Less than 25 percent of employees worldwide are actively engaged in their work and their organisation. Despite this statistic, private and public sector organizations across the globe now recognise that fully engaged employees are crucial in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. This is especially true in GCC countries, where world-leading growth requires ‘beyond world-class’ levels of employee engagement. We believe that a new engagement model, which draws on key components of the Gulf Leadership Style, will be the solution to engagement issues both in GCC countries and globally.
To address the real need for better engagement models, Oxford Strategic Consulting is holding a VIP ‘Engaging Leadership: Styles, models and the future’ Summit on 16 November 2014 in Dubai, where the UK/UAE-based consultancy will reveal the first ever GCC-inspired engagement model as well as an engagement toolkit. The action summit will explore how business leaders across the GCC can improve the day-to-day engagement of their employees using the latest technology and proven methods.OSC’s research indicates that increasing employee engagement is one of the cheapest and most effective ways of boosting staff productivity, loyalty and retention. For example, the top 25 percent of companies with the most engaged people produced twice as much profit and 22 percent higher shareholder returns than the companies with the least engaged people.
What does this mean for GCC companies? A more effective employee engagement model for GCC companies promises huge returns on investment. Research found, for example, that organisations with the highest engagement scores averaged 18 percent higher productivity than those with the lowest engagement scores. Moreover, those companies in the top quartile of engagement returned seven times more to shareholders over a five-year period than companies in the bottom quartile! Contrary to accepted theory, OSC research found that engagement is mainly impacted by three factors: the immediate leader or line-manager (40 percent), an individual’s own propensity for enthusiasm and positivism (40 percent), and finally the work environment (20 percent). Interestingly, an employee’s work environment is the least important factor in determining high levels of engagement but is the major focus of most engagement processes.
Business leaders interested in learning more about employee engagement in the GCC can sign up for Professor William Scott-Jackson’s free ‘Engaging Leadership’ Webinar. During the webinar, the Oxford-based Professor will explain how the latest engagement techniques can really help organisations to achieve world-beating engagement levels. You can register here for the webinar.
