Maha Khatib is a partner at Learnactive, a Dubai-based human resources and organisational development consultancy. Among the company’s clients are the International Cricket Council (ICC), Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), Nestlé and Novartis International. The 40-year-old Jordanian, who has lived in the UAE for 14 years, reveals the employee development trends that Learnactive forecasts the public and private sector need to be prepared for ahead of Expo 2020.
You have an impressive line-up of clients. Tell me something about the company.
Layla Halabi, a Saudi national, and I started the company in January 2008 with just two of us. Today, we have grown to have six more people in the team aside from us and we are expecting to double the number of employees next year. We help organisations develop their job descriptions, policies and procedures manuals, performance management system, nationalisation programmes and induction programmes for new employees. We also offer learning and development [solutions] and customise training programmes in soft skills or business skills as well as technical skills. For Dewa, for instance, we did training programmes on their business skills, problem solving, customer service and performance among others. For ICC, we developed their HR policy manual for internal use.
Why is it important for the public and private sectors to be prepared for employee trends before Expo 2020?
One of the trends is that skills will be primarily required around services, such as customer service, event management, communication skills and cultural awareness because you will have people coming from all over the world.
Which sectors will be at the forefront of the change, and how will you expand your services to fit this trend?
A lot of technical skills will be needed and those will mainly be in sectors such as construction, architecture and interior design, besides event management, government, retail and hospitality. And yes, we will expand our services. We will integrate different types of training design tools and methods to make it more practical and those that will help measure the impact of the training on business results. We will also use non-traditional methods such as on-the-job training and different tools such as gaming, comics and social or informal learning. For instance, we will use comics more extensively, especially for the busy front-line people. These will be through interactive workshops with shorter time [frames] and not very expensive [for the employers] because the front-line executives might not be with the company after, say, six months. We will have cost effective workshops with them that will also build the internal capability. For more senior executives, we will have management and delegation skills workshops.
When will these employee development trends appear?
Companies will start seeing employee development trends in two to three years’ time. We started preparing these solutions two weeks ago when we got the announcement, and putting a plan on what we predict will be the requirement. We will start contacting employers in 2014 with the services.
How do you measure the effectiveness of the training programmes?
We use the Kirkpatrick model to measure the impact on business results. In the model, the first level measures people’s reaction to training, and the second measures how much they knew before the training and after. The third level measures the change in people’s behaviour at the workplace after the training. And fourthly it measures the impact on business results, which for some companies can be an increase in revenues, customer satisfaction, quality of work or cultural awareness. We use another model to train managers in skills auditing.
What role will Emirati employees play in shaping these employee development trends?
From 2014, we will see a lot of new regulations for hiring more Emiratis in the private sector. We are a small to medium-sized business, and we are looking at hiring a couple of Emiratis. Moreover, a lot of Emiratis will be establishing their own enterprises. Again, they would be needed in the high-demand sectors such as construction and service industries.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Company%20profile
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match info
Southampton 2 (Ings 32' & pen 89') Tottenham Hotspur 5 (Son 45', 47', 64', & 73', Kane 82')
Man of the match Son Heung-min (Tottenham)
MATCH DETAILS
Juventus 2 (Bonucci 36, Ronaldo 90 6)
Genoa 1 (Kouame 40)
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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yallacompare profile
Date of launch: 2014
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
