Opening remarks
Panel discussion: Health as infrastructure in high-growth economies
Workforce health is becoming a structural issue for large employers across the Gulf. Healthcare access, insurance cost, chronic disease, provider capacity and prevention investment now affect resilience, productivity, employee experience and long-term workforce capacity. This opening panel sets the regional context for the forum and examines why workforce health can no longer sit only within HR, benefits or wellbeing.
Presentation: Sustainable performance as infrastructure
Protecting energy, resilience and leadership capacity in high-pressure organisations.
Panel discussion: Inside the employer: designing healthier organisations beyond programmes and perks
Large employers often fund multiple health, benefits, occupational health, mental health, prevention and insurance services. Too often, these sit across separate teams, budgets, suppliers and measures. This employer-led panel examines how workforce health should be governed in practice: who owns it, what data matters, how decisions are made, and how health investment connects to productivity, safety, retention, cost and resilience.
Coffee and networking
Panel discussion: Chronic disease, metabolic risk and the cost of late intervention
Diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular risk and broader metabolic ill-health are major pressures for employers and healthcare systems across the region. They affect absence, performance, claims, clinical demand and long-term workforce capacity. This session examines what employers can responsibly influence through prevention, access, benefits, screening, food environments and sustained support.
Presentation: From claims to capacity
Why employer health strategy must move upstream.
Lunch
Presentation: Access, data and digital delivery
Building scalable health systems for working populations.
Panel discussion: Governing workforce health: care access, insurance pressure and the cost of delayed intervention
Large employers are increasingly exposed to rising claims, delayed treatment, fragmented care, avoidable absence and pressure on employee experience. This session examines how employers work with insurers, providers and clinical partners to govern medical benefits and employee health support in practice.
Presentation: Work design, fatigue and psychosocial risk
Fatigue, burnout, work intensity, manager capability and psychological strain cannot be managed only through individual support services. They are shaped by operating pressure, work design, leadership behaviour, safety culture and organisational accountability. This presentation examines how employers can identify and redesign the conditions that create risk before they become absence, attrition, safety failure or clinical demand.
Panel discussion: What senior leaders should govern in workforce health
The closing panel brings the day back to senior leadership. If workforce health is infrastructure, employers need to know what should be governed, measured, stopped, scaled and funded. This discussion examines what a serious workforce health governance model should look like for large employers in the region.
Closing remarks and networking
Dubai