Farah Osman

Abdelnaby, a construction worker, woke up today feeling unwell. Every day, he signs in at the site, by writing his name on the attendance sheet before he gets assigned his tasks for the day. But today, he’s down with the flu. He tries calling his supervisor Adel to take a sick leave – but Adel is in a meeting and can’t answer.

Come payday, he discovers a portion of his wages missing due to his “unexcused” absence. Despite believing he called in sick, the lack of a documented record left him helpless.  The management, who are a bit skeptical about this story, explain that, regretfully, there isn’t anything they can do at this point. This leaves Abdelnaby out of pocket, frustrated and wondering: maybe I should start looking for a job somewhere else where they treat workers fairly?

This scenario, sadly, is all too common for millions of blue-collar workers across the Middle East and Africa.

Luckily, on the other end of town, sits Farah Osman. Farah has spent the past 12 years working in workforce development across the non-profit and private sectors. Throughout her journey, one notion crystallized more and more in her mind: “Employers perceive workers as unreliable, while workers suspect employers of offering low-paying, precarious jobs,” she explains. “They’re both correct in their own right.”

Farah started to gradually get to the bottom of the problem, along with her cofounders Hussein Wahdan and Nour Ahmadein, with a focus on industries that are blue-collar-intensive, such as F&B, retail, construction and manufacturing. The three entrepreneurs quickly realized that the way blue-collar workers look for work is not the way companies seek blue-collar workers.

How do blue-collar workers find jobs in the Middle East and Africa? Between 70-80% of them find work directly through their social networks, making the process very community-driven. This causes high turnover, and makes it difficult for businesses to vet the workers they are looking for due to the lack of data and references.

Now, if a company was lucky enough to hire the right workers they were looking for, they have to adequately manage them. “Once blue-collar workers are employed, it becomes difficult to track and manage them because their work is extremely dynamic and no one day is the same as the next,” Farah explains.

The data of those workers is scattered across various systems. Calculating payroll, for instance, involves piecing together information from schedules, attendance logs, leave requests, and more, often taking a staggering seven to ten days. This manual process is prone to errors, like Abdelnaby’s case. Inaccurate data leads to deductions, ultimately contributing to worker frustration and further perpetuating the cycle of high turnover.

bluworks emerged as an answer to these challenges. This HRTech platform caters to blue-collar-heavy industries, such as retail, F&B, facility management, healthcare, education, and construction, with the aim of streamlining the entire employee lifecycle. It acts as a central hub, unifying data points across various departments and fostering communication between workers, HR, and operations. Additionally, future plans include integrated learning and development tools and recruitment services.

With bluworks, companies can now close their payroll books in just one day, compared to the previous 7-10 days. The platform currently boasts over 2,000 registered workers and 14 satisfied clients. “This journey has opened my eyes to the transformative power of digital solutions in unexpected spheres,” Farah explains.

“bluworks has identified a real pain point for employers and developed a compelling digital solution that focuses on a particular niche,” Managing Partner at Acasia Ventures Aly El Shalakany says. “Initial traction is very promising, and we are confident that bluworks will be able to scale this solution rapidly.”