The real estate giant behind the Burj Khalifa just eliminated job titles to improve company culture
Jul 21, 2020, 21:30 IST
- Emaar, the Dubai real estate development giant behind the Burj Khalifa, eliminated all job titles within the company on Tuesday, according to Entrepreneur Middle East.
- Founder Mohamed Alabbar sent an email to staff explaining the decision. "Emaar is not a collection of talented individuals, but a team of great pooled talent," he wrote. "For Emaar to continue to succeed, it is vital that every single one of our employees feels empowered to contribute."
- Employee business cards will no longer include titles, just departments, and that includes Alabbar himself. The change is meant to inspire a "focus on talent, not titles."
- In theory, eliminating a hierarchical working structure could spark a collaborative culture, according to Brian Robertson, the entrepreneur that invented the holacratic approach.
- Holacracy, or abandonment of pyramidal hierarchy, has played out at other companies, but unsuccessfully.
- Amazon-owned Zappos attempted a transition to holacracy in 2015, which Business Insider reported prompted 14% of employees to quit. The company removed job titles and touted the possibility of "self-managed" employees. Earlier this year, Quartz reported that Zappos has reengineered that strategy.
- Medium, the online publishing platform, also tried holacracy, but quickly walked it back. Its head of operations found that "it was difficult to coordinate efforts at scale."
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