
When I joined Bayt.com I was the 7th employee, now we have over 300 employees and I have had an amazing career that I don’t think I would have had anywhere else. I started in sales and worked my way up to sales management, I then took time off to have a family and when I returned 5 years ago, I was given the opportunity to become the HR Director here at Bayt.com.
What Made You Get Into HR?
That’s a great question. As part of Sales Management it’s just a normal progression to hire people, to train people, to work with them very closely and as part of my formal sales education, to teach them about the the product, the industry and the company. It’s very natural for a manager to be involved at that level with staff. I was already doing the role of HR in my previous role of Regional Manager where I was responsible for managing 7 offices in the region and all the training, interviewing, assessments etc.
When I returned to work from leave we needed a proper HR structure that was easy to replicate. When I became HR Director that was one of the first challenges I had. We started by basically structuring our recruitment process. So, having a document in place for that process and then training people to use it was important. Over the
years we have refined our recruitment process and we are very proud of it.
One of the ways we engage prospective candidates is through assessments, everybody at Bayt.com is hired through assessments. We put them through group exercises and introduce them to other members of the team they will be working with, if hired. A lot of the time, we even invite people back to spend the day with us so they can experience what the job will be like. The reason we do all this is so people can understand the culture of the company, that’s very important to us. Our mission at Bayt is to empower people to build better lives. Everytime a job is listed on Bayt.com it’s an opportunity for someone to make a better life for themselves.
What Current HR Trends Do You See?
In the Middle East, internet based businesses are still relatively new and I would say that we are setting the trend there. However, what I do see is a trend where people are becoming more and more comfortable with the internet for business. We actually follow the user behaviour in the west and a lot of the new trends are coming through mobile devices like phones and tablets. Being online makes us more accessible to people, especially through our app – people can download and look for jobs anytime they want, anywhere they want. We are also able to bring people together through social media and our own forums.
What Interesting HR Projects Have You Implemented at Bayt.com?
We have implemented so many, our training and development strategy is made up of external and internal training. Internal is our own customised training where we bring in Bayt Heads or employees of the company who prepare a presentation and train their own team or staff. We encourage staff to book a minimum number of hours a year to go through any of the training on offer. We also have external training where we have trainers who come in and train us. What is most popular are our Brown Bag sessions. We find interesting people with a topic and they do a guest speaker session e.g. people who have developed their own apps, people who teach financial management, wealth and wellbeing, including yoga, networking and thought leaders. These sessions are very popular and we do them over lunch, which is why they are called Brown Bag sessions.
Take Us Through A Typical Day?
Right now I’m involved in HR and Sales. I am in the office for 8am checking emails, especially those from my boss if it’s urgent. I get a lot of the email responding done early in the morning and then after that, I have a bunch of interviews as we are always recruiting. Then it’s off to a meeting with the sales team to discuss the launch of a new product, followed by a meeting with a new training consultant to help keep our staff on the cutting edge. Then, it’s writing reports and presentations, which takes up a lot of time. Interviews normally take up most of my day.
How Can Our Readers Find Out More About You And Bayt.com?
Just go to www.bayt.com and see all the jobs in the Middle East. You can also connect with other users in our forums and if you want to learn more about Bayt you can connect with us there.
