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Companies must put employees first if they want to remain attractive to talent.
This was the takeaway from the Mondelez International top employer panel discussion held in conjunction with the Top Employer Institute in Midrand, Johannesburg, on Tuesday.
Mondelez, a US multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage and snack food company responsible for products, including Cadbury, was named one of Africa’s top employers by The Employer Institute in Africa’s Top Employers 2023 Certification Programme.
The Top Employers Institute is a global HR authority that certifies excellence in people strategies and practices, “helping companies elevate their status as an employer”.
“Africa’s Top Employers 2023 Certification programme saw 274 organisations in 31 African countries and 26 industry sectors achieve the coveted Top Employers Africa Certification, with 129 organisations from South Africa and 140 from other African countries,” said Top Employers Institute’s Africa regional manager Nathier Jappie.
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Development of skills is key
Unpacking some of the trends coming out of the 2023 report, Sandra Botha, HR auditor at the institute, said the Covid-19 pandemic was the trigger that led organisations to realise that they had skill gaps.
Botha said top employers were now developing skills that helped employees navigate the new world of work. These include skills such as complex problem-solving, technology design and programming, and resilience and flexibility.
Keshnie Martin, head of HR at Accentuate Africa, said there was a focus on virtual training. Companies like Accentuate were investing in the platforms they had.
Martin said this empowers people to take control of their careers, adding there was now a challenge in how employees find time for the training. Martin said:
“Hence, there’s a focus on wellbeing and programmes to help our people focus on how to manage stress, burnout and get a balance in their lives.”
Martin said with Africa seeing growth in terms of tech hubs popping up on the continent, organisations need to work on reskilling the talent that they have.
“Employers have to be committed, determined on finding out what skills they need, the skills clients require and partner with education organisations to develop those skills.”
Mondelez International’s sub-Saharan Africa people lead, Cebile Xulu, said HR professionals are now adopting marketing strategies in terms of trying to understand talent.
“HR professionals need to ask if they really understand the talent landscape; do we understand what people want when they come into organisations?” Xulu said.
Xulu added that the data-driven approach was something HR professionals needed to embrace to keep their seat at the table and have a meaningful impact on the talent decisions made by organisations.
The panels also discussed some of the reasons talent was being pushed out of the continent.
Xulu said that the instability on the continent was one of the biggest drivers of talent. She mentioned:
“Some of our countries have political instability. People are looking for progressive governments where they feel they have a future, and their children will have futures. People are looking at the quality of education being offered in their countries. They make decisions to move to look for better education for their children and not necessarily themselves,” Xulu said.
Employment flexibility
The panel also discussed the advantages of flexible employment contracts. Xulu stated that companies needed to start being flexible in terms of the options they gave talent.
“The rest of the world is benefiting from the flexibility and fluidity of talent marketplaces, where people don’t have one employer,” Xulu said.
She added companies needed to look at it in terms of what services they needed and how best they could acquire those services.
Njabulo Mashigo, HR director at Vodacom South Africa, said that flexibility worked internally, too.
“There’s this crowd-sourcing concept, where someone in finance can contribute something to an HR project.”
Mashigo added that organisations should look at the skills they had for projects instead of always outsourcing them, being flexible enough to allow people with those skills to contribute without many hurdles.
