94% of MENA companies hire candidates based on their ability to work in teams

Posted on 2022 May,23

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94% of MENA companies hire candidates based on their ability to work in teams

'The Teamwork in the MENA Workplace' Poll conducted recently by job site Bayt.com, revealed a variety of insights about the effect of teamwork as a crucial factor for achieving organizational goals.

More than half of MENA professionals (54%) prefer jobs that require frequent teamwork and only 13% prefer jobs that allow them to work independently. On the other, 33% said they have no preference.

The findings show that teamwork is essential to improve performance of not just individual employees but the larger organization, as it expands the output of individuals through collaboration – a whopping 91% of respondents say that working in a team leads to higher creativity and inspiration.

“Collaboration and teamwork are important elements of employee engagement and organizational success,” said Ola Haddad, Director of Human Resources at Bayt.com. “Our new survey provides an overview of teamwork and the positive effect it has on diverse aspects of the workplace. The survey also explores tools that enable agile workflows and processes and allow for meaningful collaboration.”

The survey also captured the experiences of teamwork during the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring factors which contributed to a collaborative culture with the rise of remote work. MENA companies are using a variety of tools to facilitate remote working – including team collaboration tools (23%), video conferencing app (14%), cloud storage services (9%) and project management software (6%). 47% of companies say they are using all of the aforementioned tools.

Interestingly, 67% of respondents say that remote work positively impacts team collaboration within their company, only 9% say it has a negative impact and 15% say that remote work has no impact on team collaboration.

In addition to increasing organizational productivity, teamwork gives employees an opportunity to strengthen their knowledge and develop their skills. Survey respondents gave a variety of insights about why they find it more motivating to work in a team – including working with different people and being inspired by diverse perspectives (61%), sharing ideas with other people for validation and support (18%), taking a leadership role when working with others (12%) and being able to divide workload for higher efficiency (10%).

Companies in the MENA are now focusing on creating a workforce that is not just happy, but engaged and motivated to be productive through teamwork. 63% of respondents say their companies encourage team building to a great extent whilst 21% say that their employers encourage team building to some extent.

Companies that develop teams that are highly engaged and motivated can facilitate an increase in production, elevated customer satisfaction, and worker competency to be at an all-time high. According to MENA professionals, there are several factors that positively impact team dynamics: open communication (44%), support from management (23%), diversity of team members (21%) as well as accountability and rewards (12%).

The vast majority of MENA respondents (94%) believe it is important to choose candidates based on their ability to work with others when hiring, with 79% saying this principle is extremely important. Respondents also shared their opinions about their ideal team sizes to optimize teamwork: two to five people (33%), six to ten people (21%) and more than ten people (46%).

In terms of challenges, personal disagreements take the top spot (31%), followed by group think [adopting the popular opinion] (25%), unequal work distribution (24%) and lack of accountability (20%).