Market View

Adaptive HR in a Dynamic World: Navigating Diversity, Jurisdiction, and the Modern Workforce

Interview with

Hayfa Abuzabibah

Chief Omnipreneurship Officer, People & Culture, Al-Dabbagh Group

About Hayfa Abuzabibah

Hayfa Abuzabibah's job title is Chief Omnipreneurship Officer at Al-Dabbagh Group. Her role involves overseeing the people and culture side of the conglomerate, which operates businesses in food, mobility, housing, packaging and retail across 22 countries through 84 companies.

How have recent global events influenced your organisation's approach to HR, technology, and processes?

The pandemic completely transformed our HR strategy and operations. We overhauled policies around remote work, learning and development, employee experience, and wellbeing.

On wellbeing, we created a holistic framework across five dimensions - physical, mental, social, career, and financial health. Since 2020, we've implemented comprehensive programming in each area - from "Get Fit" challenges to smoking cessation, internal mobility to enable career growth, and more. These changes empower colleagues’ whole health while retaining talent across our global enterprise. Ultimately, recent crises demanded HR innovation. By reimagining our technology, processes and employee support, we've become more agile and responsive to cope with an unpredictable world.

How does your decentralised organisational structure allow you to meet diverse localisation needs and navigate complex regulations across jurisdictions?

Our decentralised model empowers each of our subsidiary companies to independently manage day-to-day operations and comply with local regulations. Subsidiary CEOs, CFOs, and leadership teams handle localisation requirements tailored to their geographies. This preserves autonomy to run the business while upholding our global culture.

At the group level, we foster our home-grown philosophy, "omnipreneurship" culture of leading a meaningful life through principles, values and rules set by our Chairman. Strategic councils cascade this culture across sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship and more. But ultimately, subsidiary CHROs implement cultural initiatives locally. So decentralisation enables localisation and compliance, while global councils disseminate our shared mission. This blended governance allows us to thrive in a complex, international landscape.

Can you share an example where an adaptive, agile HR approach was critical to overcoming a key challenge?

Cascading our omnipreneurship culture globally has been an evolving journey since we began in 2016. This year, we took stock and revamped our annual culture index survey to directly tie to our core values. We use the results to gauge culture adoption across the group, then each subsidiary holds focus groups and develops action plans to address opportunities.

This adaptive HR approach of "listen, learn, and improve" was crucial to overcoming the challenge of embedding our culture across geographies and businesses. Values like integrity, respect, forward-thinking and teamwork are vital for achieving our goals. By continually assessing how we're spreading this mindset and doubling down where we see gaps, we can build an inclusive, empowering culture worldwide. Adaptability is key, since culture evolves as we grow. Our renewed focus on values will guide the next stage of this journey.

How do you anticipate the future of HR management given the rapid changes of the work environment?

The challenge for HR management is building dynamic capabilities to keep pace with complexity and constant change. Rather than focusing narrowly on administrative tasks, HR must expand our skillset and mindset to be adaptable strategic partners. This demands shedding outdated HR orthodoxies to embrace analytical, data-driven approaches that speak the language of business.

When organisational strategies shift, HR needs to accelerate change right alongside rapidly translating plans into new capabilities, processes and systems. We must overhaul everything from performance management to compensation structures to align with evolving priorities. HR should have a foot on the gas, not the brakes.

Additionally, HR needs to adopt a data-driven approach to inform executive decision-making with analytical insights. The challenge lies in compiling meaningful metrics and presenting information succinctly to leadership. By becoming versatile data translators who speak the language of business, HR can meet rising expectations and enhance our strategic influence.

How critical is it for your HR systems to stay flexible and adaptive?

Maintaining agile, responsive HR platforms is hugely important in today's fast-changing business landscape. The key is continuous stakeholder feedback. We regularly connect with colleagues, managers and leaders to understand their real challenges and needs. Those insights drive targeted improvements in our HR technology and processes to solve actual issues. It's about constantly listening, learning and adjusting our solutions based on user experience. We involve stakeholders from the start to design systems that evolve with their needs. While we aim to anticipate change, honest feedback reminds us what users require in the moment. By incorporating their voices, we keep HR systems flexible and user-centric in a dynamic environment.

What are your top priorities when evaluating HR solutions?

Flexibility is key - we need systems that integrate across various ERP platforms due to our holding company structure. Scalability is also crucial, so solutions can expand across our global, 25,500+ employee enterprise. Finally, customisation enables us to tailor tools to our unique business needs, KPIs and metrics. Off-the-shelf solutions rarely fit our complex requirements. We need HR technology that is adaptable, scalable and customisable in order to drive our global people strategy while meeting local needs. With those pillars in place, we can deliver effective systems for a decentralised, fast-changing organisation.

About Al-Dabbagh Group

Founded in 1962, Al-Dabbagh Group is a Saudi conglomerate led by Chairman and CEO Amr Al-Dabbagh. The group has over 20,000 colleagues globally across diversified sectors including mobility, housing, packaging, food and retail. Al-Dabbagh undertakes major projects in Saudi Arabia with a focus on sustainable growth, innovation and social responsibility.