The summer in Dubai starts the same way every year. The alarm goes off early. The sun is already brutal. The school run is on pause. The air conditioning is working overtime before 8am, and the office still needs to be reached by nine.
For thousands of Dubai government employees, that morning arithmetic is about to get a little more manageable. Dubai has once again announced flexible working hours for government employees during the summer months, bringing back its annual initiative that initially launched in 2024.
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Running from June 29 to September 10, 2026, the initiative is called Our Flexible Summer and is delivered by the Dubai Government Human Resources Department. It is the third consecutive year the programme has run, and it is now wider and more embedded than ever.
Flexible Working Hours: What the Scheme Actually Offers
The initiative is not a vague promise of flexible working hours. It specifies exactly what each group of employees can do. Employees in the first group work seven hours a day from Monday to Thursday and four and a half hours on Friday. Meanwhile, those in the second group work eight hours a day from Monday to Thursday, with Friday observed as a day off.
Both models keep the total weekly hours roughly consistent. Neither model cuts pay. However, what changes is the shape of the week. The first group condenses each day and keeps a shorter Friday.
The second group compresses everything into four longer days and gains an entirely free Friday. So either way, the weekend extends in a meaningful direction. Government entities may also apply additional flexible hours and remote working options, depending on operational needs.
Three Years and Growing
This is not a new experiment. In summer 2024, DGHR launched a pilot called Our Summer is Flexible across 15 government entities. Workers were divided into two groups: one compressed their hours into four days and took Fridays off, the other worked shorter days across the week. The pilot resulted in a 98 percent improvement in employee happiness, as assessed under the Dubai Government Excellence Programme.
That figure is not decoration. It represents what happened when a large group of government employees were given genuine control over the shape of their working week for the first time.
In 2025, the scheme was expanded and rebranded. DGHR expanded the programme to all Dubai government entities, running from July 1 to September 12, 2025, tied to the UAE’s Year of Community and the goal of supporting families during school holidays. This year marks the third consecutive edition, starting a week earlier than last year and running through the full stretch of peak summer heat.
Flexible Working Hours: The Long Weekend Effect
Numbers and initiative names tell part of the story. What they do not capture is the texture of what this actually gives a working parent. For an employee on Group 2, which carries full Friday off, the weekend runs from Thursday evening through Sunday. That is effectively a three-day weekend for the full summer.
School holidays align with this window. Family travel becomes more feasible. A Thursday afternoon trip to the beach, the pool, or a weekend away does not require burning annual leave. It just requires finishing work at the end of Thursday.
The initiative reflects Dubai’s vision of building future-ready workplaces that place people at the heart of development. It helps employees spend more quality time with their families during the summer period, strengthening family bonds and supporting overall wellbeing and social cohesion, which aligns with the Year of Family goals of 2026.
The Bigger Framework
Our Flexible Summer does not stand alone. It fits into a broader set of summer worker protections that Dubai and the UAE have been building for years. Moreover, the UAE’s annual midday work ban is now in its 22nd consecutive year, prohibiting outdoor work under direct sunlight between 12:30pm and 3pm from June 15 to September 15. Companies found violating the rule face fines of AED 5,000 per worker, up to a maximum of AED 50,000.
Together, the midday ban and the flexible working hours scheme address the same summer challenge from two different directions. One protects outdoor workers from the heat of the day. The other restructures the indoor working week to give office-based government employees more time and agency during the hardest months of the year.
Abdullah Ali bin Zayed Al Falasi, Director General of DGHR, said the initiative has demonstrated that employee wellbeing and quality of life do not come at the expense of performance. On the contrary, they are among the key enablers of institutional success and long-term sustainability.
For the government employees who will start the new schedule on June 29, that is not a statement about policy. It is a statement about a Friday morning in July that looks, for once, entirely their own.
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