Deven Govender, a South African employment equity specialist in the mining sector based overseas, said there were several reasons for the failure to secure executive talent in corporate SA. At the top of the list are insufficient development prospects for senior management. Govender said there was also a lack of commitment from employers to succession planning and executive coaching. Employers were working ineffectively with their head-hunters, he said.
Martine Schaffer, the MD of Homecoming Revolution, said there was now definitely going to be an increase in the inflow of talent into the country as work becomes scarce overseas. “This presents an opportunity for SA to retain talent and it is very important how corporates present themselves,” says Leonie Pentz, director of AIMS
Furthermore, human resource departments at bigger companies tended to pile vital talent attraction functions on to inexperienced human resource officers' shoulders, she said.
Wilson Rooy, a human resource executive with more than 13 years of experience relating to the employment of equity executives, said the way in which companies embarked on appointing senior black talent was often wrong. “They make it very obvious that they are doing it for their employment equity targets,” Rooy said. So the focus is on equity rather than skills, he said.
Human resource professionals also tended to build the appointment of black executives into the incentive schemes. “I think in terms of searching for black executives it could be more transparent, conducted with more integrity and must be done for the right reasons,” Rooy said.
Pentz said companies should change their focus from being process-driven to talent-driven. They could possibly have a senior human resource person doing executive interviews, but a human resource officer would not be sufficiently skilled, she said. “There needs to be trained human resource people who do high-level interviews for senior management effectively.”
Source: Business Day
Published courtesy of
.
