“For us, LinkedIn is so much more than just a recruitment site – it’s a site to build our brand and

make our employees our brand ambassadors.” Louise Button, Talent Acquisition Operations Manager

& Project Manager for Internal Mobility, Social Media & Assessments at Al-Futtaim Group

Al-Futtaim: Embracing the Power of Employer Brand through LinkedIn

Company ProfileEstablished in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim is one of the most progressive regional business houses headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Al-Futtaim operates through more than 200 companies across sectors as diverse as Automotive, Retail, Real Estate and Financial services, and employs in excess of 42,000 people in 30 countries in the GCC and Greater Middle East to encompass Africa, South East Asia and Europe.

The ChallengeIn a matter of five years, Al-Futtaim grew the talent acquisition team significantly, aiming to internalize its recruitment process by working closely with business partners.

Managing more than 200 entities and renowned brands across different industries, Al-Futtaim is constantly looking to attract the best talent with relevant experience from different backgrounds and seniority levels. This was made possible through LinkedIn where the company was also able to increase its brand awareness as an employer of choice.

By effectively using LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Al-Futtaim managed to build a best in class in-house recruitment team that could effectively reach out to passive candidates, and become a strategic partner within the business. This approach also helped Al-Futtaim save more than 4M AED in 2015 alone.

Strong internal collaboration between talent acquisition and business partnersAl-Futtaim adopts a very collaborative approach between the recruitment team and the different businesses. Recruiters work strategically to understand and assess the different roles and

Talent Solutions

Highlights

• Saved more than 4M AED in one year using LinkedIn Talent Solutions

• Hired 15% of their senior roles through LinkedIn

• Assigned a dedicated social media manager focusing on content marketing for talent acquisition and employer branding on LinkedIn

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business requirements, making them highly valued by internal stakeholders.

‘Our hiring managers report an increase of 18% in satisfaction with the talent acquisition team’ Louise Button, Talent Acquisition Operations Manager said.

‘We assess the needs by talking to the hiring manager and we try to understand the objectives and the pivotal roles that impact the business. We look at the top strategies to source the recruits and the best advertising means to promote the vacancies such as through LinkedIn’ – David Moran, Group Head of Talent Acquisition.

Overseas Hiring and Tapping into “Passive Candidates”By using the full LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Al-Futtaim gains access to a wide pool of talent and an ever-growing database of both local and international prospective hires.

Through its partnership with LinkedIn and its extensive online activity, Al-Futtaim was able to expand its reach and elevate its brand as an employer of choice locally and globally, successfully attracting top talent from around the world.

‘We have regional teams attracting both local and international talent. Our team in the UAE is responsible for UAE, Bahrain and Lebanon and our HR shared services in Egypt, Oman, KSA and Qatar do their own recruitment apart from a number of senior roles’ – Louise Button, Talent Acquisition Operations Manager & Project Manager.

Employer branding on LinkedIn: The Women’s Day Campaign Al-Futtaim early recognized the power of content marketing for talent acquisition on social networks and invested in a dedicated Social Media Manager responsible for updating the company’s LinkedIn Page. Ever since, the company has been successfully driving brand awareness and acquiring new talent through their LinkedIn Career Page by sharing pictures, videos, employees testimonials, etc.

By considering its database of followers on LinkedIn as prospective hires, the company stays true and fully committed to its online community. The company’s LinkedIn page now counts more than 200,000 followers and it continues to develop its strategy to have an even bigger global reach. Believing in the influence and reach of LinkedIn, Al-Futtaim seeks to continuously engage its employees on the website and create a network of brand ambassadors for talent acquisition.

As an example, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, Al-Futtaim launched a campaign to empower their female employees, by giving them the opportunity to share their success stories at Al-Futtaim. These stories were shared on LinkedIn throughout the week through pictures and quotes.

Reaping the success of using LinkedIn to fulfill its hiring needs, Al-Futtaim increased its investment on the website moving from 2 to 19 licenses in a matter of five years, and leveraging the platform to position their organization as an employer of choice in the Middle East and globally.

Visit https://business.linkedin.com/en-ae/talent-solutions to learn how you can source top candidates on LinkedIn.

The campaign was very well received by the online community on LinkedIn but also internally by employees. ‘The strategy Al-Futtaim followed on LinkedIn by sharing our businesses and employees success stories motivated them to become more productive and successful. The continuous engagement with our employees and followers on LinkedIn keeps motivating me to create unique and creative content’ says Alaa Azayem, Social Media Manager responsible for the LinkedIn Company Page of Al-Futtaim. The campaign delivered great results in the coming weeks: