Zain announces the successful completion of its inaugural WE SUCCEED initiative; a Group-wide middle management succession planning program that saw over 90 talents undertake eight-months of development on Awareness and Perspective, Personal Purpose, Connection, and Psychological Safety.
Under the auspices of Zain’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department and delivered in collaboration with a leading management consulting firm, the program is built on years of research into “adaptability”, enables self-awareness, especially of people’s default mindsets under stress. Moreover, it equipped the participants with tools to deepen relationships, including those that they experience as “difficult” and encourage them to create psychologically safe, empowered teams.
Commencing with 360-degree profiling of participating middle managers, the WE SUCCEED program extended over the course of 8 months with workshops, fieldwork assignments, local meetings among managers from the same operation, and cross-operational discussions, as well as coaching for the top performing members in the program.
Starting 2023, the top 50% of WE SUCCEED participants will to be assigned to a senior Zain sponsor, to accelerate their careers in 2023 and beyond, thereby supporting Zain’s Gender Diversity WE target to create a more equal leadership team.
Commenting on the completion of the initial WE SUCCEED program, Bader Al-Kharafi, Vice-Chairman and Zain Group CEO said, “I would like to congratulate the talented upcoming leaders who participated in this inspiring new initiative. They will grow to be the executive management of the future, and it is through such programs that we are developing impeccable succession planning, which will make us a sustainable and successful organization now and into the future.”
Al-Kharafi added, “This exceptional learning experience solely catered to middle managers and built on years of research into “adaptability” continues to affirm the company’s overall objective to build aspirations and confidence while equipping our people with core skills and mindsets to be successful leaders.”
Personal assessments of participants upon completion of the program reflected significant personal growth and development in areas including Reframing, Self-Awareness, and Articulating Purpose. This is in-line with Zain’s recently uplifted diversity and inclusion activities to incorporate equity. Programs such as WE SUCCEED affirm the company’s overall objective to make employees as skilled and included as possible, without bias or favor.
WE SUCCEED encompassed 97 participants Group-wide, who completed the program, improving all behaviors from pulse 1 to pulse 2 as indicated by self-reflection and colleague feedback. Participants reported on average a 7% improvement across all behaviors, and self-reported the greatest growth in Reframing skills, which they originally self-reported as their lowest scores.
The WE SUCCEED ongoing sponsorship and mentoring program will help high-performing middle management participants to access development opportunities that would otherwise not be available to them, while expanding the mentees’ perceptions of what the mentors can deliver.
The initiative will also allow participants to make connections with other senior executive leadership members, promoting their visibility in the company, all the while receiving constructive feedback on how best to navigate their careers.
WE SUCCEED is another critical component that will support and ensure the success of Zain’s ambitious and profitable growth ‘4SIGHT’ strategy.
