Great Place to Work grows workplace to support regional expansion
Human capital consultancy Great Place to Work Middle East has announced a regional expansion and new workplace lists for women and millennials, along with two recent recruits.
Following the recent release of its 2019 Best Workplaces’ list for Saudi Arabia, global research, training and employer certification consultancy Great Place to Work has announced its plans for expanded coverage across all GCC markets – along with new best workplace initiatives for women and millennials in the region. To support its plans, Great Place to Work has also become the new workplace for two fresh recruits; Ibrahim Mougharbel and Eyad Jaouni.
The former, Mougharbel, joins Great Place to Work Middle East as Vice President of Regional Marketing, bringing nearly 15 years’ of consulting experience in various regional roles, including stints with Instinctif Partners, Edelman and Hill & Knowlton – the latter a top-ten place-getter on this year’s Great Place to Work’s best workplace list for the UAE. Mougharbel has been tasked with driving growth strategy and overseeing list management and production.
“I am joining this global authority and an international institute with an objective of building a better business community in the GCC and Middle East region,” Mougharbel said. “I am very excited as my Great Place to Work journey kicks off, to unleash my full potential with the right people and for a great cause – building an environment in the GCC embracing millennials, gender diversity and developing talents.”
Great Place to Work Middle East CEO Michael Burchell, a former consultant with McKinsey & Company in the US, said in response; “As we are planning our business roadmap by focusing on the evolving workplaces cultures in the Middle East and GCC; It is imperative that we have the right partners and resources to support the business community development in the region and Ibrahim’s experience will help our institute own its rightful regional positioning.”
Jaouni meanwhile joins the company as a Client Relation Manager from a marketing executive role with Fairmont Hotels, prior to which he held marketing and promotions positions with Rotana Music and Red Bull among others. Graduating with a Bachelor’s in Advertising from the Canadian University Dubai in 2016, Jaouni notably falls with the millennial bracket – one of the new areas of focus for Great Place to Work together with women in the workplace.
On announcing its new initiative, Great Place to Work cited its own research that only 14 percent of women in Saudi Arabia rated their employers at great workplaces (compared to a 30 percent rate in the UAE) – at a time when large numbers of local women are entering the workforce for the first time. Meanwhile, Great Place to work’s fifth annual best workplaces list for the KSA has seen Hilton top the rankings, ahead of Intercontinental Hotel Group and DHL KSA.
“Congratulations to all of the 20 winners and their teams, the competition has been very high this year between organisations and we are very happy to see a growing awareness among leaders in Saudi Arabia, that workplace culture has become a major competitive advantage for their businesses, to evolve the work culture in the Kingdom via empowering employees and accelerating performance, to reach their full potential,” said Burchell of the results.