MOHRE boosts productivity by 20% with Microsoft 365 E5

Transforming the United Arab Emirates into a global hub for business excellence and global competitiveness, and empowering Emirati talents in the job market—this is the bold vision behind the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE). “Our mission is to regulate the labor market, increase its flexibility, boost productivity and competitiveness, and foster a business-friendly environment that attracts and retains global and Emirati talent,” notes His Excellency Mohammed Saqr Al Nuaimi, Assistant Undersecretary for Support Services at MOHRE.

From day one, the Ministry has relied on a suite of Microsoft solutions for productivity. However, MOHRE initially operated on-premises infrastructure, which limited its ability to use all Microsoft 365’s available features and capabilities, such as real-time co-authoring and integration with AI tools. Maintaining the infrastructure also required significant resources. “With a small infrastructure team, we faced challenges in keeping our systems and services updated and patching security vulnerabilities. With limited physical resources in the data center, we struggled to ensure enough storage and computing capacity to support our operations,” shares Maitha Mohamed Al Teneiji, Director of Infrastructure and Technical Equipment Department at MOHRE.

Advocating for cloud adoption

As part of its digital transformation program, MOHRE made the strategic decision to migrate to the cloud. However, as a government entity, it first had to prove to the Federal Network (FedNet) that transitioning to the cloud was both beneficial and secure.

This challenge was more than just a technical shift. It required many meetings, brainstorming sessions, and thorough preparation. “We attended numerous meetings and provided detailed evidence to the Cyber Security Council to advocate for migrating to Exchange Online,” says Al Nuaimi.

Adding complexity to the process was the need to comply with the UAE’s stringent data privacy and regulatory standards. Fortunately, the partnership between Microsoft and technology group G42 was instrumental. This initiative allowed government entities to securely adopt cloud and AI services while adhering to the UAE’s data privacy, security, and regulatory requirements. The next step was to move Ministry data into the UAE to comply with Cyber Security Council regulations. “Migrating our cloud tenant from Europe to the UAE was a major achievement—this was the first step in securing approval from the Council,” recalls Al Nuaimi. Next, MOHRE launched a proof of concept (PoC) to build more trust, moving ten mailboxes to the cloud to test the solution. This required careful planning. “Given the complexity of our customer service, we had to ensure our email services were properly configured. Working closely with the Microsoft team, we set up a hybrid environment and successfully migrated a small group of users. The proof of value made a compelling case to management to proceed further.”

Safeguarding citizen data

"We became one of the first federal government entities in the UAE to migrate to Exchange Online,” adds Maitha. MOHRE also migrated other services, like Microsoft Teams and OneDrive, to the cloud by moving onto Microsoft 365 E5. Finally, the Ministry secured its environments with Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Purview, and Microsoft Defender for Identity, Endpoint, and Office 365.

As a result, MOHRE has strengthened its security with advanced features and increased visibility. “Having everything in one ecosystem simplifies infrastructure and security maintenance for the Ministry’s staff. All devices, metrics, and analytics tools are accessible from one central location, allowing infrastructure admins to easily monitor and manage activities through the portal. This approach vastly increases security,” shares Maitha. This strengthened security enabled MOHRE to confidently champion cloud adoption and fully embrace its transformative potential.

Enhancing flexibility in the workplace

MOHRE provided guides and ran workshops to help its employees take full advantage of the cloud-based collaboration tools and features. The Ministry even encouraged its staff to take advantage of Microsoft Copilot within the Microsoft suite to improve productivity and efficiency.

Since the migration, MOHRE employees are no longer tied to specific devices or office locations, providing them with more flexibility. “Our staff of 1,300 is distributed across all Emirates. They are using workstations, laptops, or tablets to access their mailboxes, files, documents, and calls from any location,” Maitha explains.

This transformation has enabled MOHRE to reshuffle its teams based on demand. “Previously, we had over 100 employees in each Customer Happiness Center across the seven Emirates,” says Al Nuaimi. “Now, most work remotely. Instead of having 20 employees at the front desk, we only need three to five. As a result, we have reassigned many employees to back-office roles, handling standard Ministry operations like processing transactions and approving work permits. This way, we can optimize productivity by allocating our resources more efficiently. It’s a great achievement.”

More convenience, more productivity

Productivity has surged with improved access to collaboration tools. Employees now collaborate in real time instead of juggling multiple versions of Word documents and other files. This way, ensuring that everyone has access to the latest version of a document is no longer the challenge it once was. “The main advantage is that all products are centralized, allowing staff to access everything from one platform. They can easily switch between applications, such as moving from their mailbox to Microsoft Forms, all within a single sign-on session. This convenience is something our staff really appreciates,” adds Maitha.

The impact is evident in the numbers. “By increasing our mailbox size by up to 5x and providing full access to the latest Microsoft products for our staff with Microsoft 365 E5, we have increased employee productivity by approximately 20%. This has also improved collaboration among more than 1,000 employees,” illustrates Al Nuaimi.