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Home / Case Studies

Alshaya

Alshaya transforms frontline engagement with a mobile-first digital workplace.


Alshaya Group, a leading international franchise operator, uses Unily’s employee experience platform to power Connect - an AI-powered, mobile-first hub uniting 50,000+ employees across 120 nationalities and multiple brands. By delivering parity between frontline and HQ, Connect streamlines communication, boosts engagement, and creates a consistent employee experience across borders.

“With Unily, every one of our teams now has a voice. Unlike other platforms where social engagement can feel like a chore for workers, with Connect it’s second nature.” 

Duaa Mousawi Corporate Communications Executive, Alshaya Group

M.H._Alshaya_Co._Logo

Customer
Alshaya Group 

Industry
Franchise Operator

Number of employees
50,000+ employees

HQ
Kuwait City, Kuwait

Alshaya + Unily: Transforming frontline engagement across borders and brands

 

Challenge Solution Outcome
Alshaya Group workers were isolated, uninformed, and disengaged from the business.  One mobile-first platform unifying content, social, rewards, and engagement.
  • 30% higher engagement
  • Over 70% participation in wellbeing programs
  • 90% survey response rate.
     

About Alshaya Group

Alshaya Group is a premier franchise operator in the Middle East. With a rich history of over 120 years, and a vision to become a world-leading retailer of the best international brands. The business has brought household names like Starbucks, H&M, Boots, Victoria’s Secret, and more across MENA, Türkiye, and Europe. 

The challenge

With over 50,000 employees representing more than 120 nationalities, Alshaya Group has a workforce largely composed of frontline retail and warehouse staff. This brings with it some familiar challenges that frontline-heavy enterprises are faced with – finding a way to unify communications, align people with business aims and culture, and deliver a consistent employee experience at scale. 


For Alshaya, this was exacerbated by a reliance on a legacy intranet portal that was slow, limited in functionality, and inaccessible to frontline teams. Most communications were delivered via email – something that store, warehouse, and operations staff didn’t have access to. The top-down communication bottleneck meant important messages had to be cascaded by managers, often leading to inconsistency. 


As a result, frontline workers felt disconnected, and the business missed opportunities for engagement and alignment across its many brands and markets. Ultimately, this affected Alshaya’s ability to get their dispersed workforce to pivot at the speed required.

“There was no channel for storytelling, low visibility into strategic initiatives for frontline staff, and limited feedback loops. We therefore began to look for a modern solution. We wanted to engage our people with relevant and timely content – without needing legacy infrastructure or corporate emails.”

Naima Elmi, Senior Internal Communications Manager, Alshaya Group

The solution

As the leading enterprise Employee Experience Platform, and the first platform to be named a Leader by all three analysts, Gartner, Forrester, and IDC, Unily is built to help communicators navigate complex enterprise structures and truly engage dispersed workforces. 

To bridge the gap, Alshaya partnered with Unily to launch Connect – a fully mobile, personalized digital experience hub. It empowers all employees – especially the frontline – to engage with communications, share stories and best practice, and access the information which is so critical to success.

Connecting with every employee, in every location

Unlike traditional employee apps that silo the frontline on a separate platform, Unily delivers full parity. This connects the entire workforce – from the people developing the strategy to the people executing it.  Whether on the shop floor or in HQ, employees access the same intuitive interface, powerful search function, and real-time push notifications and communications tailored to their role or preferences.

Search bar interface on the Alshaya employee intranet

Unily’s Feature Store allowed Alshaya to deploy widgets such as store opening countdowns and global clocks instantly, all with no code and no IT bottlenecks. 

"Being able to access SOPs, training tips, and benefits directly from the app has completely transformed how our frontline teams work and engage."

Naima Elmi, Senior Internal Communications Manager, Alshaya Group

This mobile approach has contributed to a 90% response rate on engagement surveys – underlining the positive impact an intuitive Employee Experience Platform can have on key business goals.

Engagement and impact - without email

With email not accessible to all Alshaya’s frontliners, Unily’s multichannel notifications and popups have enabled the business to still reach every employee. Store teams get urgent updates, announcements, and content recommendations directly on their mobile devices – all timed and targeted for maximum relevance.

Managers also benefit from a dedicated area on CONNECT called the Cascade Zone, where they can refer back to all cascades and download resources. Most importantly, none of it requires technical intervention—the comms team can launch campaigns and measure reach instantly.

"We’re not dependent on long rollout cycles. We can push out updates in minutes."

Naima Elmi, Senior Internal Communications Manager, Alshaya Group

In addition, Naima and her team have leaned into storytelling through podcasts – giving real employees a voice and a platform to inspire their peers.

Alshaya intranet displays an employee podcast page

 

Through Unily’s media capabilities, the comms teams can easily tag, distribute, and promote podcast content across the platform. Push notifications drive awareness, while AI tagging ensures content finds the relevant audience. 

“We've had episodes featuring everyone from store managers to senior leaders, showcasing personal journeys. When people hear a colleague’s story, it inspires them – it humanizes our brand and culture."

Naima Elmi, Senior Internal Communications Manager, Alshaya Group

Alshaya Unplugged, their employee podcast, has had a direct impact on improving corporate mobility and encouraging career growth within the Group.

Embedding a workplace-wide social model

When it comes to fueling a world-class culture, social features shouldn’t be seen as a bolt-on. They should be baked into the employee experience. Unily Social weaves collaboration into every corner of the digital workplace, from content and recognition to knowledge sharing and leadership communication.

Screenshot of Unily Social features enabling employee collaboration on Alshaya's intranet

Alshaya launched brand-specific social zones, turning Connect into a space where every team, from Starbucks to Charlotte Tilbury, could tell their own story and celebrate wins. This embedded social model led to a 30% increase in employee engagement – driving genuine conversations and breaking down the silos which can be problematic for large enterprises. 

 

"With Unily, every one of our teams now has a voice. Unlike other platforms where social engagement can feel like a chore for workers, with Connect it’s second nature."

Duaa Mousawi, Corporate Communications Executive, Alshaya Group

Combining AI speed with comms controls


With employees speaking Arabic, English, Turkish, Polish, Czech, and Romanian, ensuring everyone had access to the same high-quality content was essential. 

 

Screenshot of Unily AI translation tool on Alshaya's intranet displaying an Arabic post

Unily’s AI-powered translation engine delivers not just fast translations – but precise levers that enable comms teams to control and adapt them. This is a key part of adhering to cultural and brand guidelines. For example, Alshaya uses Unily’s custom override capabilities to ensure that brand names, localized phrasing, and tone remain respectful of regional nuances – something generic translation tools can’t guarantee.

Outcome: Shaping business success

Since launching Unily, Alshaya has seen clear, measurable results:

  • 30% increase in employee engagement
  • Over 70% participation in wellbeing programs
  • 90% response rate on engagement surveys, with workers reporting that they now feel more connected and well-informed
  • Improved internal mobility, with more employees aware of open roles across brands and markets

Frontline staff now feel like more active participants and can shape business success even more. Just as importantly, the divide between corporate and frontline is shrinking, with a connected, productive culture emerging across every brand and market.

"Unily isn’t just a platform – it's a partnership that’s helping us elevate every employee’s experience, every day."

Naima Elmi, Senior Internal Communications Manager, Alshaya Group

With a strong foundation in place, Alshaya is keen to expand its use of Unily further. This includes hyper-personalized Employee Journeys, and a more decentralized approach to content creation with more user-generated content and brand-led storytelling across the business


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Charlie Kennedy
Charlie Kennedy Senior Product Marketing Manager

Charlie has spent 8 years helping large enterprises to improve both customer and employee experiences. As Product Marketing Manager at Unily, Charlie plays an instrumental role in keeping Unily's capabilities and product vision aligned to the needs and aspirations of employee experience leaders. Charlie covers Unily's Frameworks & Extensibility, and EX Insights product pillars and is a critical contributor to thought leadership content and a regular speaker at industry events.