{"id":1939,"date":"2017-05-18T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2017-05-18T11:42:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T10:42:41","slug":"wheres-the-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2017\/05\/18\/wheres-the-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"Where&#8217;s the talent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Conversations with business leaders from a number of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries revealed that <strong>recruiting and retaining talent is one of the most important challenges they face<\/strong> \u2013 if not the most important. The <a href=\"http:\/\/ftp01.economist.com.hk\/ECN_papers\/2017AfBOS\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>2017 African business outlook survey<\/strong><\/a> confirmed that this experience is generalized. How do companies cope with this challenge?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Recruiting talent<\/u>: digital channels have become increasingly popular for recruitment in the last few years. Three years ago, <strong>social media was already among the Top-10<\/strong> most used channels to source talent, according to a report by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ey.com\/Publication\/vwLUAssets\/EY-2014-SSA-Talent-Trends-Survey-Report\/$FILE\/EY-2014-SSA-Talent-Trends-Survey-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">EY<\/a>. Yet, headhunters, recruitment agencies, company websites and staff referrals were still the most used recruitment methods in SSA. About one third of the companies use <strong>alumni networks<\/strong> in their recruiting strategy. This figure is likely to go up with the<strong> large increase in university enrollment in the region<\/strong>. Higher education students went up from 2.3 to 6.6 million between 1999 and 2013, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/monitor.icef.com\/2016\/10\/employability-challenge-sub-saharan-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>ICEF Monitor<\/strong><\/a>. This represents a large and rich source of networks to the <strong>benefit of both companies and employees<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1947\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1947\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/05\/talent.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1947\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/05\/talent-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"During graduation ceremony at Strathmore University, Nairobi, Kenya\" width=\"675\" height=\"506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/05\/talent-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/05\/talent-500x375.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/05\/talent.jpg 744w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1947\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">During graduation ceremony at Strathmore University, Nairobi, Kenya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Retaining talent<\/u>: <strong>more than 10% of Africa\u2019s highly educated professionals live and work in other continents<\/strong> \u2013 the African diaspora, as it\u2019s commonly called. To end with such a \u201c<strong>brain drain<\/strong>\u201d, McKinsey\u2019s report <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/global-themes\/middle-east-and-africa\/lions-on-the-move-realizing-the-potential-of-africas-economies\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Lions on the Move II<\/em><\/a> advises companies to <strong>develop their management team through localization, training, and integration<\/strong>. It also recommends shaping vocational training programs<strong> to create a front-line skills base at scale<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Balancing local and expatriate staff<\/u>: <strong>the proportions between local and foreign personnel vary among firms<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/ftp01.economist.com.hk\/ECN_papers\/2017AfBOS\" target=\"_blank\">some are skewed towards expatriates<\/a> while other shy away from this practice. For instance, <strong>TransUnion\u2019s Africa Region<\/strong> <strong>CEO Grant Philips comments<\/strong>: \u201cWe don\u2019t have any expatriates. We don\u2019t think it works. (\u2026) I find that local teams on the ground, which are able to connect with local networks, are very effective. We don\u2019t parachute in senior managers for day-to-day management.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A recurrent idea in this blog is that <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/07\/30\/it-takes-local-management-to-succeed-in-africa\/\"><strong><em>it takes local management to succeed in Africa<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Not only are expats more expensive but also \u2013 and more importantly \u2013 they are less tuned to the local environment. <strong>Investing in the human capital of employees will pay off<\/strong>, and this needs to be considered when making hiring decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Any experience recruiting or retaining talent in Sub-Saharan Africa?<\/p>\n<p><em>Nadim Elayan, Research Assistant at IESE Business School, collaborated in this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><u>Related articles<\/u>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2017\/05\/04\/advice-to-invest-in-africa\/\">Advice to invest in Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2017\/04\/20\/how-do-leaders-spend-their-time\/\">How do leaders spend their time?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/11\/17\/be-the-change\/\">Be the change<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/03\/19\/a-young-population-a-youthful-mentality\/\">A Young Population, a Youthful Mentality<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/09\/03\/thinking-long-term-in-africa\/\">Thinking long-term in Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/07\/30\/it-takes-local-management-to-succeed-in-africa\/\">It takes local management to succeed in Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conversations with business leaders from a number of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries revealed that recruiting and retaining talent is one of the most important challenges they face \u2013 if not the most important. The 2017 African business outlook survey confirmed that this experience is generalized. How do companies cope with this challenge? Recruiting talent: digital [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,85385,99314],"tags":[9132,89453,661,12556,100412,1626,100565,45536,100520,1339],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strategy","category-doing-business-in-africa","category-social-and-institutional-context","tag-alumni","tag-brain-drain","tag-expatriates","tag-human-capital","tag-local-management","tag-recruiting","tag-retaining","tag-skills","tag-ssa","tag-talent","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1949,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/1949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}