The University of Pretoria (UP) and its business school, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), each won a LinkedIn Talent Award at the annual ceremony held recently.

UP received the award for Best Employer Brand on LinkedIn (Africa: Academia and Government category), and GIBS won the award for Learning Champion (South Africa Academia).

The LinkedIn Talent Awards are a celebration of human resources teams around the world who are innovating and moving the entire industry forward. Every year the LinkedIn Data and Insights team analyses the performance, results and impact of organisations utilising LinkedIn Talents Solutions in Africa. The awards recognise companies and organisations for their activities on the LinkedIn platform, and the 2022 winners are seen as “leading the future of work by demonstrating remarkable adaptability, innovation, and creativity throughout one of the most challenging years for talent”.

“This recognition for the University of Pretoria from a global organisation such as LinkedIn recognises an innovative collaboration on talent engagement between the Departments of Human Resources and Institutional Advancement, through the leveraging of platforms like social media, where our brand positioning is an incredible tool for publishing content that generates interest from current and future UP talent,” said Sithembile Mbuyisa, Director of Human Resources at UP.

“Together our HR and social media teams have helped to boost UP’s already strong brand recognition in South Africa, Africa and around the world, and this is shown by our LinkedIn audience’s engagement with the organisation on the platform – and especially in the ways in which UP staff are interacting with the university on LinkedIn. We also congratulate our colleagues at GIBS, who received the award for Learning Champion – an indication of how much UP and GIBS value the importance of collaboration, and of a continual focus on upskilling staff and developing talent.”

UP was nominated against the City of Cape Town and the University of Johannesburg in the category ‘Best Employer Brand on LinkedIn (Academia and Government)’, which it won. According to the LinkedIn Talent Awards criteria, this award recognises companies who focused on building a strong employer brand to engage with their audience in a meaningful way. The criteria measured included company page views, percentage of follower growth, and how staff members engaged with company posts (via likes, comments, or shares).

UP was also nominated in the category Learning Champion (South Africa Academia), going up against Inscape and GIBS (which won in this category). This category recognises companies who invested in the learning and development of their employees by connecting them to relevant and applicable skills. The criteria measured were based on the number of staff members who took part in LinkedIn Learning courses, including measures such as the percentage of repeat learners, the average percentage of logins, and the average viewing time per learner.