Dubai: The UAE’s expat community often regards Ramadan as a slowdown period. The working day is two hours shorter. Many people are fasting. Minds are on the summer holidays.
But this is not necessarily the case. For some firms — notably in e-commerce — business is booming during Ramadan.
Other firms find ways to use the period productively.
- Mohammad Arif | Microsoft executive
Mohammad Arif, Microsoft Gulf’s Regional Director for Modern Workplace and Security, even goes so far as to dispute the reduction in working hours has any significant impact on productivity, citing a study by the UK’s Oxford Strategic Consulting suggesting the optimal office day was six hours “because non-manual workers’ productivity tends to wane beyond that.”
He added, “It is true that OSC’s UK example does not account for the lower energy levels that ultimately result not only from fasting, but from the entire Ramadan schedule of late nights and early mornings. But it is suggestive that in all of us lies a will to make better use of our time.”
Sudesh Giriyan, Chief Operating Officer at Xpress Money, felt that productivity had less to do with the length of the working day, and more to do with motivation.
“We ensure this through offering our people challenging assignments with a global exposure, and there is plenty for them to learn and grow during Ramadan,” he said.
rise in Facebook use during Ramadan
Anil Sharma, Director at Leaders for Growth DWC LLC, focused more on leadership and monitoring, Defining specific key performance indicators (KPIs) during Ramadan was critical, he said.
“If an employee is losing behind the KPIs, the manager has a chat with the employee on a daily or weekly basis. Always there is a reference to the KPI sheet. This is the management jargon.”
He acknowledged that some people would be tired due to late-night suhoor meals, and suggested redistributing some of their work to those not fasting, in return for non-fasting employee’s workload being shared back when they went on leave.
jump in Facebook traffic at night
“In my view, these two angles will help companies meet the productivity targets. We are not saying that we can increase productivity compared to the previous month but whatever we targeted during Ramadan needs that norm.”
Microsoft’s Arif also suggested managers use the time for planning objectives following Ramadan, using Ramadan itself for innovation and brainstorming sessions.
“While energy levels are low and working days shorter, take the time to peruse business intelligence reports, to understand where your organisation is going and how you can adjust course to match long-term goals. Then, when your workforce returns refreshed, after Eid Al Fitr, you can go ahead and address your action plan, rather than having to devise it.”
Staff training was another important activity. “Consider how a workforce that is newly trained in fresh skills can contribute to an innovative new action plan when Ramadan comes to a close, having had minimal productivity impact during the fasting period because of the shrewd use of analytics,” Arif said.
According to a recent Facebook case study, FMCG, retail, automotive and beauty brands have an extra 57.6 million hours to capture attention among customers in the Middle East and North Africa during Ramadan. Facebook itself sees a 14.8 per cent jump in use across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region during Ramadan, with a 36.9 per cent increase at night.
This is part of a wider rise in e-commerce activity in the region during Ramadan — with an average increase of 35.8 per cent, peaking at a 78 per cent increase at night. This amplified activity is primarily driven by mobile purchases, which gets a 43.2 per cent bump, when compared to a 5.5 per cent increase in desktop activity during Ramadan.
Shant Oknayan, Facebook’s regional business lead across Retail, Telecom, Technology, Services and Entertainment across Facebook, Instagram and the family of apps said, “For a period as significant as Ramadan, which sees tremendous traffic on the platform, marketers in the region have the opportunity to leverage Facebook’s family of apps and services to personalise content at scale, and thereby influence people at the point of inspiration, consideration and conversion.”
— With Contributions from Andrew Staples, Chief Business Reporter; Siddesh Mayenkar, Senior Reporter; Ed Clowes, Staff Reporter and Naushad K. Cherrayil, Staff Reporter.
