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14.08.2019

Head of the Presidential Human Resources Office, Salim Atay said that 863 thousand people participated in the Public-Data survey covering all public employees.
He expressed that on behalf of revealing the problems of all institutions who were surveyed and added "We will have the tomography of Turkey in the field of human resources.”.  To date, officials have always been criticized. We said this time we listen to the officers. The survey doesn't have a secret agenda, we want to pinpoint problems. Now we will go to institutions with ’focus groups’ and listen to the employees”.

A World Record

Doing some explanations about Public Data (Kamu-Veri), the survey which covers all civil servants, and Uni-Data (Üni-Veri) projects, created to guide university students, Atay added the following: “We do this work because we want to make healthy and objective decisions based on evidence-based data with both Uni-Data and Public-Data. We will share these works with the society, they will not remain in our honour. 863 thousand people participated in Public-Data and this is a world record. There were some criticisms. All the economies that we consider to be developed such as the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia also do this. There is nothing more natural than listening to the satisfaction, loyalty, and problems of a person who is paid for. We never say “we did it ourselves without seeing the best practices in the world” in any subjects. None of our projects is based on our own personal experience. We are still working on the questionnaire filled out by 863 thousand officers. These studies are carried out in all countries of the world. We received some criticisms as such “You conduct the survey through E-devlet, thus you label the people.” In an organization with millions of employees, we have no other way of delivering the survey to people. What will you do to whom and where in a place so many people filled out the survey? The opinions provided by so many people already tell us enough. The USA could reach 599 thousand people. We do not do this survey to give a percentage, as many survey companies do.”

The Data are Analyzed

Atay reminded that this survey was conducted to understand the problems of all institutions at the department level and to develop solutions for them and stated that the results will be shared with the institutions in the form of ‘see that we have identified urgent, short, medium and long-term problems related to your institution’. He also said that “We want the system to work more effectively and faster, and to ensure employee satisfaction. Officers do not work; their performance is poor. The officer was always criticized because the he did not do his job, so we thought that we should listen to the officer. Now, these data are analyzed by both our consultants and experts. This survey has no hidden agenda. We are public, we want to understand employees better. We want to identify problems and complaints. We put questions about contemporary human resources management into the questions. It starts with hiring, continues with wages, with performance and career planning. For example, we asked them if they think career planning is done. ‘Do you love your job, do you feel yourself belong, do you think that you get paid for your labor, you get paid for when you work harder, you get rewarded when you do your job on equal terms? Does your manager help you with your career plan?’ were the other questions.”

Accurate Measurement Thanks to the Public Data Survey

Atay reminding that our country is the one in which employees participate in the research conducted by the government the most says that “As the Human Resources Office, we started to perform a measurement including everyone working for the government and accordingly we had master data. By processing the current data, we will provide related institutions with output. By this way, we will make them foresee their future. We will repeat this survey every year. Over the master data, we will reveal Turkey’s human resources management, policies and methods. In a way, we will have the tomography of public. We encountered many interesting things at this point. There is a vast country with millions of employees and there are thousands of available positions in the government. Results of this public survey won’t be our only filter for measurement. We will also form focus groups consisting of academicians, industrial engineers and industrial psychologists. These groups visit institutions and decide by saying “as a result of the research conducted by us in your institution, we reached these results, what do they mean to you?”  They will do this to find out what they should deduce from the results. If necessary, they will arrange one-on-one meetings. I tell my friends that if we can’t answer the question of a strict scientist, let’s not appear before public. If we can’t reply a question coming from a scientist asking how we measured this, we shouldn’t get involved in this survey thing. Science is the core of our measurements.”  

"We examined social media and blogs"

Atay stated that a questionnaire pool was created for more than 3,000 questions and added “We analyzed all the thousands of complaints received from CIMER except these questions.” We received and examined all the problems in social media. We analyzed all the forums and blogs. Deciding about your citizens’ life conditions is a risk-carrying job. How do I cause something that a citizen would be a victim of? Our priority is to raise awareness in institutions. We do not have any personal data.

Which field do university graduates work in?

Underlining that Uni-Veri, a study based on scientific methods, is a practice undertaken by very few countries in the world, Atay said: ‘The study is about to be completed and we will share the more comprehensive results of these data with all the rectors. Our most important subject is young population. Our priority is to follow the graduates. A rector will be able to see the status of both departments and alumni from the system. We have done something that has not been done in the history of higher education. We have also measured whether a student is doing a job in the field he graduated or whether they are working in a field that a high school graduate can do. This was unprecedented in the history of the Republic. Physicians, lawyers, pharmacists are doing their profession. But there are some departments – these students do not need to study 4 years to do that profession. While there is such concrete, realistic data, no administrator can act as if there were no data. Let the public pursue this, too. Let them not direct their child to jobs that do not require qualification. Universities and decision-making institutions will examine the circumstances and not increase the quota for the departments that do not have any payoff in the market, and they will not open unnecessary departments. We will not enter the areas where young people's labor is wasted. This has also been the beginning of a planning process.”

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