When the financial crisis hit Dubai in 2009, the construction industry contracted and staff were let go. Often, it was not the architects or engineers of those firms that were made unemployed, but marketing employees.
As the economy picked up again, firms realised they had nobody to interact with clients. So they sent the architects and engineers to client meetings instead. This was not especially successful, says Maria Pearson, who co-founded Grow.ME, a learning and development consultancy that offers courses such as understanding cultural diversity in the workplace.
“Culture isn’t just about nationality. It can be about different professional groups, age, gender. People need to understand [each other’s] mindset.” The engineers had a “black-and-white” approach and Ms Pearson noted their tendency to focus on facts and figures to the exclusion of other issues.
“Their world is about being exact because if it isn’t exact, the building will not stand,” she explains. “We tried to help them understand that when you are engaging with a client and trying to connect with what’s going on in their mind, it’s not all about right and wrong.”
To this end, she set up a training programme to develop client relationship managers. Some of the participants were unable to make the mental shift, but for others a whole new world opened up. At one company, the staff who had been on the programme delivered 400 per cent above the targets they had been set in the first six months.
Originally from New Zealand, Ms Pearson has been in the Middle East for 20 years. She moved to the UAE from Bahrain to work for Emirates Airline. It was there that her interest in culture in the workplace developed.
“A big part of the safety side of airlines is dependent on culture,” she says. “The biggest airline accident ever was [partly] caused by cultural misunderstanding.” In 1977, two 747s collided on the runway at Tenerife, killing 583 people. The disaster was partly caused because of the workplace culture that made it unacceptable for a newly qualified co-pilot to challenge the senior pilot’s decisions.
In the UAE and Middle East, Ms Pearson predicts cultural differences resulting from age will be a major source of friction in the next few years because of a demographic shift that will swell the proportion of people under the age of 30 in the workforce.
“The people who are graduating from college about now, they have grown up with the internet,” she says. “So instead of asking parents or their manager for advice, they Google. For them, knowledge doesn’t equal power or respect.”
On the other hand, though, “we’ve got managers here with 20, 30, 40 years of experience. For them, it’s all about what [they] know. That’s what [they feel] gives them the edge. So there is going to be real conflict between the two. The internet is about collaboration and sharing. Most people who haven’t had masses of exposure to it don’t quite get that. Again, it’s about developing that mind shift.”
The solution she proposes is getting the older generation to assume the role of coaches and sharing what they know with younger people coming into the workforce who may have PhD and MBA degrees, but have little practical experience and implementation skills.
Ms Pearson says it is encouraging that a recent survey she had read showed that in the next couple of years businesses planned to spend the largest amount of their training budgets developing workers’ “people skills” rather than management’s leadership skills.
Because of the large number of different nationalities living and working in the UAE, Ms Pearson says it’s especially important here for employees to develop an understanding of their colleagues.
One example she cites is eye contact. For many in the West, making eye contact demonstrates respect and shows one is paying attention. For a large percentage of the population in the Middle East, making eye contact is impolite. “There needs to be an understanding that it’s not wrong, it’s just different,” she says. “It’s like an iceberg: this is what you see, but this is what is driving it from underneath.”
Grow.ME will be exhibiting at the Training and Development Show in Dubai on December 4 and 5.
lgutcher@thenational.ae
A cheaper choice
Vanuatu: $130,000
Why on earth pick Vanuatu? Easy. The South Pacific country has no income tax, wealth tax, capital gains or inheritance tax. And in 2015, when it was hit by Cyclone Pam, it signed an agreement with the EU that gave it some serious passport power.
Cost: A minimum investment of $130,000 for a family of up to four, plus $25,000 in fees.
Criteria: Applicants must have a minimum net worth of $250,000. The process take six to eight weeks, after which the investor must travel to Vanuatu or Hong Kong to take the oath of allegiance. Citizenship and passport are normally provided on the same day.
Benefits: No tax, no restrictions on dual citizenship, no requirement to visit or reside to retain a passport. Visa-free access to 129 countries.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
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.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UK%20-%20UAE%20Trade
%3Cp%3ETotal%20trade%20in%20goods%20and%20services%20(exports%20plus%20imports)%20between%20the%20UK%20and%20the%20UAE%20in%202022%20was%20%C2%A321.6%20billion%20(Dh98%20billion).%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EThis%20is%20an%20increase%20of%2063.0%20per%20cent%20or%20%C2%A38.3%20billion%20in%20current%20prices%20from%20the%20four%20quarters%20to%20the%20end%20of%202021.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EThe%20UAE%20was%20the%20UK%E2%80%99s%2019th%20largest%20trading%20partner%20in%20the%20four%20quarters%20to%20the%20end%20of%20Q4%202022%20accounting%20for%201.3%20per%20cent%20of%20total%20UK%20trade.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE TWIN BIO
Their favourite city: Dubai
Their favourite food: Khaleeji
Their favourite past-time : walking on the beach
Their favorite quote: ‘we rise by lifting others’ by Robert Ingersoll
