Great Place To Work® Reveals UAE’s ‘Best 25 Workplaces’

Great Place to Work® – a global research, training and consultancy firm that recognizes the best workplaces in over 50 countries worldwide – has revealed its eighth annual list of ‘Best Workplaces’ in the UAE. The 2017-2018 UAE list is the largest yet for Great Place to Work and recognizes the country’s top employers with outstanding workplace cultures.

Climbing from fourth place on last year’s list to become this year’s winner was THE One. The made-in-the-UAE retail company has featured on every UAE best companies list since it launched in 2011. Committed to delivering the best experience for its employees, THE One makes sure to raise its own bar by learning from best HR and CSR practices around the world. THE One’s unique culture is rooted in the company’s core purpose of ‘Changing the World Together’ through various CSR activities, including hiring challenged employees. This collaborative spirit is carried through into every aspect of the working environment, where employees feel they each make a difference as part of their daily job. Employees working in THE One have well-planned career paths – many of the leadership team started in junior positions and were supported enough to grow within the organization. This results in highly engaged staff, while reinforcing the company’s supportive family culture.

Great Place to Work® also named Thomas Lundgren, CEO of THE One, ‘Leader of the Year for 2017-2018’ for his efforts in keeping THE One among the top five Best Workplaces list for seven consecutive years and for achieving the highest Trust scores from direct reports amongst all leaders in the program. His efforts to continuously improve THE One’s workplace experience have elevated employees’ perception of management and supported the company’s expansion plan and its financial performance.

Runner-up on this year’s Best Workplaces list was DHL, which moved down one spot from last year, followed by Omnicom Media Group, which also moved down one spot to take third place. In fourth place was Splash, while Hyatt came in fifth climbing seven places from last year’s list.

Ranking from sixth to 10th place on the list were Weber Shandwick, Hilton, Hilti, Cisco and FedEx respectively. Rounding out the final 15 positions on the list were Philips, Iconic, WSP, Apparel, Leminar Air Conditioning Company, Danube, UAE Exchange, Smith & Nephew, Danone, Leminar Air Conditioning Industries, PizzaExpress, NMC Healthcare, Redington, Delta Partners, and Centrepoint.

In addition to its awards for overall workplace excellence, Great Place to Work® gave special recognition to Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) for its outstanding workplace culture, various happiness programs and efforts in taking care of its employees at all times. DAFZA has become the first Dubai Government Authority to be recognized by the global firm.

“Despite a challenging year and noticeable changes in market trends towards digitalization of work activities, organizations still managed to keep the human element and made sure to enrich employee relationships with high levels of trust. There is a lot of thoughtful energy that goes into building a great workplace culture. Every organization that made it onto the list should be proud of themselves considering the high level of participation we had this year and the number of new companies entering the list,” said Maha Zaatari, Managing Director of Great Place to Work in the UAE.

With the UAE aiming to be ranked among the top five happiest countries in the world by 2021, Great Place to Work says organizations play a very important part in achieving this goal.

Danube, Iconic, Apparel Group, Leminar Air Conditioning Industries and Pizza Express.