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The real estate giant behind the Burj Khalifa just eliminated job titles to improve company culture

The real estate giant behind the Burj Khalifa just eliminated job titles to improve company culture

Taylor Borden

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."