Strathclyde Business School UAE's latest Strathclyde Dialogues brought together three guest speakers to explore the growing and interlinked agendas of corporate wellness and happiness in the UAE.
Attracting an audience of MBA students and alumni along with members of the local wellness and business communities, the Dialogue was held at Dubai Future Accelerators and was sponsored by Strathclyde alumnus startup, Plotos, a healthy meal delivery app.
Academic host of the Strathclyde Dialogues, SBS resident academic Dr Katerina Nicolopoulou, opened the evening by outlining the theme and setting key questions before inviting each of the three guest speakers to present their unique angle on the topic.
The first speaker, healthcare veteran Craig McLaren, Managing Partner of Access Value Healthcare Solutions and a Scottish Development International (SDI) GlobalScot, highlighted the particular healthcare challenges and stressors that are negatively impacting the mental and physical wellness of Dubai's workforce and which in turn are driving up organisational costs through lost productivity and higher corporate health insurance premiums. From this base, he drew out examples of what the most forward-thinking organisations are doing - often in partnership with insurance companies and local wellness companies - to create healthier workplaces and incentive schemes to educate and motivate employees to make healthier lifestyle choices.
The next speaker, Ghanim Al Falasi, Senior Vice President of People Happiness, Innovation and Supply Chain Management at Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) talked about the bold initiatives taken by the Dubai Smart government to become the happiest city in the world. Starting out from the premise that it's possible to create, measure and sustain corporate happiness, Ghanim outlined the pioneering happiness framework developed for DSOA with corporate wellness partner 24alife that integrates the Wheel of Life with a relationship management system that taps into both personal and professional networks. Together these form a dashboard of an employee's overall life balance at a point in time, and which can then be used for reviewing and setting future targets.
Finally, Linda Jarnhamn, Founder of HRinspireME and currently studying an MSc in applied neuroscience in organisations, discussed evidence from neuroscience to examine whether corporate investment in wellness and happiness was worth the money. Looking into mental health which many corporate wellness programmes ignore, she highlighted the huge costs to productivity, performance and happiness caused by high stress levels and poor sleep patterns among employees.
Her own research with Dubai organisations showed strong correlations between an active lifestyle and brain fitness, with increases in exercise resulting in reductions in levels of stress and improvements in executive function performance. She concluded that organisations ought to shift from their current focus on physical health and cost reduction to embracing both physical and mental health and maximising individual potential, which will ultimately lead to greater gains at the corporate level.
After the three presentations, the event moved on to an audience Q&A and an extended exchange with the panel that touched on many of the key points raised in the presentations, followed by more informal networking.
Dr Katerina Nicolopoulou said, "We were very happy to host the three speakers who were keen to share authentic insights into the world of corporate wellbeing. Through the interaction and lively conversation it became clear that corporate wellness is a systemic, holistic approach which stems from the individual."
The Strathclyde Dialogues series, now in its sixth year, brings together panels of experts who, by exchanging views and perspectives, promote the sharing of knowledge in various fields of contemporary interest globally, and with particular application to the UAE. The next event will be in the autumn.