It’s very easy to feel inspired when in conversation with Omar Al-Bassam. I left the Ooredoo building after our meeting feeling like I’m ready to take on the world. The man truly deserves his own podcast to motivate professionals not only in the telecom field but other industries as well. As Ooredoo Kuwait’s Chief Human Resources & Administration Services Officer, his role is paramount to the growth of the company’s employees, boosting employee productivity, and in turn, overall company performance. In 2021, Ooredoo Kuwait Group reported staggering net profit growth, 468% to be exact, and this doesn’t just ‘happen’. Offering great services and products to their customers is surely a reason behind this success, yet this exponential growth speaks miles of the company’s values and efforts not only towards its customers, but also the soul of the entire operation, its employees.

And while it is quick and frankly easier, to assume that giant telcos can be the big bad wolf of corporations, that’s not the case at Ooredoo, as growing individuals’ talents, careers, and fostering loyalty is Omar’s passion and bread and butter, especially when you throw in the challenge of navigating your organization’s people through a pandemic into the mix.

But every good story has an origin, and Omar counts himself lucky that he found his passion in HR when he first returned to Kuwait in 1999. A seasoned HR professional and a strong advocate for education and continuous learning, he was making waves (but he humbly tells me that he spent all of that time learning) in the retail, banking, and aviation industries before his current eight-year tenure at Ooredoo Kuwait. The Portsmouth University, London Business School, and Harvard Business School graduate first discovered his passion for HR when he undertook a leadership program during his time in retail. His interest in inspiring and motivating others was naturally piqued. He started us off, “Believe it or not, my dad used to operate Kuwait’s first dedicated shop for men’s suits in Kuwait. He used to travel to Europe to procure these beautiful suits, and I was fascinated by the concept of operating your store, talking to people, and of course, the travel. My start in retail was to naturally follow in my father’s footsteps, and undertaking the leadership program opened up my horizons. That’s when I understood that I love to sit and explain things to people, I love to solve peoples’ issues, I’m a people person. I love to get involved to help peoples’ careers grow.” Fast forward to today, and Omar is still following his passion, growing his knowledge, helping others at Ooredoo pave their paths to achieve their career milestones.

Perhaps what is most telling of Omar’s inspiring attitude towards work is his respect for balance. He firmly believes that having that time away from work is what grounds a person and keeps them focused. A quick tour of his office shows a passion for football, music, his team, and his family. “I am a father of twin boys above all else,” he said, beaming with pride, as he settled in for our interview.

From retail to banking, and now telecoms, does the role of an HR professional shift from one industry to the other?
HR is one of these professions that may be universal in theory, but the applications will vary from one industry to the next. If I know HR, I will be able to work across various sectors. It is at the base of everything. What changes is the product or service that is being offered, but the basis is the same. Training, recruitment, career paths, and progression may differ from one industry to the next, but at the end of the day, you need recruitment, training, governance, you need performance management to evaluate the employee. These are the key pillars that are cross-functional across various industries.

In turn, what attracted you to work in the telecom industry, and specifically Ooredoo?
Now that’s a very interesting question. Once I joined this industry, I honestly and without exaggeration, felt that I wouldn’t survive, because it’s a very fast-paced environment. The technology alone is fascinating. There is never a boring day. Every single day there’s something new. We went from 4G to 5G and we’re talking about 6G in a matter of two to three years. We’re talking about Smart Cities, innovations that are very fast-paced in nature. Given these industry changes, we as HR need to be proactive and assist the business leaders to reach these objectives. So, this industry is constantly changing, meanwhile, other industries can appear stagnant in parallel. So, if you’re someone who enjoys the thrill of the pressure of this environment, and the fruits of its logic, then this industry is for you.

What do you love the most about your role and what challenges you the most?
It’s… [Omar pauses] believe it or not, both. What I find to be the most challenging is what I enjoy the most about my role.

So, it’s a very fine line between the two?
I mean, I’ve been in the organization for eight years and I am still learning about technology. Am I a technology expert? Not at all, but that’s what I enjoy. Part of every single person’s growth process is that they need to keep on learning. If you haven’t learned one thing during the day that you’ve had, then it’s a wasteful day. So that I enjoy, and that’s also the challenge as well, to wrap your head around complicated concepts and have conversations with the technology people here only to demand that they explain something to me like I’m a six-year-old. But jokes aside, working from a place of constant self-growth is what is truly rewarding.

You’re constantly thinking about self-development as an integral part of an employee’s role, and this process trickles down to how you tackle employee growth at Ooredoo. Can you tell us more about how this works?
On a personal level, I know I have been blessed with a growth opportunity here. Not all companies can offer their employees the opportunity to continuously develop, whether on the job or through training programs like we do here. We also regularly evaluate how we learn, and who we are learning from—our employees.
I learned a lot since I came to Ooredoo, I joined as a director, then progressed to become a senior director, and in 2017 I was promoted to Chief, which is totally different in terms of role when I was previously managing a medium-sized entity. With time, my responsibilities grew to take over all of HR’s operations, and this is reflective of our company’s growth too. As previously, HR managed Ooredoo employees only, but with the employee integration of our sister companies, my responsibilities evolved once again. Now we offer from start to end HR solutions to over 1000 employees. From setting HR strategies, balancing work/life time, renumeration, employees wellbeing and safety, organizational culture, development and career paths for these companies.

How do you retain talent, hungry talent, from going elsewhere?
This is always a challenge. If an employee doesn’t feel fulfilled, they will look elsewhere. This is why we offer our employees further growth opportunities as part of the learning and development programs at Ooredoo. The other key factor is to always be listening to them. This couch we are sitting on now has been the meeting point for many conversations with other employees across our organization. I always choose to listen, discuss, and find solutions that fulfill an employee’s aspirations.

Without a doubt, COVID-19 presented its own set of organizational challenges. What role did HR play in navigating the organization through these tumultuous times? How did Ooredoo adapt?
Frankly speaking, we were very prepared so we never found ourselves in the lurch, organizationally speaking.
Now that’s a big statement and one that you should be proud of.
Contingency planning is key to quickly adapting to unexpected situations. Before the first lockdown even took place, we had a pre-meeting. We walked through every worst-case scenario. We first discussed how our salary obligations would be met, especially if we couldn’t enter the Ooredoo building. Another major factor of consideration was the well-being and also operations of our call center team, who operate out of the Ooredoo building, and truly, serve everyone. Immediately, we took action plans, we decided on points and we distributed different priorities and tasks. We assigned laptops and telephone lines to the call center guys and prepared them to work from home.

Did you have a vision for what work-from-home for Ooredoo employees would look like?
Were you ready when the first lockdown came along?Yes, of course. And that’s thanks to our amazing Chief Technology Officer and the entire team. There’s a lot of logistics involved that make the process of remote work appear a lot easier than it actually is. Overall, I can proudly say that Ooredoo’s adapting to the pandemic, while ensuring customer demands are met swiftly, and guaranteeing employee well-being and safety, is a multi-divisional effort that showed great collaboration.
From an HR perspective, one of our major considerations, for example, was making sure that Payroll dues were met on time. We were prepared, lockdown came in, and even after the first lockdown was lifted, HR’s objective throughout it all is to keep our employees safe, as we truly believe that our employees are our most valuable assets. We stopped manual fingerprinting and introduced facial recognition tech to record time and attendance, people manage their hours when working remotely, social distancing measures are in place throughout our premises, and of course, we spearheaded multiple vaccination drives to ensure that employees and their families received their required vaccines promptly.
Our vaccine drives were very well organized, as we had three different drives (first, second, and booster doses) in the Ooredoo Building in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. All of our employees were vaccinated across all of our entities, and not just Ooredoo employees.

Do you feel like there are some practices, from an HR perspective, that you want to keep even after restrictions have eased?
Absolutely! Aside from remote work where it fits the job role, we also incorporated remote hiring which helped us to continue operations without interruption.

What is remote hiring and how does this work at Ooredoo?
If you recall, Kuwait Airport was closed for a very long time, and we were unable to bring in talent to Kuwait where they were needed. We had two options, either look to a very small pool of candidates available locally, and in most cases, they would be employed elsewhere and the cost of hiring them would be too high, or expand our search and consider hiring remotely. So, what we did, essentially, is offer the ideal candidate a remote contract, and upon the reopening of the airport, they would then be able to join the team in Kuwait. What’s interesting is that this policy also worked with some existing key members of the Kuwait Ooredoo team who had opted to leave Kuwait when restrictions were at an all-time high, and instead of losing these key people, we offered them a remote work contract and they are working from their home countries. The key is retaining talent, and not letting this pandemic tear up the great relationships we’ve built with our employees throughout the years. If they’re happy, we’re happy too.

How is Ooredoo further safeguarding the health of its employees during these uncertain times?
With COVID, one of the things that we also chose to change is our compensation practices, and the rewards, including the health benefits. All this has been reshaped for the benefit of our employees at Ooredoo. Since COVID did wonders for digitalization, it pushed all of us in various sectors to get out there, out of our traditional comfort zones, and make new, different, and in most cases, better choices for our employees.
There’s also the argument that work-from-home can be counter-productive, in the sense that employees work for longer periods and end up feeling burnt out. How does Ooredoo help guide employees towards maintaining an effective work-life balance, even when they are working remotely?
The key danger with remote work is that often, there are no set office hours. In my opinion, the mentality of balancing work-from-home with other aspects of a person’s life is still not embedded in our culture in this part of the world. To a great extent, the process is still a learning curve for all of us. To better guide our employees through this, we often send out educational emails and the appropriate literature to help them better plan their remote workdays.

Are employees still working remotely?
This will depend on the job role. For instance, since health measures have eased, employees working at key branches are back at their locations with strict distancing measures in place.

What have you personally learned throughout the entire COVID experience at Ooredoo?
That there cannot be a disconnect ever, between management and wider teams. I learned that we are very fortunate to be prepared to face the challenges brought on by COVID, and not only business or operational challenges, but there’s also the human factor too. We’re all in the same boat. Our CEO on the 27th floor or us on the 14th floor, we have our doors open, we speak with our teams and our employees regularly. I continue to learn from them above all, particularly newcomers. I like to speak to them a month after they’ve joined because I value their perspective. I constantly ask them about how we can improve, and this applies even more to newcomers with past experiences elsewhere versus new graduates.

Do you think that Ooredoo employees are more loyal to the company today?
Our experience with the pandemic says it all. Luckily, we were prepared and we can proudly say that not one salary has been affected by this pandemic. Whatever people used to make before the pandemic, they are still making now. We had valuable employees stuck abroad, and we continued to support them.
Locally, we noticed that demand for internet services skyrocketed, and our employees who couldn’t operate out of our branches during lockdown were ready to service them remotely, even conducting deliveries of online sales, with the support of management.
I feel that allowing everyone to do their jobs, the best they could, fostered a sense of trust and loyalty between management and our valued employees. Our teams valued the safety measures we put in place for them; they felt supported and were financially secured during an uncertain time, and in turn, this showed in the company’s performance because our employees saw how we stood by them through it all.

In this post-COVID era, and after experiencing remarkable growth in the past year, what makes Ooredoo an attractive workplace today?
I would have to say, it is the growth opportunities. I’ll give you an example. 60% or more, of our Chiefs, are internally promoted. Typically, the promotion of a chief comes in with approval and the blessing of the Group. We have ready candidates to take over once a new Chief is promoted, or essentially, a succession strategy in place. And this policy is applied across all positions and departments to ensure career growth for each respective employee in the organization. We take succession planning very seriously and ensure that if someone leaves, we have the right people in the right place to take on their role. We nurture and train, develop their skills on the job or through training.

How do you want to further grow your teams moving forward?
Digitization is going to continue to grow, and this applies to HR in terms of the tech we use, the analytics we collect. We are now able to collect employee feedback faster than ever before, across all 10 Ooredoo entities globally. Ooredoo has a presence in markets such as Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, the Maldives, Myanmar and Indonesia. Employee engagement is now extremely relevant, and we are aiming to build the best brand in Kuwait and across the region.
Our annual Employee Health Index (This is essentially a survey), reveals how happy employees are, their satisfaction with management, the work environment, and this is where they are sharing opinions in our decision-making process. In 2021, our results went up by 20 points to hit the highest decimal percentage, which is 90%. This survey is run by an independent organization, and we were told that only four or five organizations worldwide made this significant jump, and Ooredoo Kuwait was one of these companies. This shows that our own employees are now more engaged than ever before, and this is something that we want to move forward with and grow further. Knowing that we have a more loyal, better skilled, and satisfied workforce that wants to deliver and feels empowered, that their voice mattered was so important. In 2020, they gave us their feedback, and in 2021, we listened and implemented changes that worked for them, and in turn, for the whole organization.
I personally would love to make Ooredoo the employer of choice for talent in Kuwait. Once someone graduates, I want this young person to close their eyes and say ‘I want to work at Ooredoo Kuwait’. In order for this to happen, the entire employees journey needs to be looked at from the moment a prospective employee enters Ooredoo HQ and how they are being greeted, entering the interview, Talent acquisition and onboarding processes, assigning a coach for the 1st 100 days to assist the new employees, development, career paths, remuneration and compensation processes, engaging the employees, and creating a sense of belonging. Only then we could achieve what I aspire towards and that is for us to be the Employer of Choice in Kuwait.

For more information, please visit Ooredoo.com.kw, and follow @OoredooKuwait on social media.