"Too much focus and public attention can sometimes get placed on transformation at ownership and senior director level," says Alexander Forbes group HR director Mpho Nkeli. "However, transformation takes place throughout the group, not just at these elevated levels.
"Employment equity and skills development, which are closely interconnected, are areas where real and deep transformation can take place. The public can get fixated on a few top positions that make the headlines. They should instead be looking at what is happening in the entire operation."
Anton Ossip
Group head of SA operations Anton Ossip reaffirms the close link between skills development and employment equity. "In transforming our staff numbers, we have to ensure that the quality of our businesses and customer service is maintained. This means building up a pipeline of talented individuals who are trained and groomed for their positions, and are not fast-tracked and set up for failure. We invest a lot in skills development. However, the downside is that competitors that do not will look to take away some of our top staff from time to time, and we do lose talent to some very enticing salary offers from others in the industry. It becomes a careful balance of offering remuneration packages that will ensure we retain staff, while still being fair to our existing staff complement."
Nkeli says there are many training opportunities available in the group, tailored for all levels of staff. "Our greatest strength is our technical training and industry-specific education, which is offered through various schools and academies in all of our divisions."
The Actuarial College offers a six-month technical and work-based training course to actuarial graduates, run by Alexander Forbes managers and senior actuarial students, with 35 out of the present 115 actuarial graduates being black. Alexander Forbes also recently began offering the TOPP (Training Outside of Public Practice) programme for chartered accountants and there are four students in this initiative. The group also ensures that all professionals, such as accountants and actuaries, meet their continuing professional development commitments and requirements.
The graduate programme annually takes on several graduates from faculties such as commerce and law for a two-year programme. It pairs them with senior mentors who offer insights into career and personal development issues, and rotates them through many divisions of the business so they come out exposed to all facets of operations.
The learnership programme in the risk & insurance and financial services divisions is a one-year programme for matriculants. It takes on about 50 candidates each year and ensures they are exposed to a number of operating units, with employment opportunities available on completion. "But the main focus is to ensure they benefit from top-quality experience and structured learning," says Nkeli. "And if they do not join us on a permanent basis, there should be opportunities for them elsewhere in the sector."
The group also sponsors the studies of between 40 and 60 actuarial, commerce, and business administration students each year, offering them vacation work during the July and December breaks.
Mpho Nkeli
Nkeli says skills development extends to employee bursaries for business-related study. "These are well taken up, and we also offer bursaries to the children of nonmanagement-level employees."
Training and development is linked to performance management. "This is a key fundamental of our approach and applies to all staff," says Nkeli. "We don't just have training for training's sake. There must be a purpose - either to correct performance, enhance existing performance or to move a career along and up. There must be a clear reason for training and it must be connected to some aspect of performance of that staff member."
Risk & insurance services CEO Jurie Erwee, who himself came out of the graduate training programme "many years ago", describes his division as "the university of SA insurance".
"We offer incredible training and development - and unfortunately this puts us at risk of our staff being head-hunted by others in the industry. Some of our staff have even gone to offshore competitors where they have done exceptionally well. But we see this occurrence in a philosophical context, and the broader financial services industry benefits enormously from our investment in training."
Erwee says skills development is undoubtedly the cornerstone of the success of the risk & insurance division. "As an advisory business, we are almost entirely dependent on the quality of our human capital. Our staff must therefore be at the top of the industry. They take ownership of their own development and volunteer and come forward for training - it is not a grudge, and not a short-lived fad."
The Risk & Insurance Training Academy offers a wide range of training, from technical to management and leadership courses. Training is not only classroom based, as there are also e-learning platforms, and actuaries, engineers and accountants that need to continually upgrade their skills would go outside the group for specialist training. A key part of training involves dedicated mentorship and staff who go through the risk & insurance division training programmes would then go on to become mentors for the next round of intakes.
Erwee says training is not done to simply satisfy compliance requirements. "It must be done with the aims of improving customer service at all levels and upgrading skills of individual staff members. There are both personal and business benefits to ongoing training."
Recent appointments that come from the graduate training programme include Tutu Madungandaba, who joined Alexander Forbes as a graduate trainee after qualifying as an attorney in 1987. He is now risk services MD. Greg Wattam, risk services deputy MD, joined the business unit as a graduate trainee in 1993.
