Tag: upskilling

It’s fair to say that in human resources (HR) circles there is something of a panic around talent. Between “quiet quitting”, the great resignation, and the general disruption to the workplace caused by COVID-19, HR practitioners find themselves grappling with how to attract, develop and retain talent, and there is much handwringing about the so-called talent shortage.

Artificial Intelligence is the world’s hottest technology trend right now, with tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard grabbing global headlines. However, there is another technology that is set to automate more mundane, tedious, and time-consuming tasks in just a fraction of the time and cost compared to traditional methods - and it’s called Robotic Process Automation (RPAs).

A key focus of any human resources (HR) department is retaining key skills. A big part of this involves building an appealing and enabling company culture that attracts top people and keeps them in the organisation.

Workforce training, while essential for upskilling, can cause operational downtime which affects the company’s bottom line. However, this is easily countered with the introduction of on-demand online training. This gives workers the flexibility to attend their training sessions without impacting their work schedules.

The emergence of next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) should not be seen as a direct threat to IT professionals, but rather as an opportunity to upskill and master the new technology.

Pre-COVID-19, travel and tourism contributed 6.9% to South Africa’s gross domestic product, declining to 3.7% in 2020. Similarly, the number of jobs created by the sector dropped by 32.4% from 1.5 million to 987,000. It was, according to Statistics SA, bigger than agriculture, utilities and construction.

The migration to the metaverse, or the Great ‘Metagration’ as we call it, means that businesses must upskill their teams and learn from the youth to close the knowledge gap.

It is anticipated that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will grow Africa’s economy by $1.2 trillion by 2030. Fuelling this growth are South African tech start-ups, 357 of which have raised a combined $994 million and employed an estimated 11,000 people since 2015.

Does the current model of the traditional regulatory and statutory audit still make sense in the changing business context? These audits performed by independent and external auditors in line with relevant laws and regulations, require the auditee to submit a set of reporting information, and the auditor to produce their report annually in line with the legislated timelines and to meet stakeholder needs.

Back in 2007, Michael Hammer, the father of the process-centred organisation, wrote in the Harvard Business Review that few executives question the idea that by redesigning business processes - work that runs from end to end across an enterprise - they can achieve extraordinary improvements in cost, quality, speed, profitability, and other key areas.