Human Resources Division

 

Mandate

Partner and empower line divisions to recruit, develop, and retain a skilled, committed, engaged and accountable staff base across Eskom.

Eskom is also committed to building skills, not only internally but also in the communities in which it operates. This supports Eskom’s aspiration to grow the South African economy and improve the quality of life of people in South Africa and in the southern African region.


Progress this year   Future priorities  
  • Eskom leadership development framework in place
  • Performed an intensive assessment of Eskom’s top 60 leaders
  • Developed preliminary workforce demand and supply forecast
  • Started rolling out a competence model pilot project
  • Rebuilt the Eskom Academy of Learning and Leadership Development Centre
  • Rated by young engineering professionals as the employer of choice in engineering and technology out of 60 companies in South Africa
  • Sustained the skills base and tripled the skills pipeline over the last five years, meeting the shareholder expectation of 4 950 learners in the pipeline.
  • Revise the performance and reward process
  • “Re-launch” the middle-management engagement process
  • Put signature leadership development programmes in place
  • Implement a transformation intervention plan
  • Put a workforce supply/demand model and process in place
  • Roll out a sourcing, development and deployment plan
  • Implement an employee relations and engagement model
  • Put core competence models and associated curricula in place
  • Put individual talent profiles in place for top 60 managers and leaders, with related development plans
  • Conduct an intensive assessment of the top 400 leaders in the organisation
  • Finalise long-term housing strategy
  • Embed competence models in all key human resources processes
  • Develop supervisory skills.

 

Overview

The mandate of Human Resources within Eskom remains entrenched in Eskom’s role within the context of South Africa.

Universal human resources principles that reflect the common needs of all South Africans

  • Improve the quality of life of all citizens of South Africa
  • Maximise the potential of each employee in Eskom
  • Become the embodiment of a united and democratic South Africa
  • Enhance South Africa’s participation in the global economy.

What Eskom’s Human Resources division provides

  • Strategy, direction, policies and assurance on people-related issues
  • Business partnering in the delivery of the organisational objectives
  • A cost-effective transactional service for economies of scale and skills
  • Culture change through effective change management and supporting programmes
  • A holistic training and development function and delivery centre.

Benchmarking

  • Training and development costs as a percentage of the wage bill:
    Eskom’s R998 million (2010: R758 million) investment in training and development is 5.7% of the wage bill. This puts Eskom well within the 75th percentile of United States utility companies (3.3%), and United Kingdom/European utility companies (3.5%) (PWC, 2008).
  • Training hours per annum per full-time equivalent (FTE):
    Eskom’s training hours per FTE is 62. This puts Eskom above the 75th percentile of US utility companies (37 hours) and between the 25th percentile and 50th percentile of UK/European utility companies (53 – 75 hours) (PWC, 2008).
  • Learner pipeline
    Eskom’s learner pipeline consists of 5 283RA learners, which is above the target agreed in the shareholder compact. There are 4 240RA engineering/technical learners, which is also above the target.
  • Employer of choice:
    Young engineering professionals rated Eskom the employer of choice in engineering and technology out of 60 companies in South Africa (Ideal Employer Ranking, Magnet Survey, 2010).
  • Overall staff turnover:
    Eskom’s overall staff turnover is 3.6% per year. This places Eskom favourably below the 25th percentile of South African companies (9.5%). This is still extremely low for Eskom, as the turnover in the last two decades for Eskom has been an average of 6.2%.
  • Turnover due to retirement:
    Eskom’s turnover due to retirement is 0.84%. This places Eskom midway between the 50th percentile and 75th percentile of South African companies (0.6 – 1.2%). 27% of Eskom’s staff are older than 50 years and could be considered a retirement risk within the next decade.
  • Disability:
    According to the report on employment equity for disability in the South African Public Service, the benchmark for disability is 2%. The Employment Equity Commission’s 2009 report found that people with disabilities (PWD) accounted for nearly 0.7% of the total number of employees reported by all employers. Eskom’s disability target is 3% of the workforce. Eskom prides itself in achieving levels that are above the national norm. (See table)
  • Age profile:
    The Eskom age profile is:
    – 18 to 20 years:
    – 20 to 29 years:
    – 30 to 39 years:
    – 40 to 49 years:
    – 50 to 59 years:
    – 60 and over 60 years:     		0.07%
    22.62%
    30.48%
    19.86%
    22.94%
    4.03%

The ideal ratio of young professionals to older professionals is 2:1. Eskom’s is currently 2:3, reflecting a disproportionately high number of people in the higher age categories (SAICE, 2008).

Modern office set-up at Eskom’s head office.


   
RA – Reasonable assurance provided by the independent assurance provider (Refer here).

 

Material issues

An employee value proposition that attracts, retains and engages target employees will be defined and implemented next year. Segmentation of the workforce will assist in addressing the diverse needs and preferences of the workforce population. The employee value proposition will be measured against the desired employer attributes of Eskom’s current and future talent mix.

Eskom has been fortunate to maintain a low 3.6% staff turnover (3.5% in 2010), mainly due to the restricted job market resulting from the economic climate both locally and internationally. However, Eskom continues to face a number of skills-related challenges:
  • Repositioning the Eskom Academy of Learning as a professional centre of excellence that manages all learning in Eskom
  • Meeting the stretched learner pipeline target in the shareholder compact.

Eskom has sustained its skills base and even tripled the learner pipeline over the last five years (2007 – 2011).

The next planning cycle will be marked by reinforcement of the government’s new growth path. In line with this, Eskom endeavours to be a developmental state-owned entity that can meaningfully contribute to skills development and job creation in South Africa. The higher levels of growth and development will put additional pressure on Eskom to maintain and improve its “Employer of Choice” niche in the marketplace through high potential (HiPo) talent management strategies and skills development opportunities for all employees. The roll-out of standardised, simplified policies, processes and systems (B2B programme) will position Human Resources well to play a leading role in the future high-performance utility model.

A talent management business process and procedure has been developed to ensure robust talent contingency planning and the creation of career development opportunities.

The identification and categorisation of skills as core, critical or scarce was aligned with the new legislative requirements in the organising framework for occupations.

A scientific workforce planning process and tool to enable demand and supply management is being implemented to enhance Eskom’s ability to identify and plan for medium- and long-term business capacity requirements. Eskom has identified core competencies and translated them into a workforce plan and a medium-term skills plan aligned with government’s Integrated Resource Plan. Eskom has also contributed to the energy sector skills plan.

The recruitment process has been optimised to enable the sourcing of the learner pipeline, and to address capacity gaps in the core and critical segments of the workforce skills plan. Internal talent pipelines will be strengthened by recruiting for potential at entry level, enabling and encouraging career progression at least to supervisory level. The Eskom Academy of Learning in partnership with tertiary institutions will be key enablers for skills development. An Eskom Power Plant Engineering Institute (in partnership with a South African university) and a faculty of customer service within the Eskom Academy of Learning will be established to boost skills in these critical areas.

Finally, a planned rotational deployment strategy with other state-owned enterprises, utilities, original equipment manufacturers and business partners will strengthen workforce flexibility, build strategic competencies and provide career development opportunities for the talent in Eskom.

The recruitment section on the Eskom website (www.eskom.co.za – “A career at Eskom”) has been streamlined to make it easy for job seekers to find meaningful work opportunities in the organisation.

Additional core, critical and scarce skills must be developed or recruited annually over the next five years to replace losses and cater for Eskom’s new build programme. The Eskom learner pipeline has been increased to 5 283RA (2010: 5 255RA) learners with three to four-year learning/bursary contracts to accommodate the new skills requirements and offset normal attrition. This is reflected in the table below:

Cumulative projected additional core, critical and scarce skills requirements  
    2011   2012   2013   2014   2015  
  Skills required   2 054   2 465   2 958   3 300   3 500  

The Eskom Academy of Learning has been repositioned as a professional centre of excellence, tasked with delivering learning in Eskom. A chief learning officer reports to the Human Resources divisional executive.

The objective of the Academy is to co-ordinate and integrate all learning throughout Eskom, focusing on business needs. It will cater for learning design and development, learning delivery, learning administration, as well as learning operations, supported by a quality management process. The Academy faculties are engineering, artisan, services, project management, leadership and finance.

The key focus will be on engineers, technologists, technicians and artisans for the future. There are 5 283RA (2010: 5 255RA) learners in the pipeline, of which 4 240RA (2010: 3 780RA) are studying in the engineering and technical fields. Once they have completed their training, they will be absorbed into the business as engineers or graduates-in-training. Over and above the business learner pipeline requirements, Eskom provides 550RA bursaries (2010: 236RA) for employee dependants, to contribute to the socioeconomic development of South Africa.
   
RA – Reasonable assurance provided by the independent assurance provider (Refer here).


Eskom developed a leadership framework aligned with Eskom’s strategic imperatives. As a first step in a systematic leadership development process the top 60 senior executives went through a comprehensive leadership capability and competence assessment as input to an executive talent conversation. An executive development centre will facilitate development solutions for this leadership community.

Some 3 700 (2010: 120) managers and professionals were trained in the theory and application of Situational Leadership II and a further 90 supervisors completed a new customised developed programme. More than 1 200 (2010: 810) managers were assessed using the Eskom Leadership Effectiveness Assessment instrument and the compilation of individual development plans was facilitated.