In August we talked about how employee retention has become more important than ever, especially for Family Offices as the race for talent intensifies.

The clients of Family Offices are the ultra-rich who expect a high degree of privacy around their financial dealings. Those expectations, however, make it difficult for Family Offices to recruit the high-calibre professionals their clients deserve.

Those professions often come from large and prestigious companies with consistent compensation structures. That can make it difficult for Family Offices, which usually have fewer than a dozen staff members, to manage a similar degree of compensation management.

We believe that as the Family Office industry matures and grows, compensation should no longer be a product of guesswork but rather, it should be built on research.

With that in mind, and in collaboration with KPMG Private Enterprise, we created the Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark Report. The 115-page report comprehensively covers all aspects of Family Offices and their recruitment needs, including regional-specific data so Family Offices from across the world can better understand the compensation benchmarks in their respective jurisdictions.

We understand it’s a big report, which is a really insightful read and we do recommend taking some time to go through it. However, to support you we’re delving into each region to highlight the key findings which may impact your Family Office, you can read our findings for Family Offices in Asia here and we’re now looking into what it means for those in the Middle East.

Family Offices in the Middle East

The Middle East is one of the fastest-growing regions and is witnessing a growing presence of Family Offices. We found that 43% of Middle Eastern Family Offices have operated for over 10 years in the region. While it is not as professionalised as the more matured markets such as the UK and the USA, they are not necessarily in their infancy when compared to the Family Offices in Asia.

Some of our findings from the report include:

  • Composition

Most Middle Eastern Family Offices (30%) have more than 20 employees, but at the same time, 22% have less than five. This shows that the Middle East hosts a mixed bag of Family Offices of both the institutional calibre and the ones that are not yet fully professionalised.

This is perhaps a result of how Family Offices are tailored to the families they serve. While some families may require very few functions requiring only a simple structure, others may need a variety of services that require a much more professionalised structure.

  • Compensation

According to our findings, Family Office CEOs in the Middle East have as much chance of earning USD$264,001–$330,000 as they do over USD$1 million. Half are also able to earn more than 200% of their salary as an additional bonus, the highest globally.

One of the most effective measures for retaining employees, especially investment professionals, is providing them with a long-term incentive plan (LTIP). However, we found that the Middle Eastern Family Offices have only offered these to 24% of their employees. LTIPs are crucial to retain and incentivise key employees.

  • Benefits

Employees worldwide increasingly expect a better work-life balance and more tangible benefits. However, we found that only 64% of Family Office professionals in the Middle East are allowed to work remotely, the lowest globally. Common employee benefits are private health care (72%), flights (57%) and life insurance (39%). Other benefits include accommodation, gym membership and a company car.

Above are three of our findings that show the current compensation and benefits structure in the Middle East for key Family Office employees, and in fact ideally boosting them to above the average.

Read our 2023 Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark report to find out more about how you can ensure your key employees not only stay with the company, but also remain committed and incentivised.

For a more tailored conversation about how Agreus can help with your Family Office recruitment needs, contact us today.