Careem ‘heavily recruiting’ as company continues to shake-up working model

And it was revealed on Wednesday that its ‘remote first’ programme of working, which was introduced last September and has just launched into its second phase, has played a key role in attracting and retaining top talent.

In May last year it was announced that Careem was to lay off 31 percent of its workforce as a result of Covid-19, which saw its business drop 80 percent. Coronavirus-related restrictions at the height of the pandemic also led to a 90 percent drop in the company’s ride-hailing business and 60 percent in its delivery business across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

However, co-founder and CEO, Mudassir Sheikha, who reiterated a previous prediction that a full recovery in business would not be seen until the end of 2021, said: “We are heavily recruiting in certain parts of the business, especially on the technical side, project managers, software developers, data and AI.”

Careem launched a new super app in June last year, offering ride sharing, intercity travel, food delivery, grocery options, bike sharing, digital payment options, and its delivery services all in one place.

Sheikha said: “It’s only live in a few cities and the plan is to take it to the 100+ cities in which Careem operates, over time.”

He added that the ‘remote first’ initiative, which allowed Careem employees in 36 offices the freedom to work from a remote location had not only “levelled the playing field”, but also opened up new markets to tap up talent.

“It really opens up access to talent. In the last nine months we’ve hired people in more locations than we ever did. We have people working for us in places like Ukraine, Poland; we’ve hired engineers for the first time in Egypt, in Lebanon, in Jordan. All of these locations, we were never there to begin with or we were there but doing more operational things,” he said.

Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and Co-founder Careem

“You could argue that you could hire these people before and yes that was true, we had people in these locations, but what has happened as a result of remote first is there is a level playing field for everyone. What was happening previously was we were having some people at the office and some people remote and the people that were remote were almost second class citizens. Their ability to contribute at the same level as people that were in the office was not that great because they were not part of any of the discussions and side conversations that were happening.

“But now that they are remote first, and everyone is remote first, what you realise is the people that are working remotely are as effective, if not even more than people in the office, because sometimes they may have specialist skills that you’re not able to find in the office.”

Ruth Fletcher, SVP people, at Careem, revealed that the implementation last year resulted in higher levels of engagement and productivity and increased staff retention.

Ruth Fletcher, SVP people, at Careem

She said: “What we’ve seen is a decline in our voluntary attrition rates and, in terms of our engagement numbers, what we’ve seen overall is around a five to six percent jump on what was already an extremely high base.”

Careem has now launched a pilot programme, as part of the second phase of the initiative, asking staff in the UAE to return to the office for at least one day each week. The UAE was chosen for the pilot following its successful progress in its vaccination program, with over 13 million vaccine shots administered.

“We always knew that face-to-face interactions would be critical for relationship building and culture building,” said Fletcher. “We want to learn how will this work in the context of the UAE and the context of the remote first journey so far.”