The employees or workers of any organization are the driving force behind its success. They design and build products and services, they interact with your clients and support them to the point of customer delight.  Without people there is no organizational success.

The Taqdeer Award, launched under the directive of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and the Chairman of the Executive Council, recognised the importance of people in an organization and decided to recognize and reward companies for excellence in labor relations including labor policies, facilities and infrastructure, health and safety, labor security, and recruitment and wages, creativity and innovation among others. The ceremony honored 36 companies and 94 workers from various economic sectors. The winners were honored by His Excellency Dr. Abdulrahman Al Awar, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratization; and Major-General Obaid Muhair bin Suroor, Deputy Director-General of Dubai’s General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs and Chairman of the Taqdeer Award. The Taqdeer Award recognizes companies that provide exceptional labor welfare programs and working environments and employees who have made significant contributions to setting new standards in worker welfare and productivity. 

The Award, held every two years,  is open to companies with more than 50 workers. The criteria for the Award are based on international best practices, especially those approved by the UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization, the International Labor Organization and other organizations and agencies focused on protecting the rights of both workers and employers.

Al Najma Al Fareeda Cleaning & Building maintenance was assessed by independent assessors from the Taqdeer Award office with respect to all these parameters and brought glory to the industry by winning the prestigious Taqdeer Award in the 3-star category at a glittering ceremony held on November 29, 2022 at Dubai World Trade Center. The award demonstrates the company’s belief in continual improvement as well as in ensuring the happiness and wellness of its labor force which is directly related with customer delight.

Winning this award is also testimony to Al Najma Al Fareeda’s leadership’s vision and management towards creating the world class environment for employees to excel and create a sustainable future for all the stakeholders.

After receiving the recognition  from Taqdeer Award, Al Najma Al Fareeda international group  Chairman and MD Mr. Abul Kalam Jamal Mohamed said, "Our employees are our key assets , strengths and we are committed and will continue to strive for the welfare  of our blue collar workforce in future as well’’. 

Al Najma Al Fareeda International Group CEO Mr.Jamal Haja said ‘’We are very honored to receive this award which will help us understand where we are and also benchmark against world class companies in terms of worker happiness and welfare.

Al Najma Al Fareeda Group HR Head Mr. Abuthahir Mohamed Ali said, “The award  has motivated us  to develop and implement more employee centric policies and procedures  aligned  with the Award’s criteria and standards, promote  innovation and excellence in all  departments. It will also help us in accelerating and  launching programs and services that adopt the recommendations of the Award’s assessors, create an open door policy for workers and introduce systems to continuously identify and implement  worker satisfaction levels. The recognition has helped us in promoting a stronger partnership and bonding  between the Management and workers and it's really a  key milestone in our pursuit and never ending journey towards  world class services  and operational excellence.” 

Why does Al Najma Al Fareeda cleaning & Building Maintenance LLC deserve the Taqdeer award?

The Taqdeer Award recognizes companies that provide exceptional labor welfare programs and working environments and employees who have made significant contributions to setting new standards in worker welfare and productivity.

Al Najma Al Fareeda Cleaning & Building maintenance LLC decided to participate in the 5th edition of the Taqdeer Awards. The main objective was to evaluate themselves: 

• In terms of labor excellence practices.
• Benchmark against world class companies in this region in terms of worker happinessand welfare
• Follow the Taqdeer award labor excellence, criteria and use it as a tool for continuous improvement in our labor and business excellence journey

What makes Al Najma Al Fareeda Cleaning & Building maintenance LLC worthy of the prestigious award is its purpose i.e. “to create a sustainable future’’. Here the deeper meaning is to create the sustainable future for front line employees, staff, suppliers, customers and all the stakeholders.

The vision and mission of Al Najma Al Fareeda Cleaning & Building maintenance LLC is to become a world class facility management company. They not only live values like integrity, respect, collaboration, excellence , accountability, but also underscore it in their way of doing business . After aligning on a common purpose, Al Najma Al Fareeda understands that people make purpose possible and makes it concrete through a set of quality standards: priorities that guide front-line staff in delivering the desired customer experience. Besides this, the follow the below practices to align their workforce with the company vision and safeguard their interests at the same time:  

Follows integrated management system practices ( ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001), policies and procedures related with quality, health, safety and environment for more than a decade now.

Communicates regularly through various communication channels with all its people, what we are doing and how long it will take, and involve the employees themselves in the solution.

Holds regular meetings with labor and admin staff to voice their problems and needs and takes tangible action to address the same. 

Employee and customer driven and believes that to achieve excellence, employee/worker customer engagement needs to be managed together.

Throughout employee life cycle, Al Najma Al Fareeda follows best recruitment practices free from bias and discrimination, provides best remuneration, accommodation , and recreation facilities, rewards and recognitions, motivations and many cases exceed the legal or compliance requirements as compared to its competitors in the industry. 

Al Najma Al Fareeda identifies its best employees through a screening and defines an appraisal process with a 360 degree feedback from client, supervisors, managers and peers. They reward their star and above-average performers and at the same time motivate , counsel, advise, guide, train, coach their average and below average performers, with the intention of continual improvement, thus making every possible effort to retain the employee. This is reflected in their unique employee retention rate of more than 95% which is one of the best in the industry. 

Employee and worker delight at Al Najma Al Fareeda

At Al Najma Al Fareeda, employee engagement and delight is of utmost importance because of two reasons: 

They strongly believe that employee and customer experience and delight both need to be managed together and not looked as separate concepts. 

They understand that  every employee and customer engagement experience ultimately leads to enhanced financial performance.

To ensure the happiness and wellness of its workforce, Al Najma Al Fareeda conducts employee satisfaction surveys and a net promoter score exercise regularly to gauge the pulse or expectations of the employees. This insight is followed with corrective actions for further improvement.

In addition to this, they have different communication channels through which complaints, grievances, suggestions and ideas are captured and actioned.

Moreover, They have performance appraisal processes where excellent performances are rewarded and recognized as appropriate through promotions, increments, spot awards, certificates, gifts etc.

Al Najma Al Fareeda also conducts many CSR activities in the camps like blood donation, health checkup, sports events, team building activities, picnics, birthday celebrations, employee of the month and celebrates all religious festivals like Eid, Diwali, Christmas etc.

Ensuring workforce safety 

At Al Najma Al Fareeda Group, health and safety take the center stage. Throughout their integrated management systems and processes, they regularly conduct HSE risk assessment, training & education and emergency/contingency response with an aim on continuous improvement. 

To further ensure workforce safety, following measures are being taken at Al Najma Al Fareeda: 

• They follow Process Safety Management and have implemented safety and health management systems such as ISO 45001:2018 standard. 
• They provide and ensure PPE compliance and record all incidents, potential incidents , near misses etc.
• They conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate countermeasures to avoid recurrences of an incident. 
• They have also realigned and integrated various safety and health systems of core suppliers into Responsible Care, a voluntary, sustainable initiative of chemical companies to bring increased efficiency and HSE performance.

Personal growth and training 

At Al Najma Al Fareeda Group, three types of training are conducted:

• Induction training
• Tool box talks
• Internal training
• External training

When an employee or worker joins the organization, he is given an extensive induction training related to his job, policies and procedures, rules and regulations , disciplinary measures, reward and recognition , benefits and other processes. This helps the employee orient faster to his day to day activities.

During his/her employment, the competencies and skills of every individual are assessed and customized trainings on different technical and soft skills are conducted regularly by using internal or external trainers. Training outcomes and effectiveness are evaluated by competent authorities.

For sustainable changes, a systematic reinforcement program is conducted. This combines training, coaching, and 360-degree feedback mechanisms. Metrics are also developed to track how employees are performing, and intervene when necessary.

Achieving customer delight through workforce delight

Over the last decade, Al Najma Al Fareeda Group has rigorously implemented world class systems like balanced scorecard and EFQM excellence model and now Taqdeer Award model for labor excellence. 

With these excellent frameworks and best practices in place, Al Najma Al Fareeda Group realized the profound and direct correlation between employee & customer delight and business growth. 

They saw customer satisfaction levels increase as employee satisfaction increased, resulting in more accolades, appreciations and more importantly new business referrals and revenue growth.

At Al Najma Al Fareeda,  employees follow four quality principles for customer delight:

• Safety (fulfill commitments with transparency and competence);
• Closeness (get to know your customer and connect emotionally);
• Diligence (promptly advise and execute responsibly with agility, ease, and simplicity);
• Organization image (project the values of Al Najma Al Fareeda in each action and location).

The organization has truly invested in its people. the trust, respect and empower their people and provide clear expectations with thorough training based on British Institute of Cleaning Society standard. This in turn reflects in the customer experience they provide. 

The happy staff leaves no stone unturned in responding to customer grievances swiftly. The customer response time at Al Najma Al Fareeda is one of the lowest in the industry.

Al Najma Al Fareeda Cleaning & Building maintenance group, made a small start in 2006 with 11 employees. They have grown at an exponential pace to more than 4000 + employees and 400+ clients, and are acknowledged as the top player in the FM sector in the Middle east. Besides their exceptional services, the company has succeeded in building a happy team, making them worthy of the prestigious Taqdeer Award!