Hannah Matta is a managing consultant and chartered psychologist at the global talent consultancy, Propel International. The Briton says she has always been interested in people – their drivers, motivations and what generally makes them tick. After studying an undergraduate degree in psychology, the 35-year-old decided business psychology was the field for her, so embarked on a master's and, after a brief stint in HR, ended up working as a consultant. She first came to the UAE in 2014 with a previous employer before joining Propel International's Dubai office two years ago, where she helps clients make better hiring decisions through the use of business pyschology, technology and psychometric testing.
5am:
I wake up. I read this book called The Miracle Morning about how waking up at 4.30am changed the author's life and got really inspired by it. I would never make 4.30am but I usually make 5am. I spend time on myself in the morning. I listen to my head space via a mediation app or take some time for me to journal and then I will go to a yoga class or a spinning class.
8am:
I arrive at the office in Business Bay. We are a very sociable team, so there is a lot of catching up in the morning. One day I could be at the office, another day I could be working in Abu Dhabi. Another day I could be flying to the States or working in Tokyo. There are no two days the same.
8.30am:
I’m either be working on some design for a project, meeting with clients or writing proposals. There is such variety. Or I might be designing some assessment simulations for an assessment centre. A proposal involves understanding, having met with a client, what their business need is. What is the challenge that is keeping them up at night that they need some support with, and how can we create a solution to help them with that. It involves putting something together and sharing some of the profiles for the different consultants in the team, costing it, then perhaps presenting that to the client or sending it over and then having a more in-depth discussion around it.
12pm
I have a client lunch meeting to discuss some of their challenges or what is happening in their organisation.
2pm
I lead the consulting team so I have a one to one with one of the team, check in with them. I look back over the last month to find out how has it gone. What’s been keeping them busy? What are they most proud of? And also there is that opportunity for two-way feedback, is there anything over the last two weeks or month that I could have done differently as a manager? I can then provide them with feedback on what they could have done differently, or more importantly what they have done well, but always inviting them to reflect first. It is just having regular performance conversations so you are not leaving it to the once-a-year annual appraisal, which can be a bit of a feedback dump or surprise for people. I see everyone once a month.
3pm
A couple of times a week I make sure I am keeping up to date with the latest thinking, whether that’s industry news or what’s happening in my profession, or the region. When I first came out here we were using psychometric assessments to help with restructuring and selecting people. But with Propel we use it in so many different contexts, for example with Emiratisation. Many organisations now use psychometric testing to identify and develop emerging UAE talent or to hire graduates or develop their [future] leaders. So it is used by both local and multinational companies, but there is an increasing number of local and government organisations in the UAE that now use this type of assessment.
4pm
I check my emails. I try not to check them throughout the day because then I just get distracted and become reactive so I have dedicated times where I focus on them.
5.30pm:
I leave the office. At home, it is tempting to open the laptop again. We have offices all over the world, in London, New Zealand and the States, so emails can come any time in the day. Sometimes I might have an hour or a 30-minute call in the evening for a coaching session. But otherwise I spend time with my husband and we have dinner together, maybe have a walk on the beach and relax.
10pm:
I go to bed early if I can. My husband is Lebanese. When I first met him we would always head out for the evening but slowly, with the alarm going off at 5am, he is starting to appreciate going to bed a bit earlier.
business@thenational.ae
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