Using AI for designing work

Today’s leaders are pushing to increase employee engagement and decrease turnover but face a harsh reality: widespread employee burnout. To fight it, managers need to offer employees more healthy and meaningful work. In surveys conducted in the United States by Gallup in 2022, 40pc of employees reported that their job had a negative impact on their mental health, and around 30pc said they frequently experience burnout. Globally, employees’ lack of engagement has been estimated to cost employers $7.8tr — equivalent to 11pc of the global gross domestic product. The root causes of disengagement and work stress often lie in how an organisation has designed people’s jobs. Decades of extensive research consistently link poor work design with negative employee outcomes, including mental strain, high turnover, job dissatisfaction, decreased productivity, and impaired learning. Many companies are now striving to do better. AI can play a key role in helping design high-quality work that benefits both employees and organisations.

(Adapted from “How ChatGPT Can and Can’t Help Managers Design Better Job Roles,” by Fangfang Zhang and Sharon K. Parker, published on October 5, 2023, by MIT Sloan Management Review)

Being an empathic leader

Displaying empathy in a way that seems authentic — especially at work — can be challenging. This is often because we tend to confuse sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is when you feel sorrow for what someone else is going through because you can relate to their experience personally. However, most of us today work in multigenerational and multicultural organisations. We can’t possibly expect to personally relate to every person’s experience. That’s why developing the ability to be genuinely empathetic is so important. Empathy is the ability to show compassion for another person without personally relating to them through firsthand experience. It means you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes to understand where they’re coming from, share that you understand, and thoughtfully respond to their feelings, thoughts, and circumstances. Learning how to show this kind of genuine care is key to building meaningful connections and developing trust at work. It involves active listening, curiosity, humility, practice, and patience.

(Adapted from “What We Get Wrong About Empathic Leadership,” by Olga Valadon, published by HBR Ascend)

Luxury spending in India

India has long been a home for Asia’s top billionaires, but a new class of wealthy entrepreneurs, executives and dealmakers are now broadening the country’s luxury market. Every year, fresh private members clubs are opening in Mumbai, a city with more people worth $100 million than Monaco and as many billionaires as Singapore. As China’s growth plateaus and Beijing cracks down on its billionaire class, India is positioning itself as Asia’s next hot spot for luxury spending. There has been a rise in conspicuous consumption in one of the world’s fastest-growing countries. For example, the price for an acre of land has as much as doubled in four years to $120,000, according to Mihir Thaker, an architect who designs holiday homes in Karjat, an area that’s considered a weekend getaway for Mumbai’s newly minted millionaires.

(Adapted from “India Becomes New Luxury Spending Hotspot as $100 Million Fortunes Grow,” by Preeti Singh and Malavika Kaur Makol, published on October 31, 2023, by Bloomberg)

Saudi eyeing investment in IPL

Saudi Arabia has expressed interest in buying a multibillion-dollar stake in the Indian Premier League, international cricket’s most lucrative event, following a string of sports investments from football to golf. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s advisers have sounded out Indian government officials about moving the IPL into a holding company valued at as much as $30 billion, in which Saudi Arabia would then take a significant stake, sources said. Under plans discussed at the time, the kingdom proposed investing as much as $5 billion into the league and helping lead an expansion into other countries, similar to the English Premier League or the European Champions League, the people said.

(Adapted from “Saudi Arabia Eyes Stake in $30 Billion Indian Cricket League,” by Anto Antony, Dinesh Nair and Giles Tuner,” published on November 3, 2023, by Bloomberg)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 6th, 2023