8Minute Talk show —Mehdi Nikpour HR Manager at Zar Industrial Group

Shahrokh Imani: Hi, We are beside you with another 8 minute Talk Show.

Mehdi Nikpour: Hello, I’m very proud of being with you. This is Mehdi Nikpour and, I was born in 1357 at Gorgan. I’ve got BA in industrial engineering and an MA in management. I started my career in 1382 in the car industry. I’ve worked in QC, QA, and, engineering from 1382 till 1394. I’ve cooperated with the Zar industry group since 1394 and worked in the QA field for some years and, it’s been a while that I’ve become HR manager at Zar industry group. We are the biggest Pasta producer group in Asia and, we stand in the second grade after Barilla company in the world.

Shahrokh Imani: What expectations should a human resource manager fulfill for personnel?

Mehdi Nikpour: They expect you to treat them warmly. The most important personality of a human resource manager is that he should be a good listener and, listen to the personnel problem. Maybe the feeling of emphasizing with them or connection between you and your co-worker helps them solve their problem.

Mostly the problem isn’t financial but with emphasizing, listening and, recommending a good solution you can help them solve their problem.

Shahrokh Imani: What are your challenges and issues?

Mehdi Nikpour: We are facing a new challenge these days which is the lack of manpower. It’s been a competition among companies as they want to employ skillful people. There’s a challenge of keeping personnel in the company and we try to fulfill their expectations to make them satisfied.

We’ve tried to make a coherent group since 1394, it was decided to use ERP software to manage and control a cohesive group and, form a united company.

Shahrokh Imani: How do you face the lack of manpower challenges?

Mehdi Nikpour: If we pay attention to employees’ interests we can keep them easier in our organization, even we can hire more skillful people. We are processing this plan in our company, we try to discover their interests and, needs by using opinion poll application. We try to prepare a flexible job time or telework for those who can’t come to the office.

There’s another important personality for an HR manager which is Honesty when you disesteem employees they’ll quit their jobs. As an example, employees weren’t satisfied with their jobs and thought what they were doing wasn’t that much important and, serious in an American financial company named “Wells Fargo”. So, the manager arranged a meeting and invited the employees and the borrowers. The borrowers explained to the employees that what they’ve done had a great impression on their lives, listening to them made a great feeling for the employees.

We are creating some basements for the HR field such as payroll priorities. what is being done by the ministry of labor and social affairs isn’t suitable so, we are going to make a better category by formulating employees’ evaluations and, operations in our organization. We are going to connect the new category to the payroll system.

Shahrokh Imani: Is there any problem with its accommodation?

Mehdi Nikpour: It won’t happen if there’s no accommodation. Every schema is planned based on the country’s culture. we’ll have better results If we naturalize that schema to our organization. we faced a challenge in using SAP software as it showed best practices but they weren’t adaptive practices and couldn’t be matched with our organization. So we developed the software and made it more adaptable to our organization.

We have tried a lot to make the HR field alive but we made some changes based on the organizations’ operation and, our culture.

Shahrokh Imani: What study resources will you introduce to whom is studying in your field?

Mehdi Nikpour: I read “The compound effect” by Darren Hardy some years ago which was a good book.

Shahrokh Imani: Who would you introduce us to participate in our next Talk Show?

Mehdi Nikpour: I’d like to introduce Ms.Kavousi to you and, I’d invite her to this talk show. Wish to improve in the HR field.

Shahrokh Imani: We talked to a successful manager in this talk show and, we’ll meet other managers in our next Talk Shows and utilize their experiences.