Great Place to Work® Middle East Reveals the UAE’s 2020 Best Workplaces in the Public and Private Sectors™

  • Logistics giant DHL tops the private sector list for the 6th time and for the second year in a row

  • This year’s ranking included multiple new entries from diverse sectors and verticals, including the UAE governmental sector

  • Great Place to Work® Middle East recognizes 40 private and 5 public organizations as the very best workplaces


7 April 2020 – This year’s ranking of the UAE’s Best Workplaces has been published by leading global workplace culture authority Great Place to Work® Middle East.

“In these uncertain times, all businesses are naturally concerned about the impact to their financial performance, hence, we have launched the list today, as now more than ever, employees are looking to their leaders and executive teams to take actions that protect both them and the business,” said Michael Burchell, CEO, Great Place To Work® Middle East.

For the sixth time, logistic giant DHL tops the private sector list for the second year in a row, followed by tech giant Cisco and global hospitality giant Hilton taking third place.

Dubai-based furniture retail company The One is ranked 4th. Climbing from tenth place on last year’s list to fifth place this year is international public relations company Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

In addition to the private sector ranking, Great Place to Work® Middle East gave special recognition to multiple UAE governmental entities for their outstanding workplace culture, various happiness programs, and efforts in taking care of its employees at all times; including Dubai Police Academy, Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority, Dubai Police and Dubai Future Foundation.

This year’s ranking included multiple new entries from diverse sectors and verticals including Bacardi, Chalhoub Group, Dyson, MSD, Fischer, SAS, Havelock One among many others.

Ranking from sixth to tenth place on the list were Bacardi, Omnicom Media Group, FedEx Express, Chalhoub Group, and WSP – UAE, respectively.

Burchell added, “There is a lot of thoughtful energy that goes into building and sustaining a great workplace culture; great workplaces place a premium on developing high trust, high performing environment.  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.”

“Creating an innovative, positive, and happy workplace in these challenging and noticeable changes should be at the top of the agenda for the Best Workplaces in the UAE; Great workplaces foster inspiration and happiness in societies. Happy people, wherever they are, produce more, and drive better economic development in their communities and countries,” said Maha Zaatari, Managing Director, Great Place To Work® UAE.

The Best Workplaces annual benchmarking study assesses the level of credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie within an organization, and forms part of the world’s largest employee survey. Two-thirds of a company’s score is based on the confidential feedback of their employees while the remaining score is attained from an audit of management and HR practices.

Ibrahim Mougharbel, Senior Vice President for Regional Marketing, Great Place To Work® Middle East said, “We are very proud with the efforts put in by our existing and new strategic partners and their teams, who made it to the 2020 Best Workplaces in the UAE with some noticeable improvements; our objective remains to evolve the work culture in the GCC countries and the Middle East via empowering employees and accelerating performance, to reach their full potential.”

The ‘Best Workplaces in the UAE’ are represented by a diverse number of industries including logistics, technology, finance, media, retail, fashion, FMCG, hospitality, healthcare, and manufacturing.

View the 2020 Best Workplaces list here.

To learn more about how to create, maintain and sustain a great workplace, visit www.greatplacetowork.me.