SA / Struggling to keep skilled workers

COMPANIES that employ people with skills classified as essential and scarce are in a dog-eat-dog situation, maybe not so much in the private sector but the public sector is surely feeling the pinch.

Yesterday, state arms manufacturing company Denel complained to Parliament about how it was training engineers only to have them leave the company as quickly as they came in. The company’s retention rate is too low, which Denel blamed on the frequent changing of jobs by young professionals who sell their skills to the highest bidder in the market.

But the poaching of skills is not just a problem between the public and the private sectors. Denel cried foul at how it lost its young engineers to Eskom. Last year, when state-owned companies presented their training programmes to the parliamentary portfolio committee on public enterprises, the issue of poaching from each other also became topical. Those benefiting have been Eskom and Transnet, while smaller entities have suffered.

But then again it all goes back to being an employer of choice. Pupils in the rural areas and even a large number of those in the urban townships and suburbs know Eskom as their prospective employer before they even get admitted for the university degrees they want to pursue. Sometimes even their choices of study are influenced by what career opportunities Eskom or Telkom can offer them.

It all goes back to reputation, historic employee relations and what career growth opportunities the company has to offer. Add a couple of more bucks to that, you have a winning formula.

Denel offers more than 80 university bursaries a year but then retrenches more than 500 technical staff in one year. That cannot be a pull factor for young talent to whom job security is a priority concern. But perhaps the move to shorten the period they have to serve the company before advancing onto the next level of their career would work in Denel’s favour this time.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor 

via Enterprises struggle to hold on to skilled workers – Business News | IOL Business | IOL.co.za.