- June 28, 2021
BABIL GAMES’ MEDIA COVERAGE ON AL GHAD ONLINE NEWSPAPER
Al Ghad Online Newspaper published an article about Babil Games’ work culture and environment, after being certified as the first Great Place To Work in Jordan by the International Great Place to Work®. Below is the English version of the article shared.
Jordan is a great country with lots of benefits to it, such as country security, tourism, weather, and somewhat liberalism; however, it has its challenges, like any other country, when it comes to the labor market, unemployment, employee stress and work-life balance. Ever since 2012, Babil Games has created plenty of work opportunities and a healthy work environment for the people in Jordan, especially for the youth with unique talent who have lots of passion.
Great Place to Work® is an accreditation that demonstrates to the market that you are an employer of choice while also helping you become an even better workplace through reporting, analysis and next steps to enable an even more successful culture. Great Place to Work®, Cyprus, conducted a survey on Babil Games’ employees, which resulted in a 92% GPTW score level, granting Babil Games the certificate as the first Great Place To Work in Jordan.
Differentiating itself with its unique culture and management style; Babil Games provides their employees physical comfort at their offices as well as mental comfort through respect, understanding, and appreciation.
This article will further discuss the reasons why Babil Games was certified as a Great Place To Work, and present some insight on the Jordanian Labor Market as a whole, and how some sectors and companies neglect their employees’ mental health, which in result affects their performance.
Working Conditions
The Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies released a report on decent work in Jordan in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) highlighting how work conditions in the Kingdom are somehow “still weak” despite the country’s agreement on implementing decent work standards.
On the other hand, Babil Games continuously strives to provide its employees with the best working conditions, both physically and mentally. As they care about creating a comfortable workplace, Babil worked with the Inside Out Design team to design their offices, which ended up winning “The Best Office Interior Design” for The International Luxury Lifestyle Award 2021, NY.
Work Opportunities
According to the International Labor Organization, Jordan’s Unemployment Rate is at the second top of the list after Libya, in the MENA region, in 2020. The Unemployment Rate during Q4 of 2020, is 24.7%, where the rate for males has reached 22.6% against 32.8% for females , a report issued by The Department of Statistics. According to a report by Facebook for Business, Games Marketing Insights for 2021, ”The number of people playing mobile games significantly increased across the globe as a result of COVID-19.”
In line with these growth rates, Babil Games has hired around 30 new employees ever since the start of the pandemic, which has given work opportunities for talent in Jordan during a globally hard time, and offered hiring for those talents looking to find a job during such times.
Stress Levels
Besides the high unemployment rate, the employees in the working sector have a high amount of stress, due to several aspects in their job roles and working environment, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic. More than half (53%) of people in work have suffered stress in the past 12 months, while one in four people had taken time off sick through stress in the previous year, according to the latest research by the International Stress Management Association.
On the other side of the spectrum, employees at Babil Games show low levels of stress, as both the management style and the work environment are healthy with lots of room to share their opinions and voices, as well as room to grow in their career path. With offering top notch support for both working from home & working at the office where standards for a monitored clean environment.
Mental Health
A research article published by EMHJ, showed that 38.4% of its Jordanian participants reported some degree of anxiety while quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, employees working across different sectors, such as the healthcare sector, Software & IT sector, and the Customs sector, have shown work-related stress that has several causes, such as: the nature and responsibility of their work, peers’ competition, and organizational climate or culture. These factors affect employee performance: creativity, innovation, problem-solving and decision-making, as well as their overall mental health.
Working remotely at Babil Games did not have any negative effect on its employees and their stress levels, rather the team stuck together and held several online activities to keep up the spirit and culture. They held weekly gaming sessions on Discord, as well as competitions during Ramadan. It was very important for them that their employees don’t lose morale or passion, for their own mental health, and for their performance as well.
Work-Life Balance
Certain companies demand their employees to fully dedicate their time to their jobs which leaves them in an improper work-life balance by pressuring them through mistakenly creating an extra competitive work environment. Even more, employees are voluntarily putting in extra overtime in fear of losing their jobs due to the current circumstances, economic situation, and lack of job opportunities, which lead to serious consequences on their wellbeing and mental health. The burden of mental ill health is highly relevant to the world of work.
The management at Babil Games encourages work-life balance both outside and inside the office. Inside, by allowing gaming session breaks and music jamming sessions at the office, drawing anywhere, anytime, and having your coffee or lunch break whenever you want. Outside, by having team-bonding activities such as laser tag, paintball, football games and evening outings. Babil focuses on this aspect, as it’s important to connect with the team outside of work, and to embed a work-life balance in their culture. They believe that overworking employees and a concentrated work environment will affect their overall wellbeing and job performance.
Women in the Workforce
Despite efforts in Jordan to economically empower women, female labour force participation remains low at 14%, compared to 54% for males, according to DOS figures from 2019. Even though around 77% of unemployed women in Jordan have a bachelor’s degree or higher, while the unemployment rate for men who attended higher education is four times lower, at around 26%.
Having 55% of senior positions filled by women and 32% of the team women, Babil Games supports women in the workforce and do not discriminate based on gender, sex, ethnicity, religion or culture.
Work Culture
Organizational culture is often viewed by members of an organization as a set of beliefs and values. In a study published by ResearchGate, several enterprises, especially in developing countries such as Jordan, lack this understanding, have a weak culture and lack clear vision and direction. It was stated that the prevailing organizational culture in Jordan is one that is high on personalism, individualism, and lack of institutionalism and that personal power is highly sought after.
According to the survey analysis of the Great Place To Work certificate, Babil’s employees believe that Babil is their second home, and that they consider the work team as members of their family. Babil Games has a unique culture on its own as a hub for talented and creative individuals. The management style allows its employees to be themselves and voice their creative opinions as they go with an open-door, open-mind policy with listening ears to every employee at the company. They believe that each individual is talented at what they do, and may know better in their field of specialty, and hence, this opens the door for any employee to thrive to their maximum potential and achieve their goals.
