Top Employers 2022 shaping the world of work

In 2022, Top Employers Institute certified 1,857 Top Employers in 123 countries/regions across five continents for their outstanding HR strategies and people practices, positively impacting the lives of over 8 million employees globally. In Middle East, 12 companies achieved the prestigious certification: Abbott, DHL, Ecolab, Fine Hygienic Holding, GSK, Infosys, JTI, KONE, Philip Morris, Saint-Gobain, Sandoz, Takeda.

Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in people practices enriching the work of work. The Top Employers Certification Programme enables organisations to assess and improve the workplace environment and provides them with branding, benchmarking, alignment, and connection tools to further enhance and solidify their position as an employer of choice. In the Middle East, there is a Certification Programme in each of the following countries: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen.

Being recognised as a Top Employer requires an organisation to pass a rigorous assessment process. Through the Programme, organisations are certified based on the participation and results of the HR Best Practices Survey. The survey looks at people practices based on 6 HR domains (Steer, Shape, Attract, Develop, Engage, Unite) consisting of 20 topics such as People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Well-being, Diversity & Inclusion and more. Being certified as a Top Employer showcases an organisation’s dedication to a better world of work and exhibits this through excellent HR policies and people practices.

Top Employers Institute’s Research has global scope: as the data covers covering leading employers across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, APAC, and Africa. The digital survey allows identifies not only growth per practice but also to define trends based on imperatives such as transparency, agility, ownership, and others. The latest data from the Top Employers across the world show the emergence of three major trends that affect the world of work in 2022 and beyond, presented in this year’s World Of Work Trends Report 2022:

TREND 1 - Unleashing the power of the “Involved” employee. In 2022, employers will need to make themselves highly attractive to the top talent they require for rapid change. To achieve this, they need to understand that it will not be enough for employees to be “engaged” in their work. They need to feel deeply involved and immersed in designing the way they work to deliver the outcomes that change will demand. And talented employees will also want to become involved strategically, including decision-making in areas previously reserved for leaders – and well beyond the confines of a narrow job description.

TREND 2 - Deliver people agility through “Digit-ability”. The short-term adoption of new digital systems and technologies as a necessary response to the pandemic has come to an end. In 2022, this will be superseded by a longer-term look at how the potential of digital HR can transform the way we work together. At their best, these new technologies will drive a deeper level of integration within teams - and a dramatic shift in the overall experience of employees.

TREND 3 - Taming the “Wild West” of Work. There has already been a wholesale redesign of the working environment, including the mass relocation of employees through either home, remote or hybrid working arrangements. 2022 will see a new set of challenges around how to harness the potential of these new frontiers of work, while understanding and limiting the risks and the new pain points that they will bring.

At the heart of all three, we find employees winning a far stronger voice and influence over the key decisions that affect them. The most successful organisations in 2022 will create a working environment in which employees are deeply involved in the design of almost everything the organization does, where people agility enabled by technology is a given, with the freedoms created by new working environments balanced by new safeguards. These are the workplace trends that will deliver a truly better world of work.

The latest trends in people strategies and practices emerging from leading organisations across the world can be explored in the World Of Work Trends Report 2022. Now in its fifth edition, the annual report (previously the HR Trends Report) gives business leaders a broader insight into how global developments will impact their workforces in the year ahead. Download the report here.