The Wellbeing Wake-Up Call: Improving Quality of Life Across Saudi Workforces

The recent employee engagement survey by Engagesoft has provided valuable insight about how employees in Saudi Arabia feel about their organizations' consideration of their wellbeing. The key finding shows that in general, employees in Saudi Arabia have scored their organization’s attention to their wellbeing a 6.5 on a scale of 1-10 (1 being extremely dissatisfied and 10 extremely satisfied); this is the lowest driver score across all the engagement pillars. 

Organizational Attention to Employee’s Wellbeing Across Different Segments in Saudi Arabia

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Wellbeing Across Career Levels

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While all career levels have scored their sense of wellbeing relatively low, managers gave the lowest score at 5.5 followed by fresh graduates at 6.4, compared to executive levels, which scored the highest at 7.9. Organizations should focus on the well-being of managers and fresh graduates. This could be done by listening to their needs, ensuring their workloads are manageable, and providing flexible working schedules, we can help them develop personally and professionally.

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Wellbeing across Cities

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Employees in Riyadh scored their wellbeing a 6.2, Jeddah and the Eastern Province scored their wellbeing slightly higher at 7.0. The city with the lowest score across the whole Kingdom is Hael, with employees scoring their wellbeing a 4.7. 

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Wellbeing by Gender

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Both genders share a negative sentiment when it comes to their organizationals attention to their wellbeing. Females have given this important engagement driver an overall score of 6.8 out of 10, slightly higher than that given by men at 6.4. 

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Why Improving Well-being Scores Across Your Organization Matters

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Improving your organization’s overall employee well-being can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Here are the top reasons why it’s important:

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1. A Happier Workforce Is a More Productive One

Employees who feel valued and supported by their employers are more likely to be engaged in their work and contribute their best efforts toward achieving organizational goals.

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2. A Healthier Workforce Means Fewer Sick Days

People who report high levels of well-being tend to miss fewer days of work due to illness or injury than those with lower well-being scores — and they’re less likely to call in sick when they do come in.

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What Organizations Should Do to Drive Their Employees Wellbeing

It's no secret that a healthy workforce is more productive and engaged. It's also no secret that we're all working longer hours than ever before. Even though the amount of time spent on our jobs has increased, the quality of life at work hasn't necessarily improved.

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As a leader, you have an opportunity to make a positive impact on your organization's well-being scores. Here are ways you can do just that: 

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1. Help Your Employees Identify Their Well-Being Goals

If you want to improve employee well-being scores, you need to first understand what factors are important to them. You might think that everyone wants to earn more money or get promoted, but that's not always true. Many people value things like flexibility over money or status.

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2. Let Your Employees Know That You Care About Their Well-being and Happiness

People want to know that they are valued and appreciated at work — it's a basic human need that goes back decades before Maslow wrote about his hierarchy of needs theory in 1943. If people feel like they're being heard and understood by their employers, they'll be happier and more engaged as workers - resulting in higher levels of productivity

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Next Steps

We highlighted in this article the average scores of ‘organizational attention to employee’s wellbeing’ in Saudi Arabia and also across both genders, multiple cities and career levels. 

However, it’s vital that as an HR leader, you take initiative to assess and survey employee engagement drivers among your employees and create plans of actions tailored to your organization. 

The Engagesoft team will be happy to give you a demo of how you can leverage Engagesoft to survey your employees, and gain access to a rich set of dashboards and reports to identify the best plan of action to drive higher employee engagement in your organization.

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