Decision Briefs
Evidence-backed answers to the people-decisions organisations actually face — each one sourced, human-reviewed, and tested against the Gulf.
Who owns your culture — HR or leadership?
HR is the visible face of a company's people decisions, so employees experience the culture as something HR hands them — and blame HR when it's wrong. The evidence says that's the wrong address. People read…
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Do leaders and staff see the same company?
Ask the board and ask the floor about the same company and you often get two different answers — and the gap is…
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Does performance management actually work — or just create paperwork?
Most organisations are frustrated with performance management: in a McKinsey Global Survey more than half of…
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Everyone has advice about work — how do you know it's any good?
Managers and employees are drowning in confident advice — influencers, gurus, bestsellers, consultants, viral…
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25 published · newest firstDo we have too many KPIs — and how many do we actually control?
KPI bloat is a design failure with a well-documented bill: a CC-licensed review and typology of performance measurement in practice (41 studies + 147…
Do workplace wellbeing programs actually work?
The workplace wellbeing industry sells apps, resilience training and mindfulness at scale — and the largest single test to date (46,336 workers…
Are we building female leaders, or just hitting targets?
Female workforce participation has surged in the Gulf — Saudi Arabia went from roughly 17% to 36%, beating its Vision 2030 target years early. But…
Should we adopt OKRs?
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting framework, popularised by Intel and Google. Be honest about the evidence: rigorous, independent…
Should we try a four-day workweek?
The four-day workweek that actually has evidence behind it is the 100-80-100 model — 100% pay, 80% of the hours, 100% of the output — not a…
Should we monitor employee productivity?
Activity-tracking software — keystroke logging, app/website monitoring, screenshots, "active time" scores — is now sold to almost every employer with…
Should we run a graduate-training program?
Graduate and internship schemes — Tamheer, Co-op, the GDP — promise a talent pipeline, and in Saudi Arabia they are now partly mandatory: Ministerial…
Should we hire for culture fit?
"Culture fit" is one of the most common reasons given to reject a candidate — and one of the easiest places for bias to hide, because it usually…
Should we use AI to screen candidates?
AI résumé-screening and shortlisting tools promise speed and consistency on high applicant volumes. Be honest about where the evidence points: the…
Should we mandate a return to the office?
Blanket return-to-office mandates buy control, not performance — and cost you retention. The evidence: a University of Pittsburgh study of 137 S&P…
Is quiet quitting real — and should you worry about it?
"Quiet quitting" went viral in 2022 as if a new workplace disease had been discovered. It hadn't. The behaviour is real as a measurable pattern —…
Do stay interviews actually reduce turnover?
Stay interviews — proactive one-to-one conversations about what keeps an employee and what might push them out — are widely recommended, but the…
Should we drop degree requirements?
Skills-based hiring is real and rising — degree requirements are genuinely falling in job postings, and validated skills assessments predict…
Are most of our meetings a waste?
Many meetings happen by habit, not need — and the research ties meeting overload to lost focus, burnout, and intention to quit. The real question…
Is your open-door policy real?
Most leaders say their door is always open. But access isn't safety, and the research says employees stay quiet anyway — they speak up because of…
Is leadership development broken?
Companies spend more than $14 billion a year on leadership development, yet the pipeline gaps it is meant to close keep widening — middle managers…
Should we invest in manager development?
Most managers are promoted without ever being trained to manage — one UK survey put it at 82% of new managers. The 2026 question isn't whether to…
Should you trust your employee engagement survey results in the Gulf?
PwC's 2025 Middle East data shows 78% of Gulf workers report they're engaged — 14 points above the global average. The same survey shows 85%…
Should we move from annual reviews to continuous feedback?
Trust in annual reviews is thin — a 2024 Betterworks survey (US/UK) found 44% of employees call performance management a "significant failure," and…
Should we put AI in our performance reviews?
Vendors are selling AI for everything from review drafting to capability scoring. The 2026 evidence — Duolingo's public reversal, HR Executive's…
Should we remove performance ratings?
Removing performance ratings rarely fixes the real problem — the evidence says kill the annual-only cycle and fix calibration first. Drop ratings…