Building a Workplace Culture That Actually Works

I joined etisalat by e& Egypt in 2020 — right when COVID hit. The company had 6,000+ employees across corporate offices, retail stores, and factories. Overnight, most of them went remote. And the existing internal comms setup just wasn't built for that. People were disconnected, confused about what was happening, and the company culture was starting to fracture. My job was to build something that would actually keep people engaged and informed — not just blast out emails nobody reads.

The Real Challenge

Here's the thing about internal comms that most people don't appreciate: you're not talking to one audience. You're talking to a factory worker who doesn't sit in front of a computer, a retail employee who's on their feet all day, and a corporate executive who lives in Outlook. They all consume information completely differently. A single email blast doesn't cut it. Neither does a single poster. You need a system.

"Only You Can Help Change That"

This was the one I'm most proud of. A workplace wellness campaign that addressed mental health and anti-bullying head-on. We didn't do the typical corporate wellness thing — generic stock images and motivational quotes. Instead, we went with real statistics and real conversations.

Key insight: 21% of employees reported coworkers as a bullying source. But nobody was talking about it openly. That became the centerpiece of the campaign.

We put these materials in elevators, break rooms, and common areas where people actually stop and read. Bilingual Arabic and English so everyone could access it. The goal wasn't to lecture. It was to start a conversation and show that the company actually cared about this stuff.

COVID-19 Crisis Communications

When the pandemic hit and everyone went remote, we had a real problem: how do you keep 6,000 people informed without overwhelming them? We built a rapid-response framework that worked.

The approach: Daily updates on COVID protocols, wellness resources, and virtual team-building activities. But we were strategic about it — the right cadence, the right channels, the right tone.

We didn't just push information. We created spaces for people to ask questions, to share concerns, and to feel like their wellbeing actually mattered to leadership. It made a real difference in how people experienced that transition.

15-Year Anniversary

We took a major company milestone and turned it into something that actually meant something to people. Not just a corporate celebration — a genuine moment to recognize where the company had come from and where it was going.

We built event activations across locations, created commemorative materials, and ran employee recognition programs that highlighted the people who actually made the company what it was. The campaign wasn't about etisalat's ego. It was about celebrating the 6,000 people who worked there.

Career Page Redesign

The old careers page was — let's be honest — forgettable. It read like every other corporate site. We decided to completely rethink it with a new positioning: "Grow, Achieve, Enjoy the Journey."

Instead of listing job openings, we told the story of what it actually feels like to work at etisalat. Real employee stories. Real growth paths. Real culture. It repositioned the company as a place people would actually want to work, not just a job.

The result was higher-quality applications and better candidate-to-hire conversion. But more importantly, existing employees felt seen and valued when they visited their own company's career page.

What I Learned

The biggest lesson from three years doing this: most organizations don't have a communications problem. They have a listening problem. The campaigns that worked best were the ones where employees felt heard, not just informed. When people feel like the company actually cares about what they think, engagement stops being something you have to manufacture. It becomes natural.