DUBAI/WAM
The Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) has achieved remarkable achievements in eliminating bureaucracy in federal human resources services, procedures and systems during the past months.
This stems from its belief in the importance of the Zero Government Bureaucracy (ZGB) programme, which is a national framework designed to achieve simplified, faster, easier and more efficient government procedures. In this regard, FAHR launched a campaign entitled “Together to Zero Bureaucracy in the HR System”, and held a series of meetings, workshops and seminars to analyze the targeted human resources procedures and systems for improvement.
Laila Obaid Al Suwaidi, Director General of FAHR, stressed that FAHR is moving forward towards developing the federal human resources system and continuously updating HR systems and legislations to keep pace with rapid transformations and raise its readiness to keep pace with future trends, leading to an integrated federal human resources system, and smooth, concise and easy-to-implement procedures.
She emphasized the importance of the ZGB in general, as it is an ambitious programme that serves the country’s strategy, enhances its leadership and global competitiveness, and constitutes a qualitative addition to the efforts to achieve the goals of the UAE Centennial 2071 and the vision of We the UAE 2031, as well as implementing ZGB in human resources procedures.
She added that this programme is one of the main priorities of FAHR, on which it has worked recently, since its launch by the UAE government as new dynamics to enhance efficiency, quality and flexibility of UAE government.
Laila Al Suwaidi said that FAHR is working on ZGB in six main areas, which are: digital system integration for human resources data, the digital experience for human resources, the project to accelerate the development of the FAHR’s services 2.0, human resources procedures, and the development of internal operations in the FAHR.
FAHR seeks to integrate the digital system of human resources data at the level of the UAE government, through the implementation of an integrated project, the idea of which is based on providing interconnected and integrated government services, in partnership with a number of government and private entities concerned with providing services. It consists in requesting the customer’s data only once, within a secure environment that takes privacy into account, and facilitates the completion of human resources procedures.
The authority has succeeded in linking with several service entities nationwide, in order to provide proactive services to customers, including: The Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship, Customs and Ports Security in the “Usrati” package, the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure in the “Manzali Bundle”, Dubai Insurance in the unemployment insurance system, and the Ministry of Health and Community Protection in the “ Ajr Wa Aafya” package to approve sick leaves.
In terms of the digital experience for human resources, FAHR launched the new interface project for the “Bayanati” system, and the smart application FAHR with a new look to enrich the employee’s digital journey, as the new application streamlines procedures, and provides a distinctive package for more than 38 main services.
Thanks to the efforts to completely eliminate bureaucracy, FAHR succeeded in cutting down the time required to complete self-human resources procedures through the new interface of the “Bayanati” system by 56%, and the number of steps required for implementation by 67%. The new application also contributed to streamlining the procedures, with a distinctive package of more than 38 main services.
FAHR is developing its services, in accordance with the continuous changes in the needs of customers, and in line with the strategy of the Emirates Programme for Excellence in Government Services 2.0. It has taken practical steps to design and develop its main services, which has contributed to facilitating access to the service, requesting it, reducing the time to complete it, the number of fields and required steps by 29%, avoiding the customer’s submission of any additional documents, and providing proactive solutions to obtain services, such as using generative artificial intelligence to answer customer inquiries related to human resources systems, policies and legislation.
After developing services and eliminating bureaucracy, FAHR was able to cut down the average time to submit requests for its main services by 49%, and reduced the number of fields required for the service by 60%, and the required documents by 67%.
As part of its efforts to eliminate bureaucracy, FAHR reviewed 23 processes related to human resources procedures, in cooperation with partners in federal entities, and updated the human resources procedures guide in the federal government.
FAHR has developed a mechanism for approving ministerial decisions, and officials in the federal government can now approve more than one ministerial decision at once, in easy and quick steps, by using the digital identity, without the need to go through the signing process. This has reduced the time required to sign the decision from 120 seconds to 7 seconds, and the number of screens for implementing the procedure from 6 to 2 screens.
FAHR intensified its efforts to improve and develop its internal processes, by reviewing, analyzing and documenting existing processes, analyzing opportunities for improvement, making the necessary changes for simplification, eliminating all duplicate and unnecessary requirements and conditions, and accelerating their implementation by reducing the steps of approvals by 10% and cutting down the steps of implementing operations by 29%.
The Bureaucracy Zero Programme seeks to simplify and reduce government procedures and eliminate unnecessary procedures and requirements. Ministries and government entities were directed to immediately implement the programme by cancelling no less than 2,000 government procedures, reducing no less than 50% of the time periods for procedures, and eliminating all unnecessary conditions and requirements within a year. The results of the work will be evaluated and the best achievements will be celebrated by the end of 2024.