Businesses can achieve greater success with skilled workforce planning

If more business leaders take a skills-first approach, more jobs would be unlocked, yielding greater benefits for the economy and wider society

PwC South Africa is pleased to share its seventh South Africa Economic Outlook report for 2023.

In this edition, we focus on different aspects around skilled labour. Skilled jobs — for example, engineers, doctors, teachers, and business and legal professionals — total 4.1 million, which is equal to 25% of total employment in South Africa. These workers lead the organisations (both private and public) that will need to contribute to resolving the country’s overall unemployment and related socio-economic challenges.

South African business leaders have to reinvent their organisations to cope with a challenging business environment. However, without the support and energy of all their people, these efforts will fail. In the current environment, where skills gaps appear to be widening, and more employees than ever are struggling just to get by, South African business leaders cannot take anything about their workforce or culture for granted.

PwC’s Global Hopes and Fears Survey 2023 found that 61% of South African survey respondents have skills that are not clear from their qualifications, employment history or job titles. This highlights the need for ‘skills-first’ hiring where people are hired for their skills and competencies, rather than their qualifications.

Marthle du Plessis, PwC Africa Workforce of the Future Platform Leader, says:

“Across industries, South African organisations need a clear and meaningful mandate to attract and retain the right people with relevant skills, following a ‘skills-first’ approach. PwC is collaborating with the World Economic Forum to help drive the move towards skills-first labour markets around the world. The move could unlock the labour market for 100 million people globally, delivering benefits not only to businesses and individuals, but to wider society and the economy as well.”

At a practical level, the four basic principles of Strategic Workforce Planning are to ensure that an organisation 1) has the right people with 2) the right skills at 3) the right place and time and 4) at the right cost.

Existing skills are only part of the ‘right skills’ conversation. Upskilling of workers is another important component of workforce planning. However, only a third of local survey respondents believe the skills their job requires will change significantly in the next five years.

Lullu Krugel, PwC South Africa Chief Economist, says:

“Upskilling will be vital to ensuring that South African industries are staffed with people who have the know-how to help drive economic growth and development. At a company level, offering training and development opportunities has a quantifiable positive impact on company financials by improving the employee experience. This, in turn, results in fewer resignations and increased profitability.”

An employee’s work experience is no longer influenced by singular factors such as pay or a direct supervisor. It is about more than that: from the technology they use, to their physical workspace environment, to — importantly, in this report’s context — their learning and development opportunities. “An engaged workforce is more likely to be motivated and productive, energised to learn new skills, and eager to deliver a positive customer experience,” Krugel says.

South African industries that spend the most money on training include tertiary sectors like insurance, telecommunications, banking, real estate and financial services. These industries have a large contingent of skilled workers. In the finance space, for example, workers are continuously needing to adapt to changing consumer trends and technologies. Our Payments Transformation Newsletter July 2023 notes that advancement in technology enables payment service providers to expand and improve their service offerings and lower their cost to serve.

In the industrial manufacturing sector, our report Building avenues for tomorrow’s industrial manufacturing workforce, today! finds that companies need to invest in strategies that are more technology and sustainability focused in order to create a culture which will help them stay relevant, attract and retain employees, improve productivity and make an impact. These strategies should be enabled through embedding cultural shifts through exciting employee value propositions and continuous upskilling, cross-skilling and reskilling of the workforce.

Key content in this report includes:
- Employment trends: Skilled jobs have recovered strongly from the COVID-19 losses.
- Skills-first hiring: Talent is hiding in plain sight and needs the right culture to thrive.
- Workforce as a value driver: People-planning to support the future of business success.
- Strategic Workforce Planning: A practical example from South Africa’s financial sector.
- Industry perspective: Creating a digitally-enabled and connected industrial manufacturing workforce.
- Sustainability focus: Upskilling is vital to ensuring that staff have the right know-how.
- How PwC can help with Strategic Workforce Planning.

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