The Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) revealed a rise in the total number of employees of ministries and federal entities who have their own accounts on LinkedIn by 55% from March 2015 until the end of last April, increasing from 7,800 employees to 12,100.
This came during a coordination meeting recently held between FAHR and social networking company LinkedIn at its headquarters in Dubai to discuss the latest developments in the Skills Bank project and the Electronic Forum, in the presence of HE Dr. Abdulrahman Al Awar, Director General of FAHR, Ali Matar, Head of Talent Solutions in LinkedIn MENA, HE Ibrahim Fikri, Executive Director of Support Services, Ahmed Tijani, project manager in Projects & Programs Department, Samer Al Rahal, HR specialist, Mohammed Abu Bakr, media specialist from FAHR, and Rajai Al Khadim, director of Government Relations at LinkedIn MENA.
In his speech, HE Dr. Al Awar underlined the importance of this partnership, as it will provide FAHR with unique insights into the government talent, as LinkedIn’s data can for example help them determine those areas in which talent is most and least plentiful and where there may be skills gaps.
“This project will prove to be a vital source of reference and research for us, with LinkedIn’s data insights acting as a compass on future trends within the labour market. It will allow us to develop systemized programs to account for skills trends, and to develop, either through education or training, those talents that are in deficit in our workforce. In addition, we also consider this project as a way to motivate our employees to improve their existing capabilities and gain more skills – particularly around leadership – to create a more diverse, highly-capable working community, while achieving each government entities’ goals for their human resources,” he noted.
HE Ibrahim Fikri gave a detailed presentation on the most important developments in the Skills Bank project and “FAHR” Forum, indicating that FAHR was able to identify the most crucial competencies and skills required by federal government employees online including research, talent management, customer service, training, team leadership, use of social networking, analysis, strategic planning and institutional development, and information technology.
He said: “The project is a research source and reference for those concerned in the federal government, and an indicator for future labor market trends, that will help skills-specific planning through education and training and enhance federal employees’ technological research capabilities and motivate them to gain more skills In line with labor market needs."
46% of federal government employees on LinkedIn are university graduates
Ibrahim Fikri pointed out that nearly 12 thousand of employees in ministries and federal entities have active accounts on LinkedIn, in addition to 100 employees in late April, 46% of them with a Bachelor’s degree, 33% of with Master's degrees, and 14% of them are physicals.
33% have work experience of 3 to 5 years
He added that 33% of federal government employees on LinkedIn have work experience of 3 to 5 years, 28% of have experience ranging from 5 to 10 years, while 16% of them have more than 10 years of experience and 22 % only two years of experience.
9700 followers of FAHR account on LinkedIn
Ibrahim Fikri, Executive Director of Projects & HR Planning shed light on the most important developments of the Electronic Forum on FAHR LinkedIn page which forms an ideal dialogue platform on the most important topics related to human resources, to highlight the successful practices in the field of human resource management such as talent selection, recruitment, training and development, performance management, rewards, etc.
He explained that FAHR employs the e-Forum as a media channel to advertise the events and forums of HR Club organized periodically, as well as international conferences held in collaboration with a group of leading human resources organizations. He revealed that the number of those who follow FAHR page on LinkedIn had risen during the last period by 427%, bringing number of followers to over 9700 by early May, compared with 2244 in May, 2015
He considered the Forum a useful knowledge-based platform for employees of human resources departments in the federal government and their peers in HR departments in the local and international institutions, to facilitate their search for talent.