Dubai, UAE: The three top drivers of employee attraction in 2023 for UAE professionals are salary and compensation (60%), workplace environment (50%) and long-term job security (46%), a survey by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s major job site, and market research agency YouGov revealed.
The least important factors reportedly are aesthetics of the company such as the logo and website design (13%) and positive media presence (12%).
Following recruitment, the survey showed that the most important drivers of loyalty for professionals in the UAE are opportunities for long term career development (38%), training and development opportunities (38%) and job security (33%).
Workplace culture is instrumental in retaining employees by improving motivation and organizational commitment. Positively, 59% of respondents have been working in their current organization for more than two years. In fact, almost 6 in 10 of the working population in the UAE are happy at their current workplace and 65% would recommend their current workplace to someone looking for a job.
Interestingly, nearly 7 in 10 agree that their company regularly takes feedback from their employees to understand them and 67% agree that the leadership takes their feedback seriously. Further, almost 7 in 10 respondents said they would apply in the current organization for their current role if they had to do it all over again.
7 in 10 respondents in the UAE find an employer attractive if they follow good ethics and practices, followed by friendly company culture (%) and corporate social responsibility (52%).
“Besides salary, a large number of surveyed employees longed for long-term career development opportunities as a major driver of loyalty towards a company,” Ola Haddad, Director of Human Resources at Bayt.com said. “This signals how clear demands for heightened company culture that are on the rise, can be closely linked to a desire for more genuine professional development.”
Zafar Shah, Research Director at YouGov said: “Overall, it seems that employees in the region are looking for more authentic experiences in the workplace. Now that the pandemic is nearly coming to a close, we foresee a bigger focus on employee loyalty in what has come to be known as the great age of resignation.”