I feel for anyone who works in the service industry. Ever since the UAE moved from a Sunday-Thursday week to Monday-Friday, the sense I’ve gotten is that those working in the service industry have had to work out how to cater to both local/global and regional clients. For many, the answer has been simple – agencies are having to work out rosters of people working over the six days, from Sunday to Friday.
I don’t know how sustainable this is. Dubai is the hub for the region’s creative agencies, many of whom don’t have offices outside of the Emirate. Will clients across the Middle East accommodate the change in the working week? Or will agencies look to open offices (or move/hire people) in countries which still follow the Sunday-Thursday routine?
For those working with clients across the region, I’m curious to know how you are managing. Is there anything that can be done to make the workload easier, and/or redress the work-life balance? Or has the change in the UAE’s working week not had an impact?
Another observation over the past couple of months is the number of Russians and Hong Kongers moving to the UAE, particularly in the communications industry. More talent is always a good thing; let’s hope our new arrivals find their feet in the region and get acquainted with its cultures and languages.
Am always happy to hear your views. Please do share them in the comments section below.
This is the second part of a blog I’m writing based on research undertaken by PR agency Cicero & Bernay and YouGov into the state of CSR in the Gulf, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Yesterday I looked at the first half of the report. Today, I’m going to share the results on employer branding, on the impact of CSR on business, and also of the pandemic on CSR. To reiterate, this is a quantitative survey, and I do have reservations on the views shared. Let’s begin!
The Impact of CSR on Employer Branding
Let’s start with the simple view shared by the majority of executives surveyed – brands/organizations that are seen as more socially responsible find it easier to both attract and retain staff. The first statement, that of “A company’s CSR activities are an important consideration for job seekers,” was agreed with by at least 60% of executives from each region. The second statement, that of “A socially responsible company is deliberately sought out by job seekers,” was also agreed to by the majority of executives (the lowest score was for the Gulf excluding Saudi and the UAE, where only 49% of executives agreed to the statement. The most interesting statement put to those surveyed was, “Employees working in a socially responsible company are more motivated than those working for other companies.” Again, the majority of executives agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. It’s clear that being a socially responsible company is seen as an advantage when it comes to employees.
The statement put to the executives was “A company’s CSR activities are an important consideration for job seekers.”
CSR Impact on Business
There were two statements on how CSR relates to business. The first was, “How do you think adopting CSR affects a company’s business overall?” The overall sentiment was agree/strongly agree, with the lowest score being 80% in the Levant (Jordan and Lebanon). The highest scores were in Saudi (92% agreed or strongly agreed) and the UAE (95% agreed or strongly agreed). The second statement put to those surveyed was, “How important is it for a company to adopt CSR into its business practices?” The response was again overwhelmingly positive, with 92% agreeing or strongly agreeing that adopting CSR positively impacts a company’s business.
The question asked was “How do you think adopting CSR affects a company’s business overall?”
CSR in Practice Across MENA
We now get to the why and how. Those surveyed were asked, “Why do you think it’s important for a company to adopt CSR into its business practices?” The primary response, with the exception of the Levant, was to improve the reputation of a company/brand (the Levant response was to secure a company’s future over the long-term, which may be a nod towards Lebanon’s economic distress) . The second isn’t so clear-cut; in Egypt, the Levant and the GCC excluding KSA and the UAE the purpose is to give back to society. In Saudi it is to get free publicity via word-of-mouth advertising. And in the UAE there’s a host of reasons.
The question asked was, “Why do you think it’s important for a company to adopt CSR into its business practices?”
When asked if they have a CSR programme in place, the majority of executives either said no or that they didn’t know. The UAE had the highest response rate, at 46%, followed by Egypt at 43%. The Levant was lowest at 20%. What is confusing here is all of the positive messaging shared by those interviewed beforehand – CSR supposedly helps with brand perception, with fending off competition, and with attracting and retaining talent. And yet why are there so few companies with CSR programmes? And why do so few executives know of their programmes (this also calls into doubt what they say throughout the survey)? The survey did ask why CSR programmes weren’t in place, but as there are no solid numbers to this, only percentages, it’s hard to gauge the reasons why.
There’s questions on how companies benchmark, as well as the importance of CSR to the company and the impact of CSR on the business overall. There’s also questions asked about consumer trust and CSR, supply chains and whether they’d stop doing business with companies that aren’t socially responsible. I’m going to skip these, and head to the last part, which is about CSR and that other C-word, Covid-19.
The Pandemic and CSR
This is the big topic for me, namely what impact has the pandemic had on CSR. The first question was, “How has the pandemic affected your CSR efforts?” For me, this could have been phrased better, as it doesn’t explicitly say if activities have gone up, or if they’re seen as more important by the organization. The Levant fares worst, which isn’t surprising given the freefall being experienced by Lebanon’s economy. The UAE fares best, with 53% saying somewhat/very positively. I find this fascinating, as I know many friends who’ve left CSR roles over the past year in the UAE as well as many charities who are suffering from a lack of cash flow. I’m just not so sure how this relates to reality on the ground.
The question asked was, “How has the pandemic affected your CSR efforts?”
Executives were also asked if CSR has become important (no surprises here, it has), as well as if they intend to keep up their CSR activities in 2022 – Egyptian, Saudi and the UAE executives said they would do more, while Levant and GCC executives said they’d do the same.
When asked what they’d focus on moving forward, there was no one big issue which stood out (I’m not sure why building company reputation is here, seeing as it’s an outcome and not an output). The most common area of focus was employees, which makes sense given mental wellbeing issues faced in 2020 and 2021.
The question asked was, “If your company plans to engage more in CSR in the COVID-19 era and afterwards, what will your company focus on?”
Let’s lots more which could be said about CSR in the region, and I hope any subsequent reports will be both qualitative as well as quantitative (certain responses need much more validation given they don’t fully match up to my own experiences, and those of others I know working in CSR in the region). I’m going to end here for now. If you’d like to see the full report, you can download it from here – https://www.cbpr.me/mena-csr-survey-report-2020/
We’re only a week or so away from the holiest month of the Islamic year, when Muslims fast to remember the first revelation of the holy Koran to the Prophet Muhammed. Just as the Middle East has embraced social media, so have Muslims. Ramadan is one of the most active times of the year for social media in the Middle East, on all social media channels, as Muslims reach out to friends and family, as they prepare for the Holy Month, and as they celebrate in the run up to Eid.
First of all, let’s look at Twitter. The short messaging service recorded over 51 million mentions of Ramadan last year, with 8.4 billion impressions.
The number of Tweets during Ramadan in 2015 based on Twitter’s own internal statistics
Google’s focus is on YouTube, in particular channels which have a specific relationship with this period of the year. Cooking is initially popular (Ramadan meals are cooked and served at home), followed by religious channels and general entertainment.
YouTube viewership during Ramadan changes dramatically as you can see from this internal Google data
And last but not least, there’s Facebook. During 2014, 14.6 million Muslims in the MENA region posted 47.6m updates on Ramadan and Eid. The attached presentation from Facebook provides fascinating insights into when Muslims are online and how much more time they’re spending online, as well as the shift towards mobile and a breakdown of chatter by age and sex. Facebook believes that millenials are shifting away from television and towards the internet, which may be disconcerting for advertisers and television networks.
While it’d be fascinating to understand how Muslims are using Whatsapp and other messaging services to spread religious messages and other related content, I don’t have any data on this (and other) channels.
Whatever you’re planning for Ramadan, do remember the importance of social media channels to Muslims across the region. Make your content engaging (either entertaining or informative), relevant, and shareable. And Ramadan Mubarak!
Do you not know where to start when it comes to social media and the Middle East? This report may be your answer (image source: http://blue16media.com)
We have our fair share of big events in Dubai and this week was no exception. The past two days has seen the Emirate become the place to be for social media influencers. Whilst we found ourselves invaded by all types of beautiful people (and others) waving their selfie sticks and pouting for the camera, there were some handy takeaways for an audience looking to learn more about how to use social media to build brands for themselves, their companies or their countries. Oh, and Twitter has finally decided to open an office in the MENA region, obviously in Dubai.
The most impressive part of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit was the report. Coming in at a whopping sixty seven pages, the report by research house TNS covers a whole host of areas of social media interest across the MENA region. The study combines both qualitative research with a quantitative survey of more than 7200 users of social media spread evenly
across 18 Arab countries.
If you’re looking to know which channels are used across MENA, then look no further. The report includes stats on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Google+, and YouTube. It also includes social media usage habits, including time of use, duration of use and devices used. Most importantly, the report looks into attitudes about social media across the region and what people are doing online.
If you’re doing anything online in the MENA region, download this report and start dissecting. You can thank me later, on social media.
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