Employee commitment level in the GCC region stands at only 49.5 per cent, the lowest worldwide, said a report quoting a study.

This means that nearly one in every two employees in the GCC countries is not engaged at work, said the Gulf News report quoting the research carried out by recruitment specialists Aon Hewitt.

The study, called Qudurat, an Arabic word that means ‘capabilities,’ included the responses of 18,500 respondents based in around 100 organisations and institutions across UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

It concluded that within the Gulf, Saudi nationals were the least engaged at 40.6 per cent, followed by Emiraties at 41.6 per cent.

Omanis, Bahrainis and Kuwaitis are “moderately” engaged and the Qataris were most committed at 51 per cent, it said. Among the expatriates, those in Bahrain and Kuwait were most engaged, followed by UAE and Qatar.

The report pointed out that this was in sharp contrast to other emerging markets like Latin America, where engagement was high at 63 per cent and Asia Pacific at 58 per cent.

The study also found that younger employees are the least engaged, and since they form a large proportion of the region’s workforce and that their low engagement levels could significantly impact the overall commitment average.

Helena Houia, principal consultant at Talent 2, said building career development programmes for employees is a good approach to improving engagement levels.