The war for talent

In fact, so prevalent is the battle for skills that it would not be unfair to say that Microsoft has shaped its HR policy around it.

Says Nyati, “We’re looking at a marketplace that’s extremely concerned with retention. It’s difficult to get the right skills in such a marketplace, yet even more difficult to move forward if you manage to find them, train them and then lose them to your competitors.” Even so, the answer to this conundrum, he maintains, is to strive to identify people who belong in the organisation, work to attract them to the company, then do whatever it takes to retain them.

“These are the modern company’s key weapons in the war for talent.” At Microsoft, this process has been shaped and informed by finding answers a key question: what makes people leave their jobs? “The answer, usually, is because of their managers,” Nyati points out. “Alternatively, they may be concerned that opportunities for career growth are limited. This, in turn, may be the result of inappropriate or inadequate processes to move them through the organisation.”

Then again, he continues, employees may also be moved to resign if they are uncomfortable about the company’s direction or, as is more often the case, if they feel that this direction is clouded by a lack of clarity.

Nyati is the first to admit that these very issues affected Microsoft South Africa. That’s why, in formulating the company’s HR policy — which it has dubbed ‘Employee Excellence’ — it has strived to find solutions to these specific challenges. Such is the importance of Employee Excellence that it was identified as one of five priorities on which the company’s future strategy hinged.

The first pillar of Employee Excellence is succession planning. “Many organisations claim to have succession plans in place, but they don’t actually execute them,” Nyati says. “This becomes evident when an opening becomes available and, rather than replace the outgoing employee with an internal candidate, they search for talent outside the company.”

When this happens, people lose faith in the company’s plan for them; they start to doubt that they have a future within the organisation but, more than that, they question the company’s commitment to its policies — and this situation can have disastrous effects on employee morale.

Microsoft has taken great efforts to ensure that such an issue does not arise by, firstly, ensuring that it has a talent pipeline populated by the right people, and that it sticks to the plan carefully. As a result, individuals have a clear view of their career paths.

The company has also made a point of clearly answering employees’ questions around where it is headed. “Our goal is to become locally relevant,” Nyati explains.

“We may be a multinational company, but we cannot fail to address local issues.” One of these issues is, naturally, transformation; to this end, Microsoft South Africa has implemented a detailed BEE strategy which clearly outlines the implications of transformation of all employees, not just the previously disadvantaged.

“The implementation of this strategy has removed the anxiety of employees who were uncertain about where they fit into the organisation and its plans for BEE,” Nyati says.

At the same time, the targets contained therein have made it possible for Microsoft South Africa to earn status as a Level 2 BEE contributor; an enormous achievement, and more impressive still given that the company attained this status without the loss of a single employee. This was made possible by driving growth; the company’s upward trajectory created vacancies which it then took pains to fill with the right mix of people.

Microsoft South Africa has gone beyond striving to fulfil government’s targets in terms of BEE, however; it has looked outside the organisation to see how it can align the company to government priorities such as education and unemployment. “We looked at how we can address these challenges, drawing on our particular strengths and resources as a software company,” Nyati says.

One way in which the company could contribute to solving these problems was by providing training. Microsoft has therefore joined forces with the ISETT Seta to train unemployed graduates. To date, 5 000 young people have received training through the programme, and have gone on to find jobs in the South African economy.

These interventions have gone a long way to ensure that the company achieves its aim of local relevance. “This is something that modern employees value immensely,” says Nyati. He is conscious of another desire of the modern employee: to be able to play a part in shaping the direction of the organisation.

“The people who work here are professionals. Many of them have several degrees and they are highly intelligent individuals. They are not content to be dictated to; on the contrary, they wish to assume an active role in choosing the direction of the company and helping to steer it on that course.”

With this in mind, Microsoft has created opportunities for employees to interact with their leader- ship team. For example, Nyati holds regular round tables, which are attended by 10 to 15 people at a time. The idea is to provide a platform where they can voice their concerns about the company or even offer insights and suggestions into how challenges could be solved.

In this way, the leadership team engages employees and makes them under- stand that their input is valued. Communication is further encouraged by monthly meetings. “These two-way conversations also ensure full transparency,” Nyati says.