Dubai Knowledge Village discusses the effect of employee engagement on business at HR Summit and Expo 2012

Organised by IIR Middle East, and bringing together top HR professionals and business executives from across the region, the four day event provided a mixture of panel discussions and networking opportunities as well as the opportunity to hear from some of the world's most prominent HR professionals, most notably HR Guru, Dave Ulrich, ranked number one most influential person in HR.

Speaking about DKV's active role, Dr. Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director, TECOM Education Cluster (which includes DKV), said: "Our mission at DKV is to facilitate the learning and development of professionals and non-professionals alike. We have more than 450 business partners who work with us to make this possible. It is critical that we support events like the HR Summit and Expo which provide a forum for increased engagement and development in the HR industry and we are proud to be Knowledge Partner."

Speaking about DKV's involvement, Ramy Bayyour, Conference Director, HR Summit and Expo, said: "We are delighted to have DKV as one of our supporters at the HR Summit and Expo this year. The event has grown over recent years to become the region's largest HR gathering, something that we could not have achieved with the support of sponsors and partners like DKV."

Dr. Kazim participated in one of the panel sessions, the topic of which was, "Employee Engagement: What It Really Is, Why Invest In It And How To Get It Right In The Middle East". Speakers also included representatives from Procter & Gamble Switzerland, Merck Sorono and Microsoft. Speaking on the panel, Dr. Kazim, said: "Employee engagement is an emotional and physical commitment to help the organization reach its operational and financial goals. It is different from one region to another and one culture to another - India, for example, has an employee engagement rate of 37% whilst China has a rate of 17%."

The panel discussed both signs of engagement and disengagement in the workforce. The former can be identified by employees going the extra mile, for example, while signs of disengagement include: poor work culture, disloyalty, staff intentionally missing company functions or any extra curricular events.

Othman Haddi, Associate Director, CEEMEA HR Headquarters, Procter & Gamble Switzerland, said: "The biggest waste in any organization is employee disengagement. On average 80% of employees within organisations are disengaged and only 20% are engaged, this leads to large wastage of costs in productivity."

The panelists agreed that engaged employees only become engaged when they feel empowered and are a part of the organization's decision-making tree, or when they are kept in the loop in regards to key decisions and feel they have a say in the operations of the organization.

A number of DKV's business partners took part in this year's Summit and Expo, including SHL and SHRM.

Brad Boyson, Executive Director, SHRM Middle East & Africa, commented: "We were very happy to participate in the growth of the IIR ME HR Summit 2012. The HR community in the region is becoming more mature and SHRM is pleased to be a partner of DKV to take the HR Community here to the next level."