Government and the private sector agree on one thing: skills development is an imperative, and both are willing to spend money to ensure that skills development within the black economic empowerment component is taken seriously

They may not see eye to eye on many issues, but when it comes to skills development, the interests of the South African government and the country’s big corporates converge.

The two seriously believe in skills development, with South Africa’s big corporates being among the largest spenders on skills training.

Both see themselves as important players, ready and willing to improve the country’s skills development.

This brings us to the subject of black economic empowerment (BEE) in South Africa and its role in skills development.

Since the advent of BEE in the early 2000s, the face of human capital in South Africa’s big corporations has changed dramatically.

According to the government’s Codes of Good Practice, big corporates should have initiatives that will increase the representation of black people in management structures across organisations. These codes are the framework for the measurement of broad-based BEE.

And most South African companies have these initiatives aimed at significantly increasing the representation of black people (men and women) across all levels of the organisations, particularly in leadership roles.

Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest bank by assets and South Africa’s second largest retail bank after Absa, has 53 341 employees in more than 30 countries across the world, with 57% of these employees being women. It has operations in 17 African countries.

As the majority of staff is based in Africa, this could mean black people are in a majority in the company.

In 2010 alone (figures for 2011 were not yet available at the time of writing), the company spent R612 million up from R552 million on skills development. This made up 2.8% of the total staff costs.

Standard Bank claims to have recognised that the competence of its people is key to the group’s success, particularly in the face of global competition for skills. As such, it has learning and development initiatives that are run in all business units to drive business performance and help its employees develop to their full potential.

Standard Bank’s executive committee and transformation forum meet regularly to report on the progress that has been made in skills development, particularly at management levels. Before these meetings, the transformation forum monitors this process very closely.

The bank has instituted the Global Leadership Centre (GLC), which it claims is an innovative, high-quality and comprehensive learning facility established to drive the group’s goal of instilling leadership as a core competency and a competitive advantage.

Standard Bank is establishing learning centres within its businesses in almost all its African operations. One such area where learning centres have been set up is in Lagos, Nigeria. These centres deliver customised learning and development for Standard Bank employees in the West Africa region. In addition, the centres run leadership programmes developed by the GLC.

Since the inception of the GLC in 2006, 14 075 employees have undergone leadership training.

Standard Bank said its focus in 2010 was to enhance the current leadership programmes offered with a strong focus on customer centricity, competing in the group’s chosen markets and driving effective execution of the group’s strategy.

In that year, Standard Bank continued to ensure its leaders were equipped with the required skills and capabilities to manage teams of people within and across countries and cultures in which the bank operates.

A total of 2 291 managers attended a two-week leadership development programme at the GLC, of which 1 199 were black employees.

Global talent pools have been created to improve Standard Bank’s view of its employees’ skills across the group. This approach aims to develop an internal pipeline of future leaders across all levels of the company.

“Fundamental to any company is its culture – driving how we work and relate to each other as colleagues. By sharing available skills, experiences and abilities in the group’s diverse employee base, the group is able to harness the opportunities that exist for viewing things from different perspectives and developing innovative solutions and processes,” group chief executive officer Jacko Maree said recently.

“Diversity management is achieved by developing work environments where employees from diverse backgrounds and perspectives feel valued, respected and able to contribute to their full potential.”

Anglo American, the largest mining company in South Africa listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, said it continues to make strides in the transformation of its workforce and has achieved all the employment equity targets set by the Mining Charter in 2002 and by the new charter launched in 2010.

It claims to have been at the forefront of creating sustainable BEE. It has a number of initiatives to drive change, and Anglo American’s achievements in this area have set the benchmark for other companies.

“Our progress in fulfilling the requirements of the Mining Charter, and our commitment to BEE was rewarded when the Department of Mineral Resources granted us new order mining rights for all our operations in early 2008,” CEO Cynthia Carroll said in a statement recently.

According to Anglo American, its group BEE spend grew from R1.1 billion in 2000 to R12.1 billion for core operations alone in 2010. The BEE spend on capital goods is already ahead of the 40% BEE procurement target for 2014.

In South Africa, the mining giant conducts work across many diverse cultures. As such, it helps to eliminate prejudice and to create a culture of inclusive diversity that is at the heart of all its initiatives.

Anglo American seeks to achieve a more equitable and demographically representative workforce, with particular focus on bringing women into the mainstream of the mining sector.

By the end of 2010, 46% of management positions across its operations were held by historically disadvantaged South Africans, and the representation of women in management levels had risen to 19% by December 2009. Women now comprise 13% of its total employee population.

The Anglo American Entrepreneur Internship Programme is an accelerated learning experience for high-potential entrepreneurs who have the capacity to start or grow businesses that can achieve rapid growth in employment size and revenues.

It combines experiential learning with industry exposure, mentoring and networking.

Anglo American is interested in investing in small and medium enterprises that could, given time, work with its supply chain in future to supply a pipeline of products and services to the mining company.

Aveng, South Africa’s largest construction company, in the past two years has seen its skills development spend against the Construction Charter rules surge dramatically. It has invested a total of R159 million in training and development initiatives, with 65% of this being spent on black employees.

The group is committed to developing the capacity of black communities to participate in the mainstream economy by providing innovative, commercially competitive solutions for communities in which it operates and established small, medium and micro enterprises and exempt micro enterprises.

Support for women is a major focus for Aveng, and will be a priority in the future projects and development plans of the group.

The percentage of black directors on the board of Aveng is 79.59%, using the Construction Charter calculation tool.

The group’s talent development function is responsible for ensuring it has the required processes, systems and applications to support the transformation of the workforce.

Aveng has accelerated the upward mobility of black employees over the past two years. The group’s involvement in Youth in Construction, run by South Africa’s construction industry, and Aveng’s strong bursary programme are geared toward attracting and developing young black professionals.

This has been Aveng’s primary focus over the past two years and is evident from a review of the trend that top management has improved black representation from 13% in 2009 to 29% in 2011.

Mzwandile Jacks