Mohammed N Al Khan
DUBAI // Businesses should stop wasting time motivating their employees and just look to hire the right people — that was the consensus at the Sharing Best Practices 2013 Conference and Exhibition yesterday.
Hosted by the Department of Economic Development (DED) in conjunction with the Dubai Quality Group (DQG), the sessions saw the winners of the Dubai Quality Awards and Cooperation Awards for 2011 and 2012 showcase their best practices.
“People are not the most important asset,” said keynote speaker Dr Johan Veltmeyer, from Griffith University in Australia, in his address entitled Real Quality by the Right People, which highlighted the foundations required for quality training programmes.
“The right people are the most important asset.
“Maybe one per cent of problems are due to processes, 99 per cent are associated with people.”
Dr Veltmeyer went on to discuss the three types of employees: “Engaged employees who are loyal and productive, not engaged employees who are just putting in their time and actively disengaged employees, who are unhappy and spreading their discontent.”
According to a 2011 Gallup poll, the UAE has only 15 per cent engaged employees, 56 per cent not engaged and 29 per cent actively disengaged.
“Spending time and energy trying to motivate people is a waste of resources,” said Dr Veltmeyer. “The right people are self-motivated.”
“I’m so glad that Dr Veltmeyer mentioned that, because that is exactly what we did,” said Dr Wafi Dawood, chief of strategy and excellence at the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).
“Since our establishment in 2007 we were determined to pick the right people. This is why we have 85 per cent employee engagement and 92 per cent customer satisfaction. We chose the right people.”
malkhan@thenational.ae