Dubai Brings Back the Four-Day Work Week for Government Staff

The 'Our Flexible Summer' initiative returns for a third consecutive year, now extended across all Dubai government entities, with Fridays off for those who choose it.

| Written by Tripti Mehta

Dubai has made its position clear: employee wellbeing and institutional performance are not a trade-off. They are the same investment.

For the third consecutive summer, the Dubai Government Human Resources Department has activated 'Our Flexible Summer', a structured flexible working programme that gives government employees either a compressed four-day week or shorter daily hours across five days. It runs from June 29 to September 10, 2026, and this year, for the first time, it applies to every government entity in the emirate without exception.

How It Works

Two models are on offer, and entities choose based on operational need. The first gives employees seven-hour days from Monday to Thursday and a four-and-a-half-hour Friday. The second goes further, eight-hour days Monday to Thursday, with Friday off entirely. Entities can layer in remote working and flexible hours on top of either model where their operational setup allows it.

The total hours worked do not drop. What changes is how they are distributed, and what that distribution gives back to employees in terms of time, rest, and family.

Three Years Of Evidence

This is not an experiment anymore. When DGHR piloted the programme across 15 entities in 2024, it reported a 98% improvement in employee happiness under the Dubai Government Excellence Programme. In 2025, it expanded to all entities. In 2026, it returns without hesitation and with the backing of data.

H.E. Abdullah Ali bin Zayed Al Falasi, Director General of DGHR, put it plainly: employee wellbeing and quality of life do not come at the expense of performance.

They are, in his words, among the key enablers of institutional success and long-term sustainability.

That framing matters. It is not welfare language. It is performance language, which is exactly how the programme has been designed and measured.

The Private Sector Conversation

The initiative applies only to Dubai's public sector. But its return for a third year, and its expansion to every government entity, has renewed the question of whether private sector organisations will follow.

The honest answer from business leaders is: not easily. The operational demands of client-facing, shift-based, or service-heavy industries do not compress as cleanly as knowledge work. Flexibility has to be designed, not declared. But the conversation is happening, and Dubai's public sector is providing a consistent reference point for what structured flexibility looks like when it is taken seriously.

Why It Matters Beyond The Headline

Year 2026 is the UAE's Year of the Family. The programme sits within the Dubai Quality of Life Strategy 2033. Neither of those is incidental context; they are the framework inside which this initiative has been built and within which it will continue to grow. The direction is clear.

The question for HR leaders across the region, public and private, is how quickly their own organisations are moving in the same direction.

Source: Dubai Government Human Resources Department (DGHR); The National; Arabian Business; Khaleej Times; Time Out Dubai