Tamara Parker | CEO | Mercer South Africa | mail me |
South African companies are acknowledging that the post COVID-19 period requires new thinking on talent and skills retention, embracing technology, incorporating sustainability in business models, and investing more in employee well-being, benefits and engagement.
This is according to four trends emerging from the South African edition of our Global Talent Trends 2020-2021 report that has been released.
While these trends emerged in 2020 as companies grappled with the pandemic, they have not only grown in relevance, but critically are going to shape the future of businesses who act now.
Defining future workforce
The four trends that South Africa companies should adopt are embracing a new multi-stakeholder model that encompasses transparency and empathy; reskilling to transform the workforce for a new world economy; harnessing the power of data and redesigning the work experience to inspire and invigorate employees.
According to the report, 75% of HR leaders in South Africa who participated in the survey expected COVID-19 to negatively affect their businesses.
Defining future workforce needs and sustainably restructuring and reinventing should be top priorities for 2021, if companies and organisations are to navigate through the economic crisis sustainably and cost-effectively.
Many South African companies have realised that life will never be the same again post COVID-19.
Business survival will, to a large extent, depend on how companies and organisations embrace the future, use technology, invest in skilling and re-skilling employees, develop tailor-made employee benefits, incorporate mental well-being into HR models, develop sustainable working models, and embed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices in business models.
Up to 67% of the companies surveyed are already building ESG goals into their broader transformation agendas, significantly more than the global average (45%); while one in five organisations (20%) are embedding ESG metrics into executive scorecards.
New possibilities
No matter the degree to which COVID-19 has affected an industry’s or organisation’s ability to operate, the pandemic has opened many organisations’ eyes to new possibilities.
As a result, companies and organisations have started deeper conversations on such issues as developing people practices that will endure post the pandemic, finding sustainable flexible employee models which can be used as foundations for growth, or for reinventing the future.
Companies are now confronted with unavoidable conversations on how they can use the lessons of the pandemic and use innovation, born out of necessity, to develop a new way of working and plan for reinvention and innovation.
The race to reskill for a new world economy has started. Of the companies surveyed, at least 63% are already targeting workforce reskilling towards critical talent pools, while 13% intend to increase spending on workforce upskilling/reskilling for the entire workforce.
“Companies and organisations should identify skills that will be needed in the future and share this information with employees. Sharing information also means creating pathways for employees to fill future roles in an organisation.”
– Tesantha Naidoo, Senior Associate at Mercer South Africa
“Big data is going to be the centrepiece of programmes to re-engage employees. 38% of the companies surveyed want to enable digital health check-ups to promote health goals.”
– Keletjo Chiloane, Senior Associate at Mercer South Africa
In conclusion
A third of those surveyed planned to address mental or emotional well-being at the workplace, a similar number said they want to introduce a mental well-being strategy, and just under 30% of those surveyed planned to train managers to spot mental health issues before they became an issue.
Overall and in order for businesses to succeed, companies need to develop HR strategies and redesign business models which reflect the new digital reality, as well as the new shape of work.
