As
Africa's growth continues to attract investors, both foreign and
domestic, a key challenge has emerged—a lack of top executive talent to
take over the jobs that these investments create, according to a
recent survey from Russell Reynolds Associates, a global headhunting outfit.
“Scarcity
of talent is very much on the mind of all corporations," a human
resources director for a telecom firm told researchers.
Russell
Reynolds surveyed 230 senior executives in the continent's key markets
of Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, and discovered that the talent gap
has proven to be a "make or break" issue for some top companies.
Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, is seen as the most challenging
market in which to recruit high-level talent.
Traditional
management skills are missing in particular, executives say. One
explanation may be a lack of high quality education, and particularly
top notch business schools on the continent. For example, the University
of Cape Town is the only African higher education institution that made
it into the
Financial Times top 100 MBA programs in the world.
Firms
are coming up with creative ways to fill high-level positions. One is
to create in-house management training programs, something companies
including Diageo, Coca Cola and McKinsey are doing. Another approach is
to mine areas of the continent where talents exists and transfer them to
countries where there is a dearth of skills. "There is an emerging
trend toward pan-African leaders. It is still rare but slowly emerging,"
one HR executive told the survey.
The African diaspora,
estimated to
be about 30 million globally, is also emerging as a key source of
talent for some of these companies. With the continent's growth, some
Africans, who left for better opportunities abroad, are expressing a
willingness to return. "The Kenyan economy is growing at a fast pace,
increasingly constituting a ‘pull’ factor for diaspora talent," one
executive told the researchers.
But
this sentiment is not shared everywhere else on the continent. The
South African diaspora is less willing to return home, firms believe.
Despite being from the most developed economy in the region, economic
and political factors in the country are seen as prohibitive, the survey
found.
As
the private sector continues to grow, companies will face challenges
not only recruiting top talent but retaining it. While attractive
compensation packages are proven motivators, the potential to rise to
the top is more compelling, the survey shows. This gives local companies
an edge compared to foreign firms, and explains why Kenyans and South
Africans opt to work for local organizations. Nigerians, on the other
hand, have shown a preference for multinational companies.
