Saturday, April 8, 2017

Working Hard or Working Smart or Working Creative


Date: 08 April 2017


Previously when someone want to be rich or have a business or try to raise his income they advise him to work hard, which mean he work two or three jobs in the same time or working part time or he just work overtime. Workers tend to work long hours and try to extend their working even in weekends, holidays and special holidays so they can have more income or grow their business. The time pass and new concepts and development in business occurred regarding productivity, excellence, cost ratios, quality and customer service, these new concepts changed the idea of working hard because they saw that working hard alone cant reach the goal or even it reach with high cost and waste of resources like time, material, human capital cost, therefore the concept of working smart has become known and advised instead.


Working smart means that you work with the resources you have, time, money, human capital and materials by following and implementing quality and excellence approaches and apply efficiency and effectiveness in work place, working smart concept is growing and being recommended in business world these days since its more logical to reach your goals and objectives by using with you have already without extra cost, resources or time, the use of this concept promote the perfect idea for business to not waste their available resources and use it to its potential and not add additional cost on their operation cost, but the question here arise about can workers work smart only? Can new recruited work smart once they join the organization? is working smart enough in business crisis or economic recession?


Although working smart is very beneficiary for business since its help in using the full potential if their resources but working smart alone cant make the business survive, for example new recruiters need to work hard on their selves in order to fully understand the business need and carry out their responsibilities in short time, but at the same time they need to work smart using the resources and ideas to reach the goals and objectives in minimal cost of time and resources, but even though businesses cant survive by working hard and smart alone they need to work creatively as well, in business the competition is very aggressive and this generate new challenges for other business to survive as well, so they try to create new services, products, technology and methodologies to stay in business, working creatively is another element business need to survive and to be competitive.


So does that mean businesses need to embed all these concepts in their workplace? The answer is yes and they also need to embed more concepts, there is no one methodology or model that suit all or solve all problems, businesses face many challenges and obstacles since their environment is dynamic, and by using one approach or model they cant face the other risks that the environment rise, therefore embedding different approaches in the business and deciding which to use will depend on the situation the business face.



Mohamed Alzayani
Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME Certified ROI for human capital development


Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Oil of Tomorrow for GCC Countries

The oil of tomorrow for GCC Countries

Date: 01 April 2017


In the early 20th century the oil was discovered in GCC countries but not until the late of 20th century GCC countries benefited from the oil discovery after the British colonizing ended and independent granted to GCC countries, from that period the oil has become the wealth of past present and future for all GCC countries to develop the infrastructure, education, health and economic, until the economic fluctuation happened and crash oil prices many times and GCC countries suffered from recessions although it was not affected that much because the world economy was not globalized like today where every western economic crisis strike all countries, but it was still affecting the GCC and the economy.


The cycle of oil price crash continue throughout the 20th century and the 21st century as well, but in the 21st century something happened it wasn’t happen before the oil prices went crazily up to $100 and more which made GCC countries rich more than they can imagine and things started to look promising and huge projects and economic changes been initiated, but in 2014 the cycle of  oil crisis crash strike again the prices went down again and the GCC countries entered into shock because they cant afford the economic changes and huge projects they instituted and they cant stop it as well. Especially that the region is in war with terrorism and political revolution in some countries that result in civil war which sucked the GCC countries budget into war as well and made it worse.


Today as after any oil price crisis crash there is a talk about diversifying the GCC countries income and economic resources which during the past 50 years was repeated after every crisis for oil prices crash, but why until now GCC countries did not success in diversifying their income and still the oil consider as 90% of their income? The answer is education and human development. GCC countries developed their infrastructure, government system, political system, economic system, health and education system then before the era of oil discovery, but all these development tools were imported from western countries and on top of that even the minds made it and managing it have been imported and still everything is imported, from nails to food to cars even medicine everything is imported from the world to GCC countries, this made it so exhausted on the economy because whatever money the country is making it goes to importing goods and services that means they money is going outside the countries but not coming back in any form and whatever prices the producers ask GCC countries have to pay even borrow from money market to cover the differences in income and expenses. This cycle has gone now for 50 years and still and no matter how much GCC countries made from oil or other resources they will not cover their expenses and in the same time making investment in infrastructure and provide service for citizens.


The only answer for the GCC problem is to invest in human capital not to give them higher degree like Msc or PhD instead to build their mind to be creative, innovative, educative and productive, GCC need to make their people produce goods and services that cover the local needs and in future export to other courtiers not just oil but goods and services that made by human mind like western and eastern courtiers do, now even these days small countries are producing using their people, local resources and even historical culture and customs for tourism, with amount of money GCC have today they can easily invest in people and build infrastructure that can produce different kind of goods and services the only problem facing this initiative is to embed it in the practices and strategies of the system since the system is still talking about changing but it doesn’t have the mentality, tools, tactic plans, human capital to make it happen in real life, the past 50 years was an opportunity to change but it did not happen today its an opportunity to change will we ask the same question after 50 years?


The opportunity is here and now people in the GCC can see it very clearly now they cant continue living as they did and their fathers did, change must take place now and with clear tactic plans build stage by stage that can be seeing and make difference with time, the education system is the first step each developed country started with to be what they are today knowledge, science, education combined with human mind, creativity, innovation and experiment is what needed to build strong nation and countries, the future oil for GCC countries is human capital which will last and never crash down or fluctuated in economy crisis or run out as natural resources.



Mohamed Alzayani
Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME Certified ROI for human capital development


Friday, March 24, 2017

Organizational Culture Moral and Leadership Moral

Organizational Culture Moral and Leadership Moral


Date: 24/03/2017

Leadership has become norm in training, conferences, seminars, book publishing and corporate training and professional certification programs. Leadership is a very needed a powerful tool corporate use to maintain its survival and success in the global completion, recently the world and business are facing leadership problem where leaders supply is short and demand is high, this create problems for both the political and business field. For that reason corporate are investing and even the business are making benefit from this shortage by providing so many leadership programs even online, which resulted in publishing ,many books about leadership and so many stories have been share about leadership in business world today.


The one that catch my attention is the furloughs  story, this story where the CEO was facing a decision to layoff workers or to cut off wages to face the financial crisis, but after long discussion he decide to let the workers take the decision and he inform them about the situation and decision and to choose, the workers thought of their families and debts but yet they thought of those who will be layoff without income, so they decide to take leaves without pay in turns for those who have enough in their saving to make it, after a while they save for the company double the amount they expected, this story is always told for leadership moral and lesson learned which I really find it excellent, but most of storytellers miss the other side of this story.


Although the CEO showed a role model in leadership moral but the workers who took the decision also showed other moral side in the company, those workers would not take that decision without a reason behind it, what could be that reason other than thinking of their fellow's workers? It’s the organizational culture, a company that has a CEO let workers make a critical decision decently has an organizational culture that promote other excellent moral thinking, practices and behaviors,  the organizational moral here plays very important aspect as the leadership did, it was obvious that the workers before the financial crisis have strong believes about their company that its worth saving and in the same time they do not want to save it on the cost of their fellows workers, they saw that the suffering of all will lead to all success yet they might let some of them suffer but in the end they will all suffer and the company might not be saved, this kind of thinking is promoted only by strong and practices organizational culture that lead to this result.

There are many stories about the organizational culture moral that can be found in books and life, in the end wither you are looking for good leadership, talented employees, creative and innovative employees, problem solvers or behavioral, it’s the culture the organization promote, support, practice, follow and role model by top management who can provide all these and other organizational need, organizational culture can play very important role in the crisis the organization face if it was relevant, strong, adapted by all and invested well by top management.


To make sure that you have organizational culture that is strong, relevant, adopted by all the following points can help in this matter:

1.       Organization mission, values and vision: the organization culture must reflect the mission of the organization the purpose that organization exist for and employees work for without clear mission and embedded in the organization culture it will not make strong and relevant. In addition the culture must reflect the values of the organization each organization has its own values that it could in a way or another similar but there is always different in the interpretation and practices depends on the industry and other influences factors, the values play very important role in crafting the organizational culture since it will emphasize on the believes and expectation of all employees. the vision where the company going ahead in future is also a factor must be considered in  crafting the culture since it will use as a guide and measure to make sure that all employees behave, think practice and act towards fulfilling this vision.
2.       Top management support: top management play very important role in supporting organizational culture not just by crafting and approving but also by being role model for other employees support the practice in situations where it must reflect the values and believes the culture embedded, also in crisis the top management must not forget their culture especially when it comes of strategic decision that affect the organization and employees future it must reflect the culture by all means.
3.       Middle management and supervisors: organizational culture mostly practiced in the lower level of the organization, no matter how much the top management support the organizational culture if the middle management and supervisors are not reflecting and practicing and providing the environment for the culture it will not be adapted and embedded in employee daily performance and behavior. Top management must make sure that middle management and supervisors are adopting and practicing the organizational culture and providing the environment for their employees to practice it if this fail the culture will not be successful not because its wrong or irrelevant but because there is a subculture that took place by the middle and supervisors that made the organization fail to reflect the values mission and vision which resulted in employees low moral, low performance and high turnover because of the conflict of what top management state and support and middle management and supervisors practice.

Organizational culture is a key that successful organization pay attention to it and make it work for them and for the employees joining them aboard, organizational culture is the physiological contract that attract, retain and motivate employees to fulfill organization mission and vision.


Mohamed Alzayani
Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME Certified ROI for human capital development

Friday, February 17, 2017

HR Is Not Your Hammer But Your Strategic Partner.


17 February 2017


HR has been known for long time as the bad part of the organization, its where discipline, termination and warning happened to employees, top management and supervisors have been using HR as their hammer on employees which let the HR been perceived by employees as their enemy and executioner, but this is not the top management and supervisors fault alone its also the HR fault that they agree to been perceived in this way by the employees rather than as their partner.


HR has come long way than before where the admin work is only the main thing and major role for HR staff, today HR professional are providing professional work for the organization including the normal admin work, succession planning and management, training need analysis, performance management, talent management, leadership program are all HR programs that lead by HR professional. This fact is so true that today HR has become in many successful organization as strategic partner like finance and marketing where before HR has no place or business to do with top management meetings or discussing strategy of the organization, but today HR is the main role player in the organization strategy, business operation and even finance.


Although HR has been as cost unit and still many organization still treat HR as a cost unit and try to cut their staff short, the program and training and any program related to HR to cut the cost, but at the same time they cannot ignore the fact that HR today is strategic unit that has strategic role in the organization. Organization today mostly the successful ones are not using HR as their hammer anymore or just occasionally when its really necessary and needed, they let the HR to take the strategic role and lead the organization program and support HR staff to perform their duties and responsibilities as they do to the marketing and finance staff, which in return provide them with the best performance and output of the employees and obtain competitive advantage among other competitors.


When you see an organization using HR as a hammer you can immorality conclude that this organization has high turnover, unstable rate of production, high unsatisfied employees and high presser and stressful atmosphere and less creative and productive environment. This kind of organization you can also conclude that HR manager position is always has high turnover in HR manager position as well, since it has high negative aspect that make it hard for a human to continue doing it for long time, the organization will always face problems, crisis, and even bankruptcy if it continued in this path of using HR as a hammer in a world that HR and human become the capital for the organization to successes, business continuity and competitive advantage.


Dave Ulrich quote state the importance of HR "People will change when they see that the change will help them reach their goals. If the CHRO sees that the HR transformation that others desire will help the CHRO reach his or her goals, then there will be more support. Absent this reasoning, the CHRO may go through the motions, but the transformation will not be sincere or lasting."


Mohamed Alzayani
Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME for human capital development



Monday, February 13, 2017

In 2017 Do We Consider HR a Profession or Career?



In 2017 Do We Consider HR a Profession or Career?


13 February 2017

 
HR has come across a lot of changes, updates, innovation and improvement in concepts, practices and models. We can consider HR as ancient as human with different styles depends on the time and circumstance and environment people dealing with at that time, the shifting and attention HR gain during the past decades came from the urgent understand of how to get the best out of people without making them work themselves out or ending up losing their motivation and positivity to develop and improve to match competition and changes in the environment. Today organization pay more attention to HR role in the organization since it has the main function that import the competencies needed and make the organization work in harmony and provide the main capital (people) with the necessary motivation to keep their positive performance. If we went years aback we can see that HR is a place where anyone and everyone especially those who are not needed or need to be punished work in HR because it was considered as a administration work, today HR is considered to be a strategic function and partner in the organization that’s why experts, competent and gurus people are wanted to be working in HR, but with change a question must be asked do we consider HR a career or profession?

Although this question may be seen as not significant but it does has an important point to be considered. If we looked to the definition of profession we will see many who define it in a way or another but let us take this definition for now "Profession is a an occupation where certain qualities, competencies and level of expertise are known and needed to fill this job". For career we can take this definition for now "An occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress". If looked into these two definitions we can see that both are applied to HR today, HR people need very high competencies, experience and certain qualities so they can deliver the service for people on all levels to enable them to provide the organization with the desired result of their performance, this is fact that no one can deny anymore today about the HR people. But which one is considered to be the HR representative in 2017.


In my work in HR an training and development for the last ten years, my humble opinion if you may let me say that both they do not represent HR in 2017, you will ask me how? Well my answer will be because with the fact that acknowledged by organizations today that HR has become a very recognized career and known profession they both become part of the HR package for those who want to be in HR, but since they are both can be obtained, learned and practice by people in my humble opinion I can say that passion is what can represent HR in 2017. Why passion?


Dealing with people today is not like decades ago where they work like slaves or work under the rule of stay survive, people today have knowledge, experience, qualification, professional certification they use technologies and they have their own mind, decision, freedom, labor law that protect their rights and they act an behave different than before because with the environment changes and complicated people adopt and become changed and completed, for that  dealing with people today need to understand who their mind think and work, their values that drive their motives and behaviors, their rules of right and wrong, their personality and so on, by known all this HR people can take the right decision, action and rules regarding motivation, performance management, remuneration, organization culture and other HR service that will bring the best out of the people to serve the organization, by known what make them click HR people can save on the organization a lot of losses, money wasted and time by taking the wrong action to bring the best out of people.


So what does this has to do with passion? When we talk about passion its normally and internal motivation towards doing something which is not very easy to teach, learn or practice, although it might be obtained and adopted or awaken in some people but its easy to get passion people for HR and work on them to take it as a career then profession than do it the other way, this will save lot of work, conflict and it will work out sooner in the end, for example you can have a guru HR professional working for and inexperience HR specialist with passion, you will be surprised that the inexperience will try hard and his best to come out with solution to serve the people in organization even if the law is not supporting it while the guru and professional doesn’t do that, why because of passion and with time the one who will be  consider guru profession is the inexperience specialist that work on serving people and provide the best for them to get them best from them, because he will always work to improve his competencies and expertise to serve the people with quality and humanity as he can.


HR is a continues filed that will never stop surprising us with new advancement, improvement, upgraded and innovative concepts, models and practices as long as human are living on this earth HR will be as well.



Mohamed Alzayani
Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME for human capital development

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Between Knowledge and Talent which is most important to Organization?

Between Knowledge and Talent which is most important to Organization?


04/02/2017


With the growing competition, advance technology, smart customer and globalization organizations are faced with so much in their environment that even a dynamic terminology is not enough to describe it, economic disturbance and fluctuation are getting more and more close than before where every fifty years there is fluctuation now its almost every five years, labour market are getting more and more diversified and scarcity in skills which make organization shifts for low labour market rate and more skills on top of that organization need to cope with the changes happen with the advance technology like e-market, cashless payment and online customers and suppliers all these changes and others are occurring today and faced by organizations which must be lead by the organization leaders and employees using their competitive advantage to continue the business and adopt these changes it heir business. But now this return us back to our question to in this environment do organization need talent or knowledge to face this environment?

First we need to identify each terminology before we answer the question, what do mean by talent and what do mean by knowledge? Talent is "a set of personal characteristics that enhance one’s ability to achieve expertise in an accelerated manner". Knowledge is ""the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association". So which one organization needs more to face today competitive and aggressive environment. Although the answer is obvious that organization need both to survive and continue the business but if we think about it which one has the most effect on organization leadership, people management, resources management and business strategy. The answer is knowledge employee, those employees who has the information, know how, expertise and tactics to lead and manage people and resources which talent is one of them. Although talented people has special and rare skills but they do not have the ability to lead and create path so people can follow their steps because their talent is built within its not something can be share or even copy, which the opposite of knowledge that its easy to share, exchange, copy and follow by others which its make it easier to find people ready and able to do the things related to knowledge and mange and lead with the same steps and even develop it with time.

Knowledge employee can update themselves according to the changes in the environment they can upgrade, learn and adopt easily with changes, which is the opposite of talented people that they need time to master and develop their talent, they cant change it according to environment and circumstances, and the organization cant make others to replace them or learn from them or develop what they were doing or creating.

With that saying does that mean talent is not important for organization and knowledge employees are the important one? The answer is defiantly no, talent is very important for organization and its competitive advantage its add value for the organization, what we trying to say is knowledge employees are more likely to be find in labour market and add value for the organization as we stated, but when it comes to talent there are so many aspects need to be considered to acquire it like what is talent for the organization since each organization has its own need and type of talent that can be fit to its business nature, how to identify and measure it, how to make it fit and work for the organization and so on all these aspects need to be addressed when considering talent which its not applied for knowledge employees.

Knowledge is power this is the phrase of today, knowledge economy is another phrase used today to describe the importance of knowledge. In today world who has knowledge he just role the world wither its business or globalization or even cyber business, by putting talent and the other organization resources, people, strategies and leadership in optimum use.


Mohamed Alzayani

Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME for human capital development

Thursday, January 26, 2017

The Time to Create National Wealth of Knowledge and Experience

The Time to Create National Wealth of Knowledge and Experience


26, January, 2017


In the early 20 century Bahrain where there is no technology, schools, universities, TVs, smart phones and internet Bahrain as other GCC countries relay on rational economic resources like agriculture, pearl fishery, and some import products from India, by the time and with the changes happened during the two world wars Bahrain was colonized by British,  during this face the British start to bring their knowledge, technology, culture and their country products to Bahrain, this has made Bahrain to be open on new era and develop faster than other GCC countries especially after discovering oil since Bahrain was the first in GCC to produce it. The relay and import of brain, knowledge, technology from western countries continued during the 20 century and even 21 century, but a lot have changed as well with the technology advancement, internet and smart phones, Bahrain's people have now become more or less equal in knowledge, education, technology and human capability as western countries, today everything is shared and available and anyone with effort and smart thinking can create, innovate, write books and make successful stories and wealth not just in the west as before.


Importing brain and knowledge in this era is not the same as before, in today countries need to create their own wealth of brain from their own people, people understand the culture, thinking pattern, life style, people behavior, religion and customs, Bahrain's youth  are now more advanced with the available technology and knowledge, they use it in very creative way, they always update their knowledge and open to the world the only thing they miss is the chance and mentor to get to their potential. Private sector need to put more effort on creating national wealth of knowledge and experience, they need to go to university invest in students, provide programs for interns to learn from the work experience and expert people, to be in the market where the action and real life happen, the responsibility of creating national wealth of knowledge and experience is not only by the public sector since there is always a lack of resources and exposure to real action and dynamic environment that private sector have, the cost of import brains is higher than the cost of creating national wealth of knowledge and experience since national will work in the country and produce and progress more and more with time and increase their learning curve to reach high performance and achievement that will benefit the privet sector where secure fuel of brains for their business continuity, the country and themselves to have quality of life and the government that will reduce the pressure on the limited resources to support their employment and services. In addition the national wealth of knowledge and experience will create more wealth and resources for the economy, more financial resources, more value products and increase learning curve which are all important to build a solid ground for knowledge economy and be in the developed category of countries labeling.


The creation of national wealth of knowledge and experience in the long run will be the future for any country want to grow out of dependency and weak economy, the example of Singapore, Japan, China and Germany is the most obvious one on how investing in creating national wealth of knowledge and experience can payoff huge in the future, and how the private sector play the leader role in this process since they have the tools , resources, environment, culture and capabilities to do it in the right way and with effectiveness and efficient that the public sector.


In the coming future the private sector will realize the urge of having national wealth of knowledge and experience to fuel their business continuity and that importing brains is becoming more and more expensive and not that beneficiary as before, but will this happen before its too late for the private sector or they will take the initiative and do it right now to get the results in near future before its too late for them, only the time can tell.



Mohamed Alzayani

Assoc.CIPD and Assoc.IHRME for human capital development



Friday, January 20, 2017

Informative Employee and Knowledgeable Employee


Informative Employee and Knowledgeable Employee 


Date: 20 Jan 2017



In the world of social media, internet, smart phone, technology, digital world and no limitation to what a person can access to since the world today is a small village, all these advancements that happened during the last 20 years has made the information easy to find and obtained, today you can read books, watch movies, ask for any kind of information and you will have it in seconds. This what the people dreamed of years ago and they achieved it, students employees, parents, scientists, lawyers, doctors, professors anal d other professionals and normal people they all use the today technology to obtain information or publish information and researches to the world. But with this advantage of obtaining information people somehow misunderstand the differences between information and knowledge.

When we say information we mean "the Facts provided or learned about something or someone". When we say knowledge we mean "the Information and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject". What is the important to know the differences? To answer this question we have to return to the definition of the two terminologies and then compare it with today employees and we will know why its important to differentiate.

Today we have two types of employees, the informative employee and knowledgeable employee, the definition of these two terminologies are the same as the above one, to explain the difference in more precise we will have a look on both from the inside and understand the importance of this matter.

The informative employee the one who has massive about a subject or some subjects  information and sometimes like google about lots of subjects, this type of employees can answer questions about a subject very quickly and provide explanation on it and he can write a research, articles and even science prepares on it, we can see this type of employee do excellent in schools, recruitment tests and interviews, they just can keep providing information all day long and blow your mind with what they have, but when it comes to real life work this employee become like a nightmare, he know what he suppose to do and how to do it but he is always late in submission, he spend long time on preparing reports, statistics but he don’t deliver the results of the objectives or task assigned, this employee is full of information but as the definition state he only have it but not sure how to use it or have the skills to do, and this is why organization use behavioral interview, instead of IQ test and school grades day, the behavioral interview provides the employer the opportunity to test the person on how used and practiced this information in the past which is predict the future uses and practices. But informative employees are not that bad and they can be very useful for the organization but they should be first identified as informative then recruit them in back office work, consultant, advisers, auditors where information is more likely to be needed than skills and results delivery.

The knowledgeable employee the one who has the information but also have on top of it the skills, behavior and practices that needed to deliver results, mostly the knowledgeable employee does not have massive information on different subjects like informative he concentrate on few subjects by practicing, experimenting, examining, trying and doing that is why he need to be concentrating on few subjects which gave him the advantage of knowledge, skills and behavior the complete set of competency of the subject matter. Knowledgeable employees not always do excellent in written tests, traditional interview and lots of them not necessarily  get high grades in school, but they do excellent in practical tests, behavioral interviews and they provide a list of past experience in the subject matter, this employee can be recruited for front office, sales and marketing, brokers, public relation, human resources, information technology and other types of jobs that need real life work experience to deliver results of the objectives and improve the process by providing new insights and adding to the learning curve of the organization with experience and lessons learned.

The two types of employees are not favorable or counter of each other for the organization both types are needed in some percentages of the organization employees depending on the type of the organization, the size the business they are into and natures of the jobs in the organization.

They only thing that organization need to understand is that information are all around these days and its easy and affordable to everyone today, so its very important to be precise on which type the organization is looking to recruit on the position offered to pick the right type and not ending up with the wrong one.


Mohamed Alzayani

 assoc.CIPD and  assoc.IHRME for human capital management and development

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Talented Employees Can They Be Made?

Talented Employees Can They Be Made?

Date: 14/01/2017

Today we hear and see a lot talking about the power of knowledge, knowledge economy knowledge is power, and we heard before a lot about hard working employees, smart employees, professional employees, experts employees and so on. Although we totally agree about the importance of all these terms and what it means but human beings  always seek and obtained knowledge even in the old centuries, craftsmen, artists,  scientist and engineers are all known before time since knowledge is always there for people to grasp and learn so what is new this time?

Today organizations are looking for talented people who possess certain knowledge, skills and behaviors that is difficult to be copy or teach mostly people are born with it or just be in extremely environment that help create it, sometimes these talents are like a diamond in the rough where people are not aware of it or not fully master it but it can be put in use once who possess it trained and develop it. This practice is known as talent management so again what is new about this subject?

Employees today are not anymore compared by their qualification, or professional certification or even performance, all these today have become available to all who seek it and even its provided in low cost sometimes, but the thing that make organization not looking for these criteria's anymore is the dynamic business environment that technology advancement brought and increase the competitiveness to its extreme that its make the critter's change for employees also.  Employees today can access knowledge by just one click on their laptop, smart phones and tablets they can find millions of information and knowledge about any subject at anytime anywhere and in any format they want it, although knowledge is power but with this huge amount of information no human being can process and save it in their mind and since its available on the net for everyone there is no point to make the effort for it, so the question now is does employees use knowledge to obtain talent that might be wanted in the market even if they are not born with it?

Leadership has the same dilemma  do leaders born or made, talent as well has the same are born with it or we can make it, if we have close look to talents there are many types of talents in the world some could be classified as born but the rest can be made. Talent in business world are a mixture of special knowledge and behaviors that produce skills so unique to be copied or teach, it’s the same as Japanese martial arts or Chinese martial arts where the master teach the student the way of being a true fighter, employees as well can learn from all these available information and knowledge on the internet and experts people and mix it with their environment, mindset, workplace, experience and experiments, knowledge and produce a unique skills in a certain field that will be competitive in the market and needed by the organizations, the secret in doing this is to have a clear vision and goal on what to direct all these mixture toward to and keep going till the skills are born and talent is made ready for use.


By just looking to people around us we all have certain level of talent in some filed because we keep going on in gathering information and knowledge and experience and experiment in it but without being  aware that we are building a talent we could not go till the end to make it a talent ready to be used in the market as competitive advantage among other employees, and that is the difference between talented business people and employs the way of using knowledge and information available and obtained in today world of technology.



Mohamed Alzayani

 assoc.CIPD and  assoc.IHRME for human capital management and development