The old adage goes that hard work leads to success, which ultimately provides us with happiness.
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Last Updated: May 11, 2011
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But one behavioural science company now wants to turn this theory on its head.
According to Humantelligence, a US company that recently conducted its first survey in the Middle East, happiness comes first. If staff are happy then they are more likely to be successful and work harder.
Of course, trying to find out what makes staff happy at work is a difficult job because what pleases one person may upset another. So Humantelligence has developed a survey tool called TalentScan to determine what drives staff.
In partnership with the executive search consultant Stanton Chase International, the company recently questioned senior executives at 350 companies in the region. Up to 15 senior executives out of a total of more than 3,000 from the sample of companies were surveyed using TalentScan.
The results of the survey, released in Dubai this week, were broken down into four key areas: motivators; workplace behaviour; the ideal workplace environment; and life priorities.
In a region where many people work to build a nest egg, it will come as little surprise that wealth was the number one motivator. "You might say this is not new," says Yiannis Lagos, the president for international markets at Humantelligence. "But it is new for us because it is the first region in the world we have seen this. There is no other region where money is the key motivator."
Human Intelligence concludes that a money-driven person can often be beneficial to a company because they will focus on sales and the bottom line. But they can also lose touch with the people they are overseeing and become workaholics, which might impede on their lifestyle and therefore their happiness.
The survey was conducted right across the Middle East, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. It found that many senior executives in the region prefer working alone rather than in teams, that their working environment had to be fast-paced, and that they were often rapidly decisive in decision-making instead of pondering a problem.
According to the TalentScan survey, senior executives in the Middle East are also motivated by helping people, which Mr Lagos says can often contradict the idea of wealth as a motivator.
Geoff Cripps, the group director of human resources at Global Process Systems, part of the Al Jaber Group, believes gauging how to make staff happy and then using that to ensure they work harder is an interesting concept.
"I think there are whole countries that run on a happiness formula, for example the Dalai Lama in Nepal," Mr Cripps says. "But I'm not sure that actual happiness has been measured at this stage [by the survey], I haven't yet seen how they ensure happiness."
Mr Cripps says he would like to see more information on the different types of expatriates and local populations within each country. "We need to see a breakdown of people, because our Emirati friends are going to feel very different to someone from the UK or Australia," he says.
At the launch of the survey, a number of HR directors, who provided senior executives from their firms as guinea pigs, believed Humantelligence was also confusing happiness with finding the right person for a role.
"If you align your own values with what an organisation wants to do, then clearly you are more productive," said an HR director at a large government entity. "Happiness is a nice thing to think about but I'm not sure it is driving production."
rjones@thenational.ae
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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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
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
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- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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DevisionX – manufacturing
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Farmdar – agriculture
Farmin – smart cities
Greener Crop – agriculture
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Lune Technologies – fibre-optics
Monak – delivery
NutzenTech – environment
Nybl – machine learning
Occicor – shelf management
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Pivony – user-generated data
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Sav – finance
Searover – renewables
Swftbox – delivery
Trade Capital Partners – FinTech
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Workfam – employee engagement
Result:
1. Cecilie Hatteland (NOR) atop Alex - 31.46 seconds
2. Anna Gorbacheva (RUS) atop Curt 13 - 31.82 seconds
3. Georgia Tame (GBR) atop Cash Up - 32.81 seconds
4. Sheikha Latifa bint Ahmed Al Maktoum (UAE) atop Peanuts de Beaufour - 35.85 seconds
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