The UAE is primed to "gamify” the workplace to foster healthy competition and increase productivity as part of a vision for the office of tomorrow.
A new report has highlighted how the trend – where leader boards, competitions and achievement badges are used to improve job satisfaction and achieve better results – could reshape the workplace by 2040.
The study also predicts that “extended reality (XR)”, referring to immersive technologies, could reduce demands for conventional office environments, while artificial intelligence could be used to assess staff.
It also pinpoints the rise of “early retirees” – where employees in their thirties and forties are opting out of traditional career paths in pursuit of greater freedom.
These are some of the predictions in the major report issued on Thursday by the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE).
It forecasts significant changes in how people will work by 2040 – influenced by the rise of artificial intelligence.
Switched on to the future
Ruba Al Hassan, director general of strategic affairs and future foresight at DGE, said they were already seeing gamification of the workplace and immersive learning.
“They're happening now,” Ms Al Hassan told The National. “It's not a distant 2040 future.”
The Emerging trends report in talent Management (2024–2040) highlights 16 global disruptive shifts but also helps governments and employers respond to the challenges.
One of the interesting findings among the 16, said Ms Al Hassan, was the rise of the “neo-generalist” – someone who can blend expertise with broad knowledge across multiple fields and become a big-picture thinker.
“It is about people becoming more adaptable to think about things that they don't usually,” she said.
Aside from the "gamifying the workplace” trend that taps "into natural human tendencies for competition and achievement by converting work tasks into game-like challenges” another is the rise of AI in recruitment.
Interview robots, for example, can assess candidates’ skills while reducing bias in gender, age and appearance. AI-powered background checks could also minimise bias, while it could also be used to help companies promote the best candidate.
The rise of AI is dominating conversations across the world and the subject of many headlines, but Ms Al Hassan said it was her opinion that its potential was “under-hyped”.
“I remember when I was in college when everybody started using the internet and how fast it happened overnight. This has been faster,” she said. “You've seen the numbers on the users of ChatGPT.
“If we figure out how best to use it, you can capitalise on its full potential and that means people's full potential will be realised.”
Another finding on the office predicted that the rise of virtual reality, augmented reality, and holographic technologies will enhance remote collaboration and “could potentially render traditional office spaces obsolete”.
The return to the office has been a lively conversation since wholesale work from home practices became common during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A separate report from Michael Page this week showed that despite economic uncertainty, 77 per cent of UAE professionals are "actively exploring” new job opportunities, compared to 65 per cent in 2024.
The "growing pressure to return to the office could be a tipping point”, the Michael Page report said.
Further predictions include an increase in demand for data scientists; potential levies on companies utilising AI and automation that could fund income for people if they no longer need to work and waning relevance of some higher education degrees in favour of practical experience.
Speaking broadly about changes sweeping workplaces, Ms Al Hassan said every breakthrough in technology – from printing press to the radio to the TV – came with the discussions about whether it would take over something but people still listened to radio and TV still exists and it was about adapting.
“We're a government that has its eye on the future,” she said. “Not because we're sitting there saying 'I need to predict this or that', but because we want to be part of building it. That's … what we're trying to do.
“What can we get out of this new technology to make people's lives better?”
The study, meanwhile, draws on the “futures platform” – a tool used by governments, corporations and research institutions to track more than 1,000 signals of change across industries. It combines these insights with DGE’s internal analysis.
DGE, established in 2023 to lead the digital transformation for the Abu Dhabi Government, is already applying its findings such as using AI to reduce attrition and to reimagine career paths to stay competitive, it said.
Ms Al Hassan said she was optimistic about the rise of this kind of technology once it was done right and ethically with correct guardrails and policies that focus on people. “I'm very optimistic that this is going to be great for us.”
