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More than 90% of companies now use AI to recruit. Fewer than 5% say it has transformed anything. New research exposes the gap between the promise and the payoff, and it's not the technology's fault. | Written by Riya Malhotra Here's an uncomfortable number for anyone who has spent the last two years buying AI recruiting tools: almost everyone is using them, and almost no one is winning with them. A new study from ManpowerGroup Talent Solutions and Everest Group, surveying 80 C-suite, CHRO and senior talent-acquisition leaders across the US and UK, found that while more than 90% of companies have adopted AI for hiring, fewer than 5% report "transformational" results on any key metric. That's not a rounding error. That's a strategy problem. And it exposes five things HR leaders keep getting wrong about AI in hiring. 1. You automated a broken process instead of fixing it The single clearest finding: AI gains are being blocked by the recruiting processes underneath them. When you layer automation onto a hiring workflow that was already slow, inconsistent and poorly defined, you don't fix it, you just make the dysfunction faster. AI accelerates whatever it's pointed at. Point it at a broken funnel and you get broken outcomes at scale. Most organisations bought the tool before they redesigned the process, and the tool inherited every flaw. 2. It's become an AI-versus-AI arms race Recruiters aren't the only ones with AI now. Candidates are using it too, to generate resumes, write applications and rehearse interviews, and that has quietly destroyed the signals hiring used to rely on. A polished resume used to suggest effort and fit; today it suggests a good prompt. When both sides automate, the tools cancel each other out, and assessing genuine capability gets harder, not easier. AI screening trained to reward keywords is now reading AI writing engineered to supply them. 3. You optimised for speed, not for better hires The research found roughly four in ten organisations saw a "significant impact" on operational efficiency, but improvements to decision quality and workforce agility badly lagged. That's the trap. AI is very good at making the funnel faster and cheaper, so that's what gets measured and celebrated. But speed is not the same as a better hire. If your time-to-fill dropped and your quality-of-hire didn't move, the AI optimised the metric that was easy to see and ignored the one that actually matters. 4. There's no strategy underneath the tool The reason so few see transformation is that most deployments aren't transformational by design. AI is being used for narrow, bolt-on tasks, sourcing, resume screening, candidate engagement, while the fundamental shape of talent acquisition stays exactly the same. A point tool plugged into an unchanged system produces incremental efficiency, not reinvention. Transformation requires rethinking what the hiring process should look like when AI is in it, and that's an organisational-design question, not a software-purchase one. 5. It's quietly eroding trust, and inviting risk The costs that don't show up on the efficiency dashboard are the dangerous ones. Over-reliance on automated screening filters out capable people for the wrong reasons, frustrates candidates who feel judged by a black box, and creates real legal exposure where AI tools produce biased outcomes, exposure that stays with the employer even when the tool came from a vendor. A faster process that damages your employer brand and your compliance position isn't a win. It's a liability with good throughput. Why it matters for HR leaders The takeaway isn't "AI in hiring doesn't work." It's that adoption is not the same as advantage, and right now the region is full of the former and short on the latter. As employers across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia race to embed AI into recruiting, the ManpowerGroup finding is a useful warning: buying the tool is the easy 90%; the hard 5% is the redesign, the judgement and the strategy that make it pay off. The organisations that pull ahead won't be the ones with the most AI in their hiring stack. They'll be the ones who fixed the process first, kept human judgement where it counts, measured quality rather than just speed, and treated AI as a reason to rethink recruiting rather than to run the old model faster. In a market where everyone has the same tools, the differentiator is no longer the technology. It's what you built around it.

The expanded role reflects HUMAIN's vision of positioning HR professionals as creators of AI-powered workplace solutions, not just users of emerging technologies. | Written by Riya Malhotra Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Hani Alahdal, Chief Human Resources Officer at HUMAIN, has taken on an additional role as HUMAIN Builder, marking a significant step in the Saudi AI company's efforts to redefine the future of HR through artificial intelligence. The newly created role reflects HUMAIN's strategy of embedding AI development directly within business functions, encouraging HR professionals to build AI agents that automate, enhance, and transform workforce processes rather than relying solely on technology teams. According to the company, the initiative positions HR as a driver of digital innovation alongside its traditional responsibility for people strategy and organisational development. With more than 18 years of experience in human resources, organisational transformation, governance, talent strategy, and leadership development, Alahdal will continue leading HUMAIN's people agenda while contributing to the design and deployment of AI-powered workforce solutions. The move builds on Alahdal's appointment as Chief Human Resources Officer earlier this year, when he joined the Public Investment Fund-backed AI company after serving as Vice President of the HR Center of Excellence at stc. Throughout his career, he has also held senior HR leadership roles at Saudi Air Navigation Services, Sadara Chemical Company, TASNEE, and SABIC. According to HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin, professionals within the HR function, including those without software development backgrounds, are actively creating AI agents that can automate routine tasks, improve workforce productivity, and support more intelligent HR operations. The approach reflects a broader shift toward democratizing AI development across the organisation rather than limiting it to technical teams. Commenting on the evolving role of AI in HR, the company believes the next generation of HR leaders will not only manage talent but also help build the digital systems employees work alongside. AI is being positioned as a tool to augment decision-making, strengthen employee experiences, and enable more scalable workforce operations. The appointment comes as organisations across the Middle East continue exploring how artificial intelligence can reshape workforce planning, talent management, and employee experience. By giving HR leaders an active role in developing AI solutions, HUMAIN aims to create a more integrated model where people strategy and technology innovation evolve together. Founded to build advanced AI infrastructure, foundation models, cloud platforms, and enterprise AI solutions, HUMAIN is positioning itself as a global AI hub serving sectors including government, energy, financial services, sports, and enterprise technology.

Marsh's People Risk 2026 report surveyed 103 HR and risk professionals in the UAE as part of a global study of 4,517 respondents. The finding that should concern every people leader: mindset, not malware, is now the bigger threat. | Written by Tripti Mehta For the first time, employee resistance to AI has overtaken cybersecurity threats as the most pressing workforce risk facing UAE organisations, according to Marsh's 2026 People Risks Report. The shift marks a significant departure from two years ago, when rising healthcare and benefit costs led the list, followed by technology skills shortages and diversity-related concerns. Globally, the report's findings tell a similar story. Lack of confidence and mindset to adopt AI ranks as the #6 people risk worldwide, rising to #3 among the C-suite, out of 25 risks studied across five pillars: technological change, talent and leadership, protection and sustainability, governance and compliance, and health and safety. Why Mindset, Not Technology, Is The Real Barrier The report is clear that the obstacle to AI value is rarely the technology itself. Most organisations still expect employees to fold AI into existing workflows rather than reimagining the work itself, and without strategic vision, work redesign, and governance that keeps pace with change, AI risks remaining peripheral: improving individual parts of the business without transforming the whole. In the UAE specifically, the response has been concrete. Around 38% of surveyed organisations are training employees to identify AI-generated misinformation, 34% are addressing AI-related cybersecurity vulnerabilities, 33% are encouraging staff to critically evaluate AI-generated content, and 32% are working to reduce data privacy risks tied to AI tools. Adel Alderi, Business Development Leader at Mercer Marsh Benefits UAE, framed the shift plainly: people risks in the UAE can no longer be treated as secondary workforce issues. They are now directly linked to business continuity, employee wellbeing, digital transformation, and organisational resilience. The Collaboration Gap HR Cannot Afford To Ignore The report surfaces a structural weakness sitting underneath all of this. Globally, only 14% of Risk and HR professionals believe their organisation's risk maturity is "transformative" or fully embedded in strategy and culture. In the UAE, the picture is similarly uneven; 40% of companies report full collaboration between HR and risk management teams, another 40% describe it as partial, and 20% say coordination remains minimal. This matters because the data shows collaboration is not a soft metric. Organisations with strong Risk-HR alignment report mitigation measures that are, on average, 15 percentage points more effective than those still at an experimental stage, spanning everything from leadership development and succession planning to employee listening tools and reward communication. Healthcare Costs And Mental Health Have Not Gone Away AI may have taken the top spot, but the older risks have not disappeared, they have simply been joined by a new one. Globally, increasing health and benefit costs rank as the #5 people risk, and 90% of Risk and HR leaders say rising health and benefit costs are the risk most likely to materialise in the next one to two years. In the UAE, 62% of employers expect healthcare and benefit costs to keep rising, the same proportion believes unsafe physical or psychological working conditions could seriously affect organisational performance, and close to 29% say current mental health support for employees remains inadequate. Globally, the picture is starker still: 61% of Risk and HR professionals say their organisations do not provide highly effective, employer-sponsored mental health care. Simona Musat, Multinational Leader at Mercer Marsh Benefits UAE, connected the dots directly: as healthcare costs continue to rise, organisations are recognising that workforce health is directly linked to business resilience. M&A Workforce Due Diligence Is Now A Top-Three UAE Risk A less obvious finding from the report: inadequate workforce due diligence during mergers and acquisitions ranks as the UAE's third-largest people risk. Organisations that fail to evaluate workforce-related issues, legacy pay arrangements, long-term liabilities, cultural fit, during a transaction face greater financial, operational, and reputational exposure once the deal closes. As M&A activity continues across the region, this is becoming a strategic consideration rather than a legal afterthought. What HR Leaders Should Take From This The report's broader argument is that people risks no longer sit in isolation, they cascade. Inadequate leadership skills, for instance, was found to trigger or worsen more downstream risks than any other single factor, from labour shortages to mental health deterioration to flawed investment decisions. For HR leaders in the UAE, the practical takeaway is threefold: treat AI mindset-building as seriously as AI procurement, close the gap between HR and risk functions through structured collaboration rather than informal coordination, and resist the urge to default to blunt cost-containment on health and benefits when the data shows it increases risk over time rather than reducing it. Source: Marsh, People Risk 2026: The Human Edge: Transforming Risk into Strategic Advantage; Mercer Marsh Benefits UAE; Khaleej Times

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

A decade-spanning benchmark of nearly 9 million employees shows discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims at an all-time high, while employee-relations teams stay flat. For HR leaders across the Gulf and Southeast Asia, the warning travels. | Written by Riya Malhotra Workplace misconduct is rising faster than companies can respond, and the teams meant to manage it are barely growing at all. That's the uncomfortable headline from the latest Employee Relations Benchmark Study released this week by HR Acuity, and it lands as a direct challenge to any HR leader who has quietly assumed their investigation processes are keeping pace. Now in its tenth year, the benchmark draws on a decade of data from 274 organisations representing close to 9 million employees. The standout figure: allegations of discrimination, harassment and retaliation have climbed to an all-time high of 15.5 issues per 1,000 employees. Overall employee-relations case volumes reached 145.5 per 1,000, just short of the highest level recorded in the study's ten-year history. In other words, more employees are raising serious concerns than at any point in the past decade. The question the data forces is whether organisations are actually equipped to handle them. The widening gap between risk and resources On the evidence, many are not. While serious misconduct allegations have more than doubled since 2021, the employee-relations staffing ratio has barely moved, inching from 0.6 to 0.68 professionals per 1,000 employees. More tellingly, only one in four teams plans to add employee-relations headcount in 2026. That is the crux of the report's warning: a structural mismatch between escalating risk and static capacity. Cases are getting more numerous, more serious and more complex, while the people responsible for investigating them are being asked to do more with effectively the same resources. The result is a backlog of exposure that builds quietly, until a mishandled case turns into litigation, a regulatory complaint, or a very public erosion of employee trust. The blind spots that create legal exposure The study also surfaces gaps in how organisations track and manage cases, the kind of operational blind spots that look minor until they're tested. Only 32% of organisations track substantiation by issue type, the level of granularity needed to spot patterns in discrimination, harassment and retaliation before they escalate. And while the use of a required, consistent investigation process hit an all-time high, 38% of organisations still operate without one. For HR leaders, that 38% should sting. An inconsistent investigation process is the single easiest thing for opposing counsel to attack. When an organisation can't demonstrate that it followed a defensible, repeatable method, it loses the argument before the facts are even weighed. Defensibility isn't a compliance nicety, it's the difference between a closed case and a costly one. AI enters the investigation room Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence is now part of the picture. The study found that 70% of employee-relations teams experimented with or actively deployed AI for case management and investigations in 2025. Used well, AI is stripping out the routine administrative load, intake, documentation, pattern detection, and freeing investigators for the judgement-heavy work only humans can do. But the same tools raise the stakes on human oversight. An investigation is a process that has to withstand scrutiny, and "the system flagged it" is not a defence. The organisations that benefit will be those that treat AI as an accelerant for trained professionals, not a substitute for them. Why this matters for HR leaders in the UAE, KSA and SGMY A fair caveat: the benchmark is built on US-based organisations, so the precise figures are not a read on the Gulf or Southeast Asia. But the underlying dynamic is global, and arguably sharper in fast-growing markets. Across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Malaysia, workforces are expanding, workplace-protection frameworks are tightening, and employee expectations around fair treatment are rising in step. The same forces driving cases upward elsewhere are present here, often without the decade of employee-relations infrastructure that more mature markets have built. The takeaway for people leaders in the region is not to panic at the numbers, but to pressure-test their own readiness against them. Three questions are worth asking before the next serious case lands: Do we have a required, consistent investigation process that we could defend in front of a regulator or a court? Are we capturing case data with enough granularity to see patterns coming? And is our employee-relations capacity scaled to the risk we actually carry, not the risk we carried three years ago? Record-high misconduct claims are not, on their own, a sign of a broken culture. Often they reflect employees who feel able to speak up. What turns rising volume into rising danger is responding to it with flat resources, inconsistent processes and partial data. The organisations that close that gap now will be the ones still standing on trust when the harder cases arrive.

Strong leadership starts with presence. Dr. Louise Lambert explores why paying attention, showing genuine interest, and being fully present can strengthen trust, wellbeing, and team performance. | Written by Dr. Louise Lambert Most managers think they are good listeners and they probably are. They care about their teams, ask questions, and make time when they can. And yet, one of the most common complaints employees have about their managers is not about workload or pay, but feeling unheard, unseen, or unimportant. Notice the key word there? They “feel” unheard. This gap does not come from poor listening (unless it does!), or a lack of goodwill: it usually comes from a lack of presence. Presence is not about how much time you spend with people. It’s about how psychologically available you are while you’re with them. And from modern life to our corporate offices, presence among the hundreds of distractions around us has become one of the hardest leadership skills to maintain. Attention is the new signal of respect When people feel listened to, they don’t just feel informed. They feel respected. When they don’t, they often interpret it as disinterest, dismissal, or lack of care, even when that was never the intention. At work, attention has become the new gold. Meetings are stacked, notifications are constant and managers end up being half-present in multiple places at once. The result is that people learn quickly whether they have your full attention or only a portion of it. And that perception matters, it signals how important others are in your eyes. When you give someone your full attention, you signal that they matter. When you don’t, you signal that something else matters more. How presence affects wellbeing and performance Many managers think they can listen while checking emails, glancing at messages, or typing notes. What they often miss is that people notice these behaviours immediately. And over time, people stop bringing things to you unless they absolutely must. It’s not because they don’t trust you, it’s because the interaction feels more effortful than it should and the returns are less than expected. In short, presence affects how welcome people feel to speak, think, and contribute. When managers are distracted, people shorten their comments, avoid asking questions, or withhold concerns, leading to misunderstandings, errors, and missed opportunities for excellence and growth over time. In contrast, when managers are mentally present, people share relevant information sooner and leave interactions feeling they got what they needed and were heard. Showing interest is not about being enthusiastic Showing interest means being responsive at a minimum and curious at best. For instance, you can show interest by asking a follow-up question, reflecting what you heard, or acknowledging someone’s effort. It shows up when you remember something a team member said and refer to it later. These moments tell people that they are not just another item on your agenda. As a manager, your presence carries more weight because of your role. When you are distracted, people often assume it’s because they are not important, not because you are busy. In fact, your team members are constantly scanning you for cues about their standing, performance, and value: don’t have them guessing. What presence looks like in practice Presence does not require long conversations; instead, it requires purposeful attention. You can decide that during one-on-one meetings, feedback conversations, team get togethers, or difficult discussions, you won’t not multitask. This means closing your laptop, putting your phone notifications on “silent” and facing the people speaking. You can even say, “I want to give you my full attention, so give me a moment to shut my phone down.” Even 10 minutes of full presence is more effective than thirty minutes of divided attention and people notice. Another is to slow down your responses. When someone finishes speaking, pause and nod before replying. This signals that you are considering what was said rather than reacting automatically. A third is to ask one genuine follow-up question. Not to challenge or redirect, but to understand and expand on what they are sharing. Questions like “Can you say a bit more about that?” or “What’s been hardest about this?” invite depth without taking much time and signal, “I am interested in what you have to say and who you are as a person.” Conveying such positive regard is wellbeing. What managers often underestimate Many managers believe presence requires time they do not have; yet, taking the time to slow down, listen, notice, ask questions and pay attention save time by reducing misunderstandings, rework, and emotional friction. In fact, many managers find that presence reduces the number of problems that reach them at all. Others think such acts of respectful engagement are too small to matter; but take them away, and all of us have had the feeling of being a burden, an additional stress to someone’s day, unimportant or not being heard. It slowly diminishes us and drains the goodwill and motivation we once had to do good work. Once that is gone, it’s hard to get it back again. These actions may be small, but don’t let that be the reason you think they are inconsequential. This month, try this For the coming month, treat your attention as an important leadership behaviour. It’s true, you are busy and it won’t or even be possible everywhere but find one daily interaction during which you can strive to be fully present. That means no multitasking, rushing, checking to see if that email came through… Just listen, reflect, and respond. A final reminder Often, the most powerful thing you can offer your team is your attention. Paying attention and showing interest are daily behaviours that shape trust, wellbeing, and performance. When timelines are tight, tasks are plentiful and stress is high, it is the smallest thing you can do to yield a better outcome. Try it yourself and see what happens. Like what you read? Contact us for how you might have Dr. Louise come to your organization and share these behaviors on a larger scale.

New platform combines workforce intelligence, skills mapping, and AI-powered talent matching to support nationalisation goals and workforce development across the GCC. | Written by Riya Malhotra PeopleStrong, a leading AI-powered HR technology company, has launched FutureOfTalent.ai, the GCC's first AI-powered talent infrastructure designed to help organisations discover, develop, and deploy national talent throughout the entire career lifecycle. The launch comes as countries across the GCC accelerate workforce localisation, skills development, and economic diversification initiatives. Built for citizens, enterprises, educators, and governments, the platform supports nationalisation programmes across the region, including Emiratisation, Saudisation, and Omanisation. It aims to help organisations better understand workforce capabilities, identify skills gaps, and strengthen talent pipelines. Unveiled during PeopleStrong's AI Roadshow in Dubai last week, the platform addresses one of the region's most pressing workforce challenges: bridging the gap between emerging skill requirements and talent readiness. According to PeopleStrong research conducted across more than 300 organisations, over 70% of business leaders now prioritise talent management and skills-based programmes, highlighting a growing recognition that competitiveness increasingly depends on how effectively organisations can develop and deploy skills at scale. Despite this, many organisations continue to sit on large volumes of workforce data without the tools needed to translate it into actionable workforce planning, mobility, and development decisions. FutureOfTalent.ai is designed to close that gap by bringing workforce intelligence, skills development, learning pathways, and AI-powered talent matching into a single platform. At the core of the platform is a unified Talent ID: a verified, career-long profile of an individual's skills, qualifications, and aspirations. This gives enterprises a clearer understanding of existing workforce capabilities while helping identify future talent requirements. The platform supports individuals, enterprises, and governments through a connected ecosystem designed to align talent supply with workforce demand. For individuals, it offers personalised learning pathways, skills assessments, and career guidance tailored to their goals. For enterprises, it enables AI-driven workforce planning, succession planning, internal mobility, and localisation tracking. For governments, it provides a live view of workforce capabilities, emerging skills gaps, and readiness against national workforce mandates. "Talent is the infrastructure of the future economy. The nations that can identify, develop, and deploy skills fastest will lead the next era of growth and innovation." - Sandeep Chaudhary, Chief Executive Officer, PeopleStrong Chaudhary added that the trust placed in PeopleStrong by more than 500 customers globally reinforces the company's belief that integrated talent infrastructure will play a critical role in shaping the future of work across the region. Tayfun Topkoc, Senior Vice President – International, PeopleStrong, highlighted the growing importance of workforce intelligence in an AI-driven economy. "The next frontier is not headcount, it's capability. As AI reshapes industries, organisations need real-time visibility into workforce skills, gaps, and future readiness. FutureOfTalent.ai helps make that possible, turning workforce data into intelligence and intelligence into action." He added that the platform will help organisations across the GCC connect skills with opportunity, accelerate nationalisation efforts, and build future-ready workforces. PeopleStrong sits at the intersection of three major trends reshaping the future of work across the GCC: enterprise HR digitisation, AI adoption, and SaaS innovation. Its AI-powered human capital management platform spans applicant tracking, payroll, employee experience, and talent management, serving organisations across multiple industries. Processing more than 1.5 million paychecks every month, PeopleStrong is among the region's most trusted cloud payroll providers. With the launch of FutureOfTalent.ai, the company aims to move beyond workforce management and contribute to workforce readiness, helping organisations and governments build stronger talent ecosystems for the future.

With a career spanning multiple countries and two decades of HR transformation, Salter joins Dubai Holding's Land Estates business to build the people infrastructure behind one of Dubai's most significant real estate portfolios. | Written by Tripti Mehta Dubai Holding has appointed Alex Salter as Vice President of Human Resources for its Land Estates business, a hire that signals the organisation's intent to build structured people infrastructure alongside its real estate ambitions. Salter, who announced the move on LinkedIn, joins at a moment when Land Estates is scaling significantly. She will work alongside Land Estates CEO Omar Karim and the broader leadership team to develop organisational capabilities, culture, and leadership pipelines for the business's next phase of growth. A Career Built On Large-Scale HR Transformation Salter brings more than two decades of HR leadership across the UK and the Middle East. Most recently, she served as Chief People Officer at Abu Dhabi-based Contango, where she led an operating model redesign, built career frameworks, and introduced compensation initiatives across a workforce of more than 250 employees. Before Contango, she spent the better part of a decade as Chief Human Resources Officer at PwC Middle East, a tenure running from 2021 to 2025, overseeing an HR function of more than 150 professionals and supporting workforce strategies spanning multiple countries across the Middle East. Her earlier career at PwC Middle East included senior positions across talent, performance, reward, and HR transformation, with additional HR leadership roles at PwC UK. A Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Salter brings expertise in organisational design, talent strategy, leadership development, employee experience, and large-scale workforce transformation to her new role. Why This Appointment Matters With master-planned communities and large-scale land development projects across Dubai under its portfolio, Dubai Holding's Land Estates business requires the kind of people infrastructure, career pathways, leadership pipelines and organisational design, that Salter has spent two decades building. Her appointment reflects a broader trend in the Gulf's real estate sector, that as development ambitions scale, so does the recognition that human capital strategy is as critical as the asset portfolio itself. Source: LinkedIn announcement by Alex Salter; People Matters Global

With two profession-specific deadlines landing within days of each other, HR leaders in Saudi Arabia's tourism and engineering sectors are running out of runway. | Written by Tripti Mehta Saudization 2026 is not a single event. It is a rolling programme of sector-by-sector enforcement dates, and two of the most consequential arrive this month. On June 22, a 40% Saudization quota takes effect across tourism roles. On June 30, engineering firms with five or more engineers must meet a 30% localisation threshold. Both deadlines sit inside a broader Nitaqat 2026 overhaul that has simultaneously raised band thresholds, made Qiwa contract documentation mandatory for any Saudi hire to count, and eliminated the Yellow tier entirely. For HR leaders in affected sectors, the question is no longer whether to act; it is whether there is still enough time to act correctly. Understanding the two-layer system Before getting to the deadlines, HR leaders need to understand how Saudization enforcement now works. In 2026, Saudization is enforced on two layers simultaneously: the overall Nitaqat band, which measures the company's aggregate Saudi-to-expatriate ratio, and profession-specific quotas, which measure Saudi representation within defined role categories. The two are calculated separately. A company can pass one and fail the other. This is the detail that catches many employers out. Meeting your overall Nitaqat band does not protect you from a profession-level violation in engineering or tourism. Both must be managed independently. The tourism quota: June 22 The tourism sector Saudization rollout begins with a 40% quota effective June 22, 2026, as the first phase of a three-phase implementation covering 41 leadership and specialized professions across all private sector tourism establishments. The resolution, issued by MHRSD in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, covers roles including hotel managers, hotel operations managers, travel agency managers, hospitality specialists, tour organisers, hotel receptionists, tour guidance specialists, procurement specialists, and public relations specialists. Tourism establishments are also prohibited from outsourcing Saudized roles to entities or individuals outside the Kingdom. Outsourcing within the Kingdom is permitted only through entities licensed by the Ministry of Tourism or MHRSD. Employees must be registered with both the Ministry of Tourism and MHRSD on the Qiwa platform, and outsourced employees must be registered under the Ajeer platform. The engineering quota: June 30 The engineering Saudization requirement takes effect on June 30, 2026, requiring private sector establishments with five or more engineers to meet a 30% localisation quota across a wide range of engineering disciplines including civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, architectural, environmental, industrial, and mining engineering. To count toward the required quota, engineers must hold a recognised engineering or technical bachelor's degree and maintain valid professional registration with the Saudi Council of Engineers. A Saudi engineer on payroll who lacks that accreditation does not count. Employers who have been hiring Saudi engineers without verifying Council of Engineers registration are potentially more exposed than their headcount suggests. Saudi engineers in these roles must also receive a minimum monthly salary of SAR 8,000 to be counted. The Qiwa contract rule that changes everything Both quotas sit inside a compliance framework that has added a new condition since April 2026. From April 15, 2026, a Saudi employee no longer counts toward a company's Saudization percentage unless their employment contract has been electronically documented and authenticated on the Qiwa platform. GOSI registration remains necessary but is no longer sufficient on its own. Companies that have not migrated their workforce contracts to Qiwa effectively have invisible Saudi headcount for Nitaqat purposes. This means an employer who has Saudi nationals on payroll, registered with GOSI, may still show zero eligible Saudi headcount in engineering or tourism if those contracts have not been documented on Qiwa. What happens if you miss the deadlines Non-compliant employers in the Red or Low Green band face restrictions on hiring expatriates, delays in Iqama renewals, suspension of visa quotas, exclusion from Etimad government tenders, and fines from MHRSD. Repeat non-compliance can lead to service suspensions across Qiwa, Mudad, and Muqeem. Companies that previously sat in Yellow have already been reclassified as Red under the 2026 overhaul. Establishments in Red face immediate exposure to blocked visa processing, blocked work permit renewals, restricted government services, and expatriate employees who can transfer sponsorship without the employer's consent. June 2026 Saudization Deadlines at a Glance Tourism quota 40% across 41 professions; effective June 22, 2026 Engineering quota 30% for firms with 5+ engineers; effective June 30, 2026 Marketing and sales quota 60%; already in effect from April 19, 2026 Qiwa contract requirement Mandatory from April 15, 2026; undocumented Saudi contracts do not count Engineering minimum salary SAR 8,000/month Council of Engineers accreditation Required for engineering hires to count toward quota Yellow tier Eliminated; previously Yellow firms are now classified Red Nitaqat cycle New three-year phase (2026–2028), objective: 340,000+ new localised jobs HR Compliance Checklist for Tourism and Engineering Employers > Immediate: Before June 22 / June 30 Audit all Saudi nationals in affected roles, confirm Qiwa contracts are electronically documented and counter-signed Verify Saudi engineers hold valid Saudi Council of Engineers registration Confirm Saudi engineers in scope are paid at least SAR 8,000/month through GOSI Confirm tourism roles are not outsourced to non-Kingdom entities Register all tourism employees with the Ministry of Tourism and on Qiwa; outsourced staff under Ajeer > Compliance assessment Run the Qiwa portal calculator using updated 2026 c-values to check current Nitaqat band Map profession-level compliance separately from overall establishment compliance; passing one does not mean passing both Identify any Saudi hires below salary thresholds; these count at 0.5 toward the quota > Ongoing Monitor MHRSD for Phase 2 tourism deadlines (January 3, 2027) and Phase 3 (January 2, 2028) Track engineering c-value changes for 2027; thresholds will rise again Build accreditation verification into engineering hiring pipeline from this point forward Source: Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD); Ministry of Tourism, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Clyde & Co; Middle East Briefing; Setup in Saudi; Mercans; Saudization Meter

As FIFA 2026 captures the attention of millions across the GCC, organizations face a unique challenge: balancing productivity with employee wellbeing. Kristina Vaneva explores how forward-thinking employers can turn World Cup fever into an opportunity to strengthen engagement, trust, and workplace culture. | Written by Kristina Vaneva, Employee Experience Professional and Founder of Beyond Plus The 2026 FIFA World Cup is here, and it's bringing a massive overtime shift for the GCC workforce. Is your business ready to handle the pressure, or are you risking an organizational own-goal? We are a little less than a week into the long-awaited ultimate football competition, the FIFA 2026 World Cup, hosted across the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Many avid fans realized early on that matches will predominantly fall between 8:00 PM and 8:00 AM GST. Some of us, disappointingly, figured it out a week ago! I, for one, have been watching far fewer matches than I normally would. Luckily, I enjoy autonomy and flexibility over my schedule. But what about the millions of professionals tied to rigid, traditional nine-to-six corporate hours? How exactly does a late-night football tournament cross over into the territory of workplace engagement, psychological safety, and employee experience, you ask? Well… let's see! With the risk of sounding a little dramatic (there are die-hard football fans out there, so for some, the World Cup is practically a religion), the traditional workday in the Middle East is facing unprecedented disruption. Not necessarily from empty desks but from overnight sleep deprivation and morning presenteeism. Employee happiness isn't built by ignoring what matters to people. It's built when organizations recognize the passions, identities, and moments that matter outside of work Why HR Can’t Ignore the Stats on the Field As an employee engagement professional with a deep appreciation for data, metrics, and workforce analytics, I've been looking at some numbers, and the potential impact is staggering: $17 Billion Lost: The estimated global drop in productivity expected during this one-month tournament window. 84% Regional Engagement: A massive 84% of expats living and working in the GCC plan to watch the matches. Universal Passion: The tournament completely transcends gender demographics, capturing the attention of 87% of male employees and 74% of female employees across the workforce. The All-Nighter Shift: Fully 50% of the local workforce intends to stay awake through the night to catch the live broadcasts. (An interesting economic side note: because these matches occur during ungodly hours, fans are staying home rather than going out, leading to a noticeable drop in late-night revenue for local sports bars, cafes, and commercial football tents). The Exhaustion Epidemic: Consequently, 30% of employees openly admit they will show up and push through their duties despite severe physical fatigue. Meanwhile, 8% expect to arrive late to the office (a few years ago, that would have been me), and another 8% plan to burn through their annual leave just to keep up with the games. The Ultimate Wake-Up Call: Nearly 10% of employees globally admit they would actively consider looking for a new job if their employer’s scheduling rigidity directly interferes with their World Cup experience. How is that for a number? Could your business's refusal to accommodate a deeply felt cultural moment, literally drive your best people out the door? To effectively manage this, leadership teams must understand what is actually driving these numbers. Yes, major sporting events like the World Cup are there for entertainment and casual pastimes. But, they are deeply tied to employee identity, fueled by fierce national pride, continental solidarity, and shared cultural or regional heritage. When an employee stays up until 4:00 AM to watch their country play, they are investing in a core part of who they are. When a company acknowledges, respects, and embraces this passion, it sends a profound message: We see you, we value what matters to you, and we care about your life outside these office walls. Kristina Vaneva, Employee Experience Professional and Founder of Beyond Plus Showing organizational empathy during high-passion cultural milestones creates a deep psychological bond, directly boosting long-term employee engagement and cultural loyalty. Thus, many forward-thinking Middle Eastern businesses are proactively treating this as an engagement opportunity rather than a productivity threat. HR Departments and managers have implemented flexible arrangements, including late starts, remote work, or time off. I know of several organizations that have even introduced football-themed office decorations, group viewing sessions, and score-prediction contests to foster team camaraderie. This is not new for us! For Middle Eastern HR leaders, managing overnight disruptions isn't uncharted territory. We can mirror the knowledge and empathy applied during Ramadan. In the holy month, organizations naturally compress working hours, offer remote flexibility, and adjust schedules for altered sleep patterns. Although not as important as Ramadan, the World Cup “kindly asks” for the same agile framework to support intensely passionate employees under extreme sleep disruption. How to Tackle This: A Playbook for Employers & HR If you want to protect your operational productivity while simultaneously capitalizing on an incredible opportunity to boost organizational culture, here are my top strategic recommendations for managing the World Cup fever (and don't worry, you are still in time to implement them)! Draft & Communicate a "Flexibility Charter" (Special HR Policy) Don't rely on ad-hoc arrangements, which can create a perception of favoritism between management and frontline staff. Standardize an HR policy outlining equitable guidelines for late starts, remote working windows, and shift-swaps. Be sure to apply these concessions universally; if you offer flexibility for a regional team's match, you must offer the same for expat employees supporting other nations. Furthermore, view this as a permanent framework for the future, and consider institutionalizing this flexibility charter for other major sporting tournaments, such as the Rugby World Cup or the ICC Cricket World Cup. Football is far from the only sport that inspires sleepless nights and intense devotion across our diverse, multicultural workforces! Pivot to Outcome-Based Performance Shift the management focus from physical presence to deliverables. Where applicable, managers can temporarily set clear daily objectives and grant employees the professional autonomy to manage their own energy levels, peak alert hours, and sleep cycles, ensuring critical deadlines are met without micromanagement. Support the Late-Hour Watchers Sleep deprivation leads to cognitive decline and safety risks. Implement temporary "morning fatigue-recovery windows" for those who stayed up. For frontline or safety-critical operations, actively monitor fatigue levels, reassign high-risk tasks to peak-alert hours, and consider providing secure transport for late-shift employees to ensure they get home safely after the games. If your organization provides employee accommodation (as is standard practice for many industries across the GCC), go the extra mile. Set up a dedicated, vibrant community "Fan Zone" in the accommodation hub and sponsor a one-month streaming subscription. This allows employees to experience the matches together, free of charge, in a secure, community-building environment that eliminates external distractions and keeps them safe. Set Clear Boundaries on Conduct and Security While camaraderie is great, boundaries are essential. Extend your anti-harassment training to informal digital channels so that good-natured sporting banter doesn't become exclusionary. When the final whistle blows and the tournament concludes, the businesses that chose to lean into flexibility, trust, and authentic care will have achieved something remarkable. They won't just have mitigated a temporary productivity dip; they will have actively utilized a global cultural phenomenon to design a highly engaged, fiercely loyal, and resilient workforce. What is your organization's ultimate game plan for the 2026 World Cup? Will you offer flexible hours, or will you be left watching from the sidelines?

Safety Culture Isn't a Compliance Program. It's One of the Foundations of Employee Happiness. | Written by Ryan Mitchell The Wellbeing Paradox We have never talked more about employee wellbeing than we do today. Organizations invest billions in wellness programs, engagement initiatives, mental health support, flexible working arrangements, and employee experience strategies. Yet despite this unprecedented focus, employee engagement remains stubbornly low across much of the world. That contradiction should force leaders to ask an important question: are we focusing on the right things? Employee wellbeing, mental health, psychological safety, engagement, belonging, and workplace culture have moved from the margins of corporate strategy into the boardroom. Leaders increasingly recognize that organizational performance is inseparable from the experience of the people who deliver it. This shift is long overdue and should be celebrated. In many respects, worker welfare today is where occupational safety was several decades ago: evolving from a compliance requirement into a strategic business discipline. Yet despite this progress, many organizations still have a blind spot. We continue to manage employee wellbeing as though it exists in separate categories. Mental health sits with one team. Employee engagement sits with another. Worker welfare is managed elsewhere. Safety is often viewed as an operational function, while HR owns employee experience and compliance teams oversee governance. The problem is that employees do not experience work this way. Employees do not separate safety from wellbeing. They do not separate leadership from culture. They do not distinguish between physical safety, psychological safety, worker welfare, trust, and respect in the same way organizations do. They experience all of it as one reality. The Question Employees Really Ask Over the years, I have had the opportunity to oversee large-scale quality, health, safety, environment, and worker welfare programs across diverse industries and workforces. One observation has remained remarkably consistent regardless of sector, geography, or workforce demographics: employees rarely view wellbeing through the organizational structures leaders create. Instead, they judge their experience through a far simpler lens: “Does this company genuinely care about me?” That question is answered not by corporate slogans or engagement campaigns, but through daily experiences. It is answered when an employee raises a concern and receives a response. It is answered when a supervisor takes time to listen. It is answered when a hazard is fixed before someone is harmed. It is answered when workloads are managed responsibly. It is answered when accommodation standards are improved, welfare concerns are addressed, training is provided, or a worker is supported through a difficult period. Each of these actions communicates something powerful. Each tells employees whether they are viewed as people or merely resources. This is why I have become increasingly convinced that safety culture remains one of the most underestimated contributors to employee happiness. Not safety in its narrowest sense. Not compliance. Not audits. Not paperwork. Safety culture. The distinction matters. Compliance Doesn't Create Trust Most organizations can demonstrate compliance. Policies can be written. Training records can be completed. Audits can be passed. Certifications can be obtained. Compliance is important and necessary. However, compliance alone does not create trust, and trust is ultimately what employees are seeking. An organization can be fully compliant while employees remain disengaged, exhausted, reluctant to speak up, or unconvinced that leadership genuinely values their wellbeing. This is far more common than many leaders would like to admit. Despite unprecedented investment in employee wellbeing and engagement initiatives, Gallup's State of the Global Workplace research reports that only around 20% of employees globally are actively engaged at work. At the same time, Gallup estimates that managers account for approximately 70% of the variation in employee engagement levels, highlighting the critical role leadership behaviour plays in shaping employee experience. Conversely, organizations that build strong cultures of trust often discover that safety, engagement, retention, and performance improve together because they are all influenced by the same underlying factor: the relationship between people and the organization they work for. Research consistently shows that employees who believe their employer genuinely cares about their wellbeing are significantly more engaged, more loyal, and more likely to advocate for their organization. The lesson is clear. Trust is not built through policies, programs, or corporate messaging alone. It is built through the daily experiences that shape whether employees feel protected, respected, heard, and valued. Why Trust Matters More Than Ever This relationship is becoming increasingly important as workplaces continue to evolve. Today's employees are asking different questions than previous generations. They are not simply asking whether a workplace is safe. They are asking whether it is supportive. Whether it is respectful. Whether it is fair. Whether they feel heard. Whether leaders can be trusted. Whether the organization's values are reflected in its actions. In many respects, these are not wellbeing questions or safety questions. They are trust questions. Psychological safety has emerged as one of the defining workplace topics of our time for precisely this reason. Employees want environments where they can raise concerns, admit mistakes, challenge assumptions, and contribute ideas without fear of embarrassment, blame, or retaliation. Yet even as organizations embrace these concepts, many continue to underestimate the role traditional safety culture plays in creating them. Safety Culture as a Business Advantage A workplace that demonstrates genuine care for worker welfare is often the same workplace that achieves stronger engagement, lower turnover, and higher levels of trust. Increasingly, that trust extends beyond employees. Clients, investors, regulators, and communities are paying closer attention to how organizations treat their people. Companies that genuinely care for their workforce are increasingly viewed as better partners, lower-risk suppliers, and stronger custodians of ESG commitments. While difficult to quantify on a tender scorecard, the reputational value is real. These outcomes are not coincidental. They emerge from the same cultural foundations. This is why I believe organizations should stop treating safety, wellbeing, worker welfare, and employee experience as separate conversations. The future lies in integration. One Workplace, One Employee Experience For too long, organizations have measured engagement through surveys, wellbeing through programs, safety through incident rates, and worker welfare through compliance assessments. While each of these measures has value, they often fail to capture how employees actually experience the workplace. Employees do not wake up each morning and mentally separate their wellbeing into organizational reporting categories. They experience the workplace as a single ecosystem where leadership behaviour, working conditions, safety culture, welfare standards, workload, trust, recognition, and support all interact simultaneously. When viewed through that lens, safety culture becomes far more than an operational requirement. It becomes one of the clearest expressions of organizational care. Every time a leader addresses a concern, they strengthen trust. Every time an employee feels comfortable speaking up, psychological safety grows. Every time worker welfare is prioritized, employees receive a powerful signal about their value to the organization. Every time leadership chooses people over convenience, culture is reinforced. Employee Happiness Begins with Care The organizations that will succeed in the future are not necessarily those with the most sophisticated wellbeing strategies or the most comprehensive employee engagement programs. They will be the organizations that recognize the connections between all these elements and manage them as part of a single people strategy. The conversation about employee happiness is evolving, and rightly so. Increasingly, leaders understand that happy employees are more engaged, more productive, more innovative, and more likely to remain with an organization. What remains less understood is how those outcomes are created. Employee happiness does not begin with wellness programs. It begins with trust. Trust begins with care. And care is demonstrated through actions, not intentions. Perhaps that is why safety culture deserves a much larger role in the employee happiness conversation than it typically receives. Not because safety is missing from wellbeing frameworks. In many organizations it is already present. Rather, because we still tend to underestimate its influence. When employees believe their organization genuinely cares about their wellbeing, their welfare, their health, their safety, and their voice, something remarkable happens. Engagement improves. Relationships strengthen. Confidence grows. Trust deepens. In other words, people flourish. For decades, organizations have asked employees to trust them. The most successful organizations of the future will understand that trust is not something employees are asked to give. It is something organizations must earn. They earn it through leadership. They earn it through action. They earn it through the daily decisions that demonstrate whether people genuinely matter. Employees do not experience safety, wellbeing, worker welfare, psychological safety, and workplace culture as separate initiatives. They experience them as evidence of organizational care. And perhaps that is where employee happiness truly begins. References Gallup. State of the Global Workplace Report 2025 Gallup Workplace Research. The Manager's Role in Employee Engagement Gallup. Employee Wellbeing and Organizational Care Research

The Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an has launched a Life Skills programme in Al Ain, pairing AI and digital training with a family-first philosophy. For HR leaders watching the region's talent pipeline, it's a signal worth reading. | Written by Riya Malhotra While most conversations about future skills happen inside corporate L&D budgets, one of the more interesting talent-development experiments in the region this week is coming from outside the workplace altogether. The Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an, part of the Department of Community Development – Abu Dhabi, has launched its Life Skills programme in the Al Ain Region, a flagship initiative built to equip young people with the practical, technical and creative capabilities they'll need to thrive in a rapidly shifting economy. The launch lands squarely within the UAE Year of Family, and that framing is no accident. For a publication that spends most of its time on what happens inside organisations, the programme is a useful reminder that the workforce of 2030 is being shaped right now — in community halls, volunteer-led sessions and youth workshops, long before anyone files a first job application. What the programme actually does The Life Skills programme centres on the capabilities that increasingly separate the employable from the left-behind: hands-on training in areas such as digital media and artificial intelligence. Rather than rely on a small cadre of paid facilitators, Ma'an is mobilising more than 100 volunteers to lead sessions designed to foster innovation, creativity and community engagement. The scale is deliberately human. The programme is built to reach more than 180 young members of the community, with the stated aim of strengthening their readiness to navigate digital transformation and grow into a generation capable of creating positive impact around them. The logic is one HR leaders will recognise immediately: close the skills gap early, and you widen the pool of genuinely employable talent later. By bridging those gaps and improving future employability, the initiative is positioned to help young people contribute actively to their communities, and, by extension, to Abu Dhabi's broader social and economic development. A family-centric model, by design What distinguishes the programme from a standard skills bootcamp is the frame around it. Ma'an has positioned Life Skills as part of a wider portfolio of family-focused initiatives intended to strengthen family cohesion, wellbeing and long-term prosperity, treating the family unit, rather than the individual learner, as the foundation on which resilience is built. "During the Year of Family, we are committed to aligning our efforts with the national agenda to strengthen family empowerment and advance initiatives that enhance their wellbeing and longevity," said His Excellency Abdullah Al Ameri, Director General of the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an. The Life Skills programme reflects these efforts by activating specialised volunteers to create opportunities for the youth as well as provide the tools and knowledge needed to play an active role in advancing community development. It's a philosophy that maps neatly onto a debate happening in workplaces across the Gulf: whether wellbeing should be designed around the employee in isolation, or around the employee as one part of a family system. Ma'an has placed its bet firmly on the latter. Why it matters for HR leaders Three threads in this launch are worth pulling for anyone leading people strategy in the UAE and KSA. First, AI and digital literacy are now entry-level expectations, not advanced ones. A community programme aimed at teenagers is teaching artificial intelligence and digital media. The implication for employers is plain: the cohort entering the workforce in a few years will arrive with a different baseline, and onboarding, capability frameworks and early-career development will need to keep pace. Second, volunteering is quietly becoming a leadership-development engine. More than 100 volunteers are stepping into facilitation, mentoring and programme-leadership roles. For organisations thinking about purpose, retention and the kind of work that keeps senior talent engaged, structured community contribution is increasingly part of the answer, not a side activity to it. Third, the family-first model is a workplace signal. As national agendas increasingly anchor wellbeing in family cohesion, the most forward-looking employers are likely to follow, extending wellbeing strategies beyond the individual to the household around them. By investing in youth development within a family-centric framework, Ma'an continues to position the family as the fundamental pillar in raising future generations, and, in the process, is helping shape a generation that is skilled, engaged and ready to lead. For HR leaders, the takeaway is simple: the talent pipeline starts earlier, and reaches wider, than the org chart suggests.