GCC Workers Push for Customized Employee Benefits Amid Rising Job Dissatisfaction

Employer benefits have now become important for workers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries including UAE, KSA, Qatar and Bahrain and most employees are ready for job hopping over unfulfilled expectations. According to the Future of Work 2024 conducted by Zurich International Life and Radius Insights, benefits are considered obligatory for job satisfaction with 92% of the employees. However, UAE employees are much less likely to see their opinion being taken into consideration when it comes to benefits – only 38 percent do.

Flexible packages are today’s preference with more than 60 percent of the employee’s in the GCC saying that the traditional one-package-fits all is no longer tenable. Some of the benefits required are savings plan at the workplace, Group health and Critical illness insurance, as well as family related; child education allowance. For example, 38% of respondents in KSA and 31% of respondents in UAE and employees between the age 25 and 55 required child support benefits to be very important at workplace.

Youth is the largest subsegment that is most likely to quit their jobs as 51percent of UAE workers aged 18 to 24 said they are open to finding another job for better prospects and savings. Ashika Tailor, Head of Business Development for Employee Benefits with Zurich Middle East adds that there is a great need for private institutions to engage their employees even more in molding their packages by taking a softer approach to the self-serving outlook with the ultimate goal of boosting satisfaction and retention.

The report also points to an increase in the popularity of firms that focus on sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the best practices of women’s engagement with corporate values signify moving towards values based in the corporate environment. RETURN ON INVESTMENT As more and more companies seek to lock in talent, there is ever increasing emphasis on features, recognitions and the overall worth of benefits.