A company based in the Emirates has been crowned the best employer in the Middle East in the largest study of its kind in the region.
DHL Express UAE was selected as the top company to work for in Aon Hewitt's Best Employers in the Middle East survey, which questioned more than 13,000 employees from 130 businesses.
"Its employees talk positively about their organisation, and they have very high retention rates on all different levels in the organisation, which is difficult to achieve sometimes, especially in a company where you have a lot of blue-collar workforce," said Markus Wiesner, the chief executive at Aon Hewitt Middle East.
"They really were showing a lot of engagement in terms of the employees but also a very practised HR team with very forward-thinking HR policies."
Microsoft Gulf (Mena), Procter & Gamble Near East in Egypt, DHL Express in Oman and DHL Express in Kuwait all appeared in the top five.
Two more UAE companies - Aswaaq and the UAE arm of the hygienic paper and tissue company Fine - were 12th and 13th, respectively.
Questions in the survey included what employees said when they spoke about their organisation with their friends, whether they were likely to stay with their employer for the foreseeable future and if they gave their best every day.
"In very simple terms, the questionnaire is fairly sophisticated and there's a number of questions in there that test different preferences of employees and different thoughts about their organisation," said Mr Wiesner.
The average level of employee engagement in the region was about 59 per cent, according to Mr Wiesner, but increased to 83 per cent for those that cracked the list.
"At DHL Express, we firmly believe that our people are what makes our business a success and that is why employee engagement and motivation is at the heart of everything we do," said Frank-Uwe Ungerer, the country manager for DHL Express UAE.
