NEOM is a megaproject launched in 2017 of a futuristic $500 billion smart city in Saudi Arabia focusing on nine industries such as: alternative energy, digital sciences, biotech and advanced manufacturing. NEOM attracts and employs people from across the globe, which makes the alignment of employees and their different cultural backgrounds and working styles a priority in order to ensure effective work operations for NEOM’s ambitious mandate and mega projects.

In collaboration with Tasaam, we worked on culture engineering projects with two sectors in NEOM: Tourism and Energy. The project began by diagnosing the work culture, conducting employee interviews and analyzing corporate communication in order to define the challenges that hinder performance and collaboration between team members. The project framework utilized a psychodynamic lens that examines human behaviour, habits and emotions to investigate underlying issues and root causes. Based on the findings, we developed tailored initiatives and team interventions for each sector that included cross-cultural communication, trust building, negotiation skills, strategic planning, creativity and innovation, handling conflict, dysfunctional teams and building healthy work cultures.