The initiative was announced during a Press conference held at Tamkeen office on Sunday at Seef Mall which was jointly addressed by Suad Adel Al Shakrani and Dr Ehsan Ghurbal from Tamkeen Human Capital Development.
Tamkeen’s Acting Vice President for Human Capital Development, Amal Al Kooheji was also present during the Press conference and said that the initiative was part of Tamkeen’s efforts to support Bahrainis and businesses to grow and develop.
The initiative aims at helping employers to address performance gaps of their Bahraini employees by providing high-quality training opportunities to allow them to develop competencies related to their work.
According to officials so far 12,500 employees in private sector have so far benefited. While in over the period of next four years
Through the programme, Tamkeen offers Bahraini employees a series of specialised and high-level training courses to help them improve their performance and advance in their careers. The training programmes are designed based on detailed analysis conducted by a dedicated Tamkeen team in cooperation with the employers to identify performance gaps among their Bahraini employees by conducting Training Needs Analysis (TNA) and agreeing on a Personal Development Plan (PDP) for each employee. Once the training programme is completed successfully, the benefiting employee will receive a subsidised salary increment by Tamkeen.
Previously, the programme offered only three options to employers to train their employees, however; now with the enhanced Career Progression Programme, employers will have access to 10 flexible options, with training budget subsidies ranging between BD 800 and BD 2500 and pay increase subsidies ranging between BD 20 and BD 100, for each benefiting employee. In addition, the salary increment subsidy period will now continue in full to a period of 18 months.
“The Career Progression Programme has been critical to the development of both employers and employees, as it provides a dual benefit to both entities, with the employee benefiting by improving their competencies, a wage increase and better career opportunities, while the employer can achieve higher employee retention rates by improving the skills of their employees resulting in better overall business performance to the company. With the new enhanced Career Progression Programme, employers will now be able to select the optimal option that matches their circumstances and needs,” Tamkeen’s Acting Vice President for Human Capital Development, Amal Al Kooheji, said.
Launched in 2007, the Career Progression Programme has so far served more than 12,500 Bahraini employees from approximately 600 companies across all sectors, with more than BD 22 million spent over the programme so far.