A free lunch may still brighten up a workday. So might a team dinner, an office celebration or a pantry stocked with coffee and snacks. But when it comes to deciding whether to accept a job offer — or stay in one — UAE employees appear to be looking far beyond the usual workplace extras.
A recent study by employee-experience platform NAVO, based on responses from more than 3,000 employers and employees across the UAE and GCC, found that health benefits were the most valued workplace offering. Wellbeing came close behind, while flexible and remote working arrangements followed right after. Paid leave, financial and retirement support, and professional development also ranked ahead of more traditional office perks.
When mental-health support was included in the category, wellbeing emerged as the biggest overall theme. Free food and snacks, meanwhile, sat at the bottom of the list — a telling sign that employees may be drawing a clearer line between perks that make the office more pleasant and benefits that make their lives more manageable.
The findings reflect a shift that HR professionals say has been building for several years, accelerated by the pandemic and sharpened by the realities of living and working in the UAE. Employees are not necessarily rejecting office culture or social perks. But they are asking more direct questions about whether an employer can offer meaningful benefits and a greater sense of stability in an increasingly expensive city. “Free food is nice, but it doesn’t help someone pay rent or see a doctor,” said Israa Nassrallah, Group HR Manager at Blackspoon Management.
Beyond the office extras
For many employers, particularly in people-heavy industries such as F&B, hospitality and retail, staff meals, transport and uniforms have long been regarded as important parts of the employee package. They remain necessary and valuable, especially for teams working long shifts and spending most of their day on their feet. But they do not carry the same weight they once did when candidates compare opportunities.
“Honestly, yes, and it’s been building for a few years now, not something that happened overnight,” Nassrallah said, speaking about the changing expectations around workplace benefits. “In F&B specifically, we used to rely on staff meals, uniforms, transport — the basics — and call it a benefits package. That doesn’t land the same way anymore.”
She said rising living costs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi have changed how people assess the value of an offer. Salary remains central, of course, but candidates are increasingly looking at the full picture, whether their insurance covers their family, whether they have room to manage personal commitments, what their leave policy looks like, and whether the employer offers any support beyond the basics.
“A few things are driving it. Cost of living in Dubai and Abu Dhabi has climbed a lot faster than salaries have,” Nassrallah said. “And after Covid, flexibility stopped being a ‘nice to have’ because people got a taste of controlling their own schedule and they’re not giving that up easily.”
Palak Rathod, an HR Executive, said the change is visible almost immediately in the hiring process. Candidates are asking questions about medical cover, mental-health support and flexible working arrangements far earlier than before, while free meals and office entertainment do not tend to feature prominently in discussions.
The pandemic, she said, forced employees to reassess what they need from their workplace. “Employees now want benefits that support their actual lives, not just their time in the office,” Rathod added. In the UAE, where many employees are expatriates living away from close family and navigating high rental, schooling and healthcare costs, that distinction can be especially significant.
Flexibility becomes a serious question
Flexibility has become one of the first issues candidates raise after salary, particularly in office-based roles. Can employees work from home? Are there core hours? Is there genuine autonomy over schedules? Will a manager be understanding if someone has a medical appointment, a school commitment or an urgent family responsibility?
Radhika Desai, Head of People and Brand Culture at Publsh Group, said employees are now more intentional about the kind of relationship they want with work.
“Employees today are far more intentional about what they want from work,” she said. “The conversation has genuinely changed because they understand that work feels better, more productive, when there’s real flexibility and genuine support for their mental health.”
“Free snacks and a ping-pong table are fun, but people in the UAE increasingly want real benefits that give them back control of their time and protect their wellbeing,” she added.
Not every industry can offer hybrid work or remote-working days. In hospitality, retail, manufacturing and F&B, the nature of the work requires people to be physically present. But HR professionals say that does not mean flexibility is out of reach. For shift-based employees, it can be about predictable rosters, fair leave planning, better shift-swap systems and a schedule that gives people enough notice to organise their lives.
“In operational roles, that might mean predictable, humane scheduling rather than remote work,” Nassrallah said. “Corporate and tech-adjacent roles have more room to offer flexibility, while F&B and hospitality are more constrained because you physically need people on shift, so we compensate by pushing harder on the things we can control, like insurance quality, shift predictability and mental health support for a genuinely high-stress, high-pressure floor.”
Desai said employers that are getting this right are the ones that treat flexibility as part of culture rather than a policy introduced only when it becomes difficult to retain people. “Creative and media companies are moving faster because they have to, they can’t compete on salary alone,” she said. “I think larger corporates are slower to adapt. The ones actually winning are the ones who’ve built flexibility into their culture from the start, not reflexively tagged it on later.”
What does the health insurance cover?
Health insurance has become perhaps the clearest differentiator between one employer and another. Basic coverage may be mandatory, but candidates are looking beyond the fact that a policy exists. They want to know where they can receive treatment, whether the hospital network is practical, what services are excluded, and whether their spouse, children or dependants can be covered.
“Definitely a differentiator, maybe the single biggest one right now,” Nassrallah said. “Basic mandatory coverage is table stakes, it doesn’t win anyone over, it just avoids losing them. What actually differentiates an offer now is dependent coverage, mental health being included rather than excluded or capped and maternity benefits that go beyond the legal minimum,” she said.
For employees, comprehensive health coverage provides a kind of reassurance that social perks simply cannot. It can be particularly important for families, women considering a new role, and expatriates who do not have the same immediate support network they might have in their home country.
Rathod said candidates have become more informed about what health insurance should include. “Health insurance in the UAE is mandatory but the quality of coverage varies enormously,” she said. “Candidates are increasingly sophisticated about asking what the policy actually covers rather than just whether one exists.”
The end of performative perks?
The shift does not mean traditional office perks are disappearing altogether. Team dinners, celebrations and social activities can still help employees feel connected, particularly in workplaces where long hours and demanding deadlines can make camaraderie important. In F&B, staff meals are also far more than a workplace perk. But employees can tell when entertainment is being used to distract from more fundamental issues, HR leaders said.
“Social activities still have value — team dinners, celebrating milestones, they build culture. We do that at Publsh a lot,” Desai said. “But employees can see straight through it when a company is spending on entertainment while offering no flexibility and no real support. The companies doing this right use social moments to complement a strong foundation, not mask its absence.”
Nassrallah said the bigger all-hands events and more visibly “fun” office perks are being repositioned. “They’re not disappearing, but they’re getting downgraded from ‘the benefit’ to ‘a nice touch’,” she said. “The big all-hands parties, the ping-pong-table-in-the-office stuff, I’ve watched the budget shift away from that and into health insurance upgrades and flexibility infrastructure.”
The demand is also being driven by a younger generation of workers who are more willing to be vocal about what they need. Gen-Z candidates, HR professionals said, are more likely to ask directly about flexibility, mental-health support and workplace boundaries before accepting a role. “Gen-Z aren’t just asking for flexibility and mental health support, they’re walking away from opportunities that don’t offer it,” Desai said. “They want companies that respect their time and treat wellbeing as a given.”
Older professionals may frame the conversation differently. Millennials often look more closely at family benefits, financial wellbeing and support for dependants, while senior employees tend to value autonomy, stability, strong insurance and clarity around leave and career progression. But the broad direction is the same: employees want benefits that have a tangible effect on their day-to-day lives.
Over the next few years, HR professionals expect comprehensive mental-health support, stronger insurance policies and forms of flexibility suited to different roles to become increasingly standard. What may gradually lose relevance are the one-size-fits-all gestures that look good in a recruitment post but fail to address what employees actually need. “The future is where the environment and human experience are integrated,” Desai signed off.
Source: Khaleej Times
