Um Mayed’s blog

In the last week, my schedule was to attend trainings done for the new junior staff. It w as attend all trainers for the whole week. I find out that trainers are from different part of the country where some of them come from Abu Dhabi.  I was delighted to know that they provide a flat in a hotel for them so that they can live near the Bank to be easier from them to attend the trainings.  These trainings topic was about the banks systems, the fundamental banking, Fraud and authorization, Bank retail Products and others.

The first and the second day I attended trainings from 9 to 4 with Hesham a trainer in the learning system departments who gave courses about fundamental of Banking and the Retail Products of the Bank. I noticed that he use different type of teaching where he used his laptop and multimedia projectors. He also made an intro video which was like a motivation for the staff.  I also noticed that he used the Power Point to present for them. I realized this Power Point was too boring because it was very long and full of text.

The third and the fourth day the training was done by Sameera who is also was a coordinator in the learning system and it was about the bank systems that they use in the bank to open accounts for the customers. I also learned the risks factors of the bank and the different responsibilities of the taller.

The last day, the shortest day, we went to the branch and saw the taller work and what they do. We also met different staff and met the manger of the branch.

In this Week I developed many skills of my skills one of them is the communication skill because I had to communicate different people from various cultures and different nationalities.  I also learned to be independent on myself and find out what is good for me and what I am responsible for.

My second week of the work placement run well where I learned sveral things related to the bank t. They asked me to complete other more online courses so that I Completed an online course about Business Successful Model where I learned that to have a solid successful business is t hear Voice Of Customer where the employee should fulfill customers need and help him to achieve his life goals and find out how the customer is satisfied of their product.

 Moreover, I completed a course of Fundamental Banking where I learned the importance of banking and what are they.

  In addition to that I set with Emran the coordinator of the learning system in the bank where he is responsible of providing the content of the courses done for the trainers. Mr. Emran demonstrated for me how the learning system works in Masherq Bank. I found out that the online  learning courses are created by a company in India called TATA that create the courses which contents is given by Emran who make the courses. I also realized that these online courses cost a lot to create them where the simple online course could reach to 60 thousands and more.

 I took online courses about Fraud and Authorization I learned what strategy the bank follow to fight Fraud and what do the employee do if he notice any strange behavior that concerned to fraud.

 Moreover, I had an online course about the retail products of the bank that they offered to the customer such as saving accounts, current accounts, personals loans, credit cards and many other products. Also I took an online course about the law of banking in the UAE and I learned what they do with the money of people who died.

 Furthermore, I took a course on the Ethics and values Of Mashreq Employers which I think I can applied them to any where I will work in the future. I learned that there are five values and important ethics of Mashreq which are:

•  Being Transparent to be clear concise open in all communication.
• Being Bold to take smart risks
• Being Individual responsible which means to take risk for the quality of work, success of the bank, deliver brand promise to watch customer.
• Being Fair to treat people with fairness
• Relationship driven to act in the interest of each customer

When I reflect I realized that these values are important for any employee who want to stay working faithfully with his employer and who likes his job to continue along life with him.

Branch_tcm17-14937

In my first day at Bank Mashreq, I arrived late because I found difficulties in finding a proper parking area for my car.  I met Mr. Dawood Al Rayedy and the head of the Learning System department - Mr. Yuva Kumar.  I was given the Participate Handbook -Cooperate Orientation for the new juniors to get general knowledge about my main expected duties in the bank.  Later on, I met the staff in the department working in the training center and they were very welcoming, kind and acted with me respectfully.  I found out that the bank designs online courses and looked at the Anti-money Laundry lesson.

I noticed the place is very clean and comfortable.  Moreover, I was given a temporary office to work at.  There were some materials designed for nationals. I looked at Al Forsa, Fast Track Training Program for UAE nationals, Al Mustaqbal and Mawarid Induction Program for Banking.  I realized the importance of encouraging Emiratisation in the banking sector.

I was asked to complete few courses in the learning system center so I finished the Anti-money Laundry course and still doing the course about successful business.  I learned what money laundry is, why it is called that name, what the bank is doing to find money laundry and how it affects the society.

Disappointing Matters

I was disappointed because the learning center is located in upper floor in the tower and it was difficult to park my car in the early morning which made me frustrated a lotL. Another unsatisfactory behavior I noticed about the staff is that they arrived very late in the office or even didn’t come which made me have negative image about them.  In addition, there were not enough training rooms in the bank so the staff had to attend the training sessions outside the bank in hotels and halls.  On the other hand, sessions in the bank allow 15 people, maximum, in the computer lab.  Most importantly, I felt that I was nearly lost because I didn’t know where to sit since they didn’t arrange a place for me to work at.  For this reason, when I came to the bank, I usually go to the lab if it was empty and complete my online courses.

Today I tried to call newspapers regarding to what my mentor asked me to do, but unfortunately I only did one call which was to Al Khaleej newspapers because I found it very difficult to communicate with other although I wrote what I’m going to say for them and finally I found the number of the responsible person for media but I did not call him. I reflected to my mentor that it was difficult to me to do and she said that it is very important to learn how to communicate to people outside using the phone. Moreover, she said that she also found it difficult to do at first but by the time and the repetition you will get use to it. After her feedback I decided to do it again tomorrow.

I also started to design the website that my mentor Mrs. Amal asked to me to do. I was searching for some ideas to make the website interactive and then I started designing using Dream Weaver because it is very easy software to design a website.

I was delighted when my mentor Mrs. Violetta showed me some pictures about last year’s students’ internship in different companies. The students were working in different fields (see the pictures).

Today I finished all the materials that will be used for the exploration week in January except the brochure because I was waiting for the content but I think they would not be able to give me the rest content of the brochure because they are so busy. So I tried to search for the rest content from the net and finally I found some ideas for that .

Today I had a new task and it is about designing a layout for IIT at IAT website for their department or designing a template for them according to the time I had. I started to plan for the website and suggested some ideas for my mentor. Moreover, they want the website look interactive and it will be for students’ and employee’s use.

Mrs. Vio also gave a new task which is to call newspapers and find out a contact person for media because they have an exploration week and they need the media to come and publish the event that would happen on that week. She gave me long lists of newspapers phone numbers and websites to contact them and she asked me to finish what I have on my hand now then I can do the other tasks.

Another thing I did on this day is teaching my mentor how to use Photoshop CS3 she was desired to learn this software so that I find time for her to teach her how to use this software. I planned the lesson on a paper then I asked her to come on my disc and show her some tips of using the software. Fist I explained the tools of Photoshop and then I clarified the layers for her because they are very important in order to use this software effectively. She liked the software and very much and she want to know more about this software. I think Photoshop is one of the one of the main tool that we should learn how to use it because it would help us to design logos, banners for websites and design graphical images. She also wanted to download the software on her PC and I helped her to do. After this lesson I said that I should do tutorial for her so if she forgot to use the software she can recover it again.

For this week I get further knowledge about the work ethics.  One of the most important ethics that I have learnt is to be optimistic because being negative in the workplace is destructive. You may not always complain wrong things; but you can always suggest improvements and also be positive mostly.  Moreover, as a result of world changing everyone should be flexible to survive. Also to reach the peak we have be cooperative with each other so from that we can conclude the important of teamwork. Never the less it’s important to be creative so you can show of your ability. So that we always have to think how process can be improved and what should we do to make things easier for users. If we did these five things we will be able to enhance and build our credibility. In addition of these Dos I learnt some rules of credibility and rules of thumb.

Moreover, during this week I noticed that there are different things that are important in the business field such as mailing professionally, sharing knowledge, cooperating, sharing ideas, respecting others opinion and time managing. These all thing are essential behaviour skills to enhance your professionalism.  Moreover, these tips also make other respect you.

Another thing I found out by working with Mrs. Amal and Mrs.Vio that any coordinator should be multi-task person because he has to do many things at the same time. For example, I noticed that my mentor Mrs. Amal is calling companies to conform if they are coming on the exploration week or not and while she is writing an email for another company to make relations between each other.

            Hope I learn more next week..

On this day I learnt more five rules to maintain your credibility and I think they are important to learn them in order to have successful career life. The first one is to Keep up with Your Field of Expertise because there are always changes in any field you are in. Never Withhold Information, good leaders and groups always share their knowledge and they do not keep information from other and that will enhance team work skills which will make the team stronger and cooperative. Moreover, honesty is one of the most important attitudes that maintain your credibility so always tell the truth and never lie. These all I knew them by doing the presentation of work ethics that I finished it.

Then we had a meeting with Mrs. Marry Ann and my mentor. We discussed different issues and then they went down to meet the principle. They gave Mrs. Marry Ann feedback about me but I did not listen to them because I was not there. After they came back Mrs. MaryAnn asked me if I have any problems here and I said that I’m very happy here and they are happy to take me with them. Moreover, my mentors also were very happy to meet our teacher.

On this day I have sent the need analyze survey that is about online courses and asked the staff to fill it. I noticed that they want to take online courses that are related to their career life. I also found out that they are not familiar with online courses because they like workshop more than online courses. However, I noticed that they would like to do online courses about some software such as Access.

I only have to continue working on my presentation of the workshops which is about Work Ethics. While I’m doing this Workshop I found myself learning indirectly which is good and it is very important for any graduate to learn about work ethics.

To share my knowledge I would like to state some of the Work ethics that are very important for us to know. We are grown up and of course we already know most of them.

v  Be Enthusiastic

v  be optimistic

v  be flexible

v  be cooperative

v  be creative

On this day, I had I meeting with Mrs. Amal and Mrs. Vio where we discussed about the Career fair Week that they set it on the 11^th January. I found out that they invite many big companies and organizations, academic institutions and colleges where they have to present their organization and their companies for the students.  The purpose of this week is to let give more chance for the students to know their career life.

Moreover, they were planning the activities and the schedule of this week. I gave them several ideas and suggested some activities to do about the students and what can they do on this week where they liked them.

In this week they will provide workshops for the students about the career related topic and the materials that should be used are what I’m creating them now using Articulate Engage. They set up a deadline for me to finish the presentations for the workshop. I think that I should meet the deadline and try not to miss it so that they take a good attitude about me. I’m also creating other staff for that such as brochures and quizzes for the students.

They also looked at the survey that I created and suggested ideas for that but they invite Mr. Mohammad the curriculum coordinator because he now more about it so that he can look at the survey and modify it as they want.

At the beginning of this day I started to work in creating a survey that my mentor asked me to create yesterday which is Analysis Market Future Requirements. She set with me and gave me the important things that I have to cover them in the survey. So that in order to create it, I had to do some research about the career clusters they wanted me to cover them in the survey such as: Logistics, Transformations, Constructions, Health Care and Surveying. Then I planned my questions in a paper and finally I created it using MS word. I thought to do it online for her so she can easily give it to the companies but she preferred it printed because they want to use it in the Career week they have in December.