Turning a terrible experience into a positive philosophy

Content warning: This podcast contains a conversation about suicide.

Abbas’ story begins with an emotional listen about witnessing a horrific event at a train station on an everyday morning commute. Already working in HR, he explains how the experience moved him to go a step further in his career and life, shaping the people policies he strategised as he moved through his career. 

As a result of these experiences, Abbas is a big believer in training around self awareness and development—especially in terms of mental health. He reveals how this has had a massive impact at Moteefe, as well as the areas of business he’s found those principles most challenging to embed.

Finally, after the company had been involved in a long sprint, Abbas describes how he could see the beginnings of burnout among teammates at Moteefe. But instead of throwing a big party with a free bar, he decided to do something very different to help the whole team recuperate.

Abbas is a career-long advocate of People policy centered around mental health. He’s been a Director of People/HR at established companies and startups including Dixons Carphone, Castle Trust Bank, Moteefe and now Careem. Abbas believes in strong community and support at work to help employees face life’s challenges.

Oliva is the UK & Europe's #1 rated employee mental wellbeing benefit.

We help companies respond to the pivotal moments that impact mental wellbeing at work and beyond—driving employee retention and exceptional effort.

We do this by:

• Empowering individuals to take control of their mental wellbeing
• Developing manager emotional intelligence
• Helping HR teams create org-wide psychological safety