My work and home

I've drunk a strong chai (urdu word for 'tea', sounds familiar for Russians :-) and now don't feel like sleeping.

If so, let me tell you about my work and my home here in Pakistan.

For those who don't know, I am current Vice-President for Talent Management and Local Committees Development in AIESEC Pakistan. My term started on 1st of July this year and is supposed to last till 1st of July 2009. I am working in a team of four people: Jeremy from Australia is our President, Saaim and Mariam (both are Pakistani) are responsible for external relations and exchange program respectively.

Being in charge of talent management, I am handling all process related to this functional area such as: talent planning, talent recruitment, leadership development, and many others. Responsibility for LC development means reviewing organizational structure of local chapters and expansions to new universities (we are planning to open 3 more local entities till 2010).

The biggest challenge that AIESEC in Pakistan is facing at the moment is alignment between personal and organizational goals of its members that leads to the fact that potential of individuals is not fulfilled. Members are missing quality education, concept of training is unknown. Another challenge is a gap between the national body, which works quite professionally, and local chapters that do not even perceive themselves as an organization.

Being the one responsible for these issues, I have a chance to make a significant contribution to the organizational growth this year. I have a good plan, so lets hope it works, and wish me luck :-)

Besides, I am involved in local HR community in Karachi. HR market in Pakistan is very small, however the demand for this kind of services is huge, and every talent development professional coming to the country is very welcomed.

Apart from my work for internal AIESEC processes, I am an account manager for 2 our learning partners: Navitus (www.navitus.biz) and NarejoHR (www.narejohr.com). First of them is similar to intertraining (trainers' community in Russia) and second one is similar to Ward Howell (my previous employer company). Both are very professional, ambitious and worth learning from! Another company which core work is HR training and consulting is called Engage HR (www.engagehr.com), our intern Joan from Switzerland works there as a trainer. I need to mention that despite the market is small, HR internships organized by AIESEC Pakistan are known for their quality and challenging job descriptions.

My working conditions are very nice. We have a comfortable office with all needed infrastructure.

And this is my team: Jeremy, Mariam, me and Saaim.

Jeremy made a research about the working environment, that's why we recently changed an arrangement of the tables, so now we sit facing each other and not the white walls :)

Our working hours are from 9 am to 5 pm (thanks to Jeremy's social responsibility, we are working 35 hours per week like employees in Australia :)

When daily work is finished we go to our flat in Zamzama, or so-called Defense area. It is a commercial center of Karachi, all good shops, restaurants and some apartments including ours are located here.

This is our house:

This is our yard (children playing cricket):

This is how the flat looks inside:


This is a nice place to live, especially keeping in mind that not all Pakistanis can afford this kind of flat.

What I especially like about our apartment that we have a roof. It is one of highest roofs in Karachi, and it looks amazingly beautiful at nights. I will take pictures during the next roof gathering :)

Dear friends, have a good day.