Following the announcement this week of the federal change in working week in the UAE for the public sector, from the current Sunday to Thursday, to a new Monday to Friday working week, we will also be following this direction.
While the days have changed, it is our understanding that the labor law has not changed. There has always been flexibility for industries such as retail, F&B even production. The maximum is 48 hours with a minimum of 1 day fully off per week. We have always had 40 hours and 2 days for a weekend, this will continue.
From the 1st of January 2022, our UAE office (and any future officers such as Abu Dhabi, Rak, or Sharjah) will work from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm. KSA, Egypt offices working weeks will remain unchanged.
The first day of work in the new year will be Monday, 3rd of January.
Business
With client services, it is important to be working on the same hours or as close to the same as possible, as your clients. This won’t have a material impact on productivity, however overall for the economy this will improve competitiveness, with business travel, events, working with other markets, and ability to attract businesses operating globally.
Resources
We have two other offices that will remain from Sunday to Friday, which will have some challenges with our web dev and content creation for Smashi. Many of our team already have slightly different working hours, some remote as well, this flexibility will continue within the above framework. Within your teams, please do consider the workflows and make any necessary changes.
As our business grows, particularly in terms of production and content creation, we will also be looking to have systems in place to allow us to efficiently manage our resources, different working hours, in the UAE and between offices, with full-time employees, freelance employees, and contract employees.
Personal
For parents, this will align us with schools, and also align us with government entities. While organizations may not have communicated this change widely as yet, it is our understanding that they will, so to avoid uncertainty and confusion, we will commit to this change in advance to provide clarity so you can plan accordingly with personal lives.
For those of whom that Friday is a holy day, and would like to pray, there will be a prayer room in the new office but also flexibility to attend the mosque.
