Look: Bosses at UAE firm volunteer to cook, serve meals to 7,000 blue-collar co-workers

On the eve of International Workers’ Day 2023, over 1,000 senior staff and heads of departments volunteered to cook a variety of Asian and Arabic meals and served their 7,000-plus frontline and blue-collar co-workers at their accommodations on Sunday.

The Dubai-headquartered EFS Group, a facilities management company, celebrated International Workers' Day 2023 in this truly memorable fashion where the front-line workers were not just served delicious meals but also entertained with a variety of melodious music by their co-workers at the company’s camp in Jebel Ali.

Dr Aman Puri, the consul-general of India in Dubai and Northern Emirates, also attended the gala dinner and mingled with the front-line workers who made the most of the opportunity by taking selfies with him.

Tariq Chauhan, Group chief executive of EFS, said around 1,200 staff members and their families were involved in organising, preparing and serving the meals.

“The objective was that anybody who wanted to cook and bring food for their co-workers was welcome. I cooked chicken qorma for 300 people. Similarly, other senior managers also got involved in preparing and serving biryanis, burgers, French fries etc.” said Chauhan.

On Sunday, each table was assigned to an individual senior member and his/her family to look after and serve the dinner to workers.

In addition, the meal was served to around 300 frontline female workers in Jebel Ali and 2,000 workers in Abu Dhabi in their accommodations by the company’s managers.

Sana Ahmed, business development manager at EFS, prepared vegetable biryani, potato gravy and salad for around 20 people and served their co-workers with the help of her 11-year-old son Aryan and eight-year-old daughter Aisha.

“It was an amazing and a totally different kind of experience. The kids were also very happy to see and serve the EFS employees,” said Ahmed, an Indian national.

Lebanese citizen Najwa Makhlouf, group director for service assurance at EFS, prepared an Arabic dish malooba for her 40 blue-collar co-workers.

“Planning and preparations were started around two weeks ago because we had so many accommodations across the UAE to take care of. It was the first gala dinner for the blue-collar workers and frontline workers and everybody liked the food which was great and satisfying. We are tired but very excited to be part of this campaign,” said Makhlouf.

Upskilling workers

Dr Aman Puri said International Workers' Day is the time to celebrate hard work, prosperity and camaraderie between all the workers from different countries who are living and working peacefully and happily together, away from their families, in the UAE.

“They are not just supporting in terms of remittances but also helping families in a significant way. We deeply value their hard work and contribution to the economy,” he said, adding that EFS has signed an MoU with the National Skill Development Corp. in ensuring that more and more skilled and trained human resources from India can get employment here in the UAE.

“We are upskilling workers in partnership with stakeholders in India and then they would be coming here for employment,” Dr Aman told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the event on Sunday.

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