84% of UAE Professionals Want to Be Challenged at Work: Bayt.com

Nowadays, what makes a company or an organization an ideal place to work for in the UAE depends on many different elements that may extend beyond salary and benefits. Bayt.com, the region’s leading job site, explored this topic and just released its latest report entitled “The Ideal Workplace in the Middle East and North Africa” in partnership with global online market research company, YouGov.

According to this report, 84% of employees in the UAE say it is important that their work challenges them. Being challenged at work has ranked as the top job attribute that UAE professionals want to have.

What Matters Most to UAE Professionals

In addition to seeking a challenging work environment, respondents in the UAE believe that the adoption of advanced technology in the workplace is of great importance, according to 83% of respondents. While only 46% of workplaces reportedly promote the use of advanced technology to a large extent, this factor is also of great importance for respondents when they look for a new potential workplace. In fact, 87% of job seekers say that their potential company should use advanced technology.

Work-life balance comes in third place for UAE employees. 82% of respondents believe that this is an important factor in any work environment, placing it one percent higher than fair evaluations, and innovation. However, this is not the same from the perspective of job seekers. According to 82% of job seekers in the UAE, innovation is the second most important factor in a potential workplace. That said, only 37% of respondents agree that their workplaces currently promote innovation to a large extent.

Other elements that were considered important in a workplace include fair evaluation systems (81% of employees say it is important), transparency in communication (79% of employees say it is important), and team building and fun activities (76% of employees say it is important).

Besides attractiveness, retention is an element that many organizations strive to master. When asked about factors that mostly drive loyalty, the top responses were ‘opportunities for long-term career advancement’ (according to 37% of UAE respondents), and ‘training and development opportunities’ (according to 34% of UAE respondents). 

“It is essential to acknowledge what is most important to those employed in the UAE, as well as what they look for in potential workplaces. By understanding this, organizations can work towards boosting their attractiveness, retention, and even reputation and performance, all while meeting the needs of their employees,” said Suhail Masri, VP of Employer Solutions, Bayt.com.

Business values and culture

In addition to workplace attraction and retention elements, respondents were asked about company cultureand its impact when choosing a workplace. Over half (51%) of UAE respondents said company culture is ‘one of the determining factors when joining a company’, 39% said ‘it is important but not a determining factor’, only 4% said ‘they don’t pay attention to company culture’, while the remainder (7%) didn’t provide an answer.

When asked about business values that make a company more attractive in the UAE, 52% cited ‘good ethics and practices’, 42% said ‘friendly company culture’, 24% said ‘corporate social responsibility’, and 10% said ‘green consciousness / efforts’, indicating that UAE professionals are wary of the various elements that make up a company’s mission and impact on societies.

Physical attributes 

Not only do values and cultural elements matter to the region’s professionals, physical elements have a significant role as well. In the UAE, there seems to be a higher preference for larger companies, as 64% of respondents feel that an ideal company size has more than 50 employees.

In regards to office layout, the opinions vary. 23% of UAE professionals prefer an ‘open plan’ layout, 22% prefer ‘closed rooms’, 17% prefer ‘workstations’, 14% prefer ‘cubicles’, while 19% have ‘no preference’ in this matter.

When it came to the interior design of an office, 56% of UAE respondents said that the interior design of their offices ‘reflects the company’s brand and value’. 24% disagreed with this statement, while 20% were unsure. Furthermore, the majority of respondents in the UAE (79%) said they are allowed to personalize their workplace, at least to some extent.

Finding the perfect workplace

In order to pick the ideal workplace, professionals in the region need to access information on all the different attributes they value. When asked how easy it is to access information about company culture and work environment, the responses varied. 21% of UAE respondents said it is ‘very easy’, 30% said it is ‘somewhat easy’, 27% said it is ‘neither easy nor difficult’, 11% said it is ‘somewhat difficult’, and 5% said it is ‘very difficult’.  

To understand this issue further, respondents were asked about the most useful company information and the most effective ways to promote that information to job seekers. ‘Online company pages targeting job seekers’ was voted the most effective method of communicating information. In regards to the type of information job seekers want to learn about the most, 55% of UAE respondents said ‘company benefits and perks’, 38% said ‘employee testimonials and reviews’, 22% said ‘awards and milestones’, 17% said ‘company events and socials’, and 7% said ‘photos and videos of the workplace’. Masri adds: “At Bayt.com, we’ve been working with over 40,000 employers and over 30.5 million job seekers across the MENA region for more than 18 years. As part of our endeavor to provide the tools and information to all professionals in the region, we are working on making more company information readily accessible through a new and advanced Bayt.com company profile solution. As the survey indicated, professionals find online ‘company profiles’ to be the most effective for job seekers and professionals, and we look forward to rolling out this tool very soon to help align expectations and increase hiring activities.”

“The ideal workplace survey allows employers to understand what they need to do to meet the needs of their employees and future talent as well as what types of information they need to make available. By doing so, companies and organizations can do a much better job at securing their talent needs and making more career opportunities available region-wide,” Anjali Chhabra, Associate Research Director, YouGov.

Data for the 2017 Bayt.com “Ideal Workplace in the Middle East and North Africa” poll was collected online from December 6 to 22, 2017. Results are based on a sample of 4,418 respondents. Respondents come from many countries, including the UAE, Bahrain, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, Qatar and KSA.