Dire skills gap
HOT ON THE HEELS of the release of a list of South Africa's critical skills shortages – showing the country needs around 35 000 information and communications technology (ICT) professionals – the CEO of a local software applications company has echoed a warning that the situation is indeed dire.
Britehouse CEO Scott Gibson says the company, which currently employs 400 people, has enough pipeline opportunities to employ another 50 people almost overnight. It could probably also add another 75 people/year for the next few years just to support its growth.
Since taking the tiller at Britehouse a year ago, Gibson says his biggest focus hasn't been on sales or its go-to-market strategy – as he had expected would be the case – but rather on how it was going to attract the skills it needed. Otherwise it would be forced to forego revenue-generating opportunities, as it couldn't source all the skills necessary to complete its projected projects.
Gibson says it isn't losing that business to competitors, as other companies in the industry must be facing similar challenges. "Companies must be putting their projects on hold – or finding another way."
He says due to the sector's skills gap, South African companies probably aren't able to become as efficient as they could by implementing the right systems. That is affecting their competitiveness and hence undermining SA's economic growth.
Gibson says the flight of skills to countries such as Australia, exacerbated by the recent negativity in this country, is becoming a "big issue" at Britehouse. "We have a list of people who have approached us – due to our affiliation to Dimension Data, which is a global business – to ask: 'Do you have opportunities for us in Australia?'" Britehouse's efforts to retain them or discourage them from leaving aren't always successful.
And when it is a case of needing skills urgently, employment equity considerations take a back seat. "We just need the skills so badly… When you're trying to implement projects, the first consideration is whether the person has the right skills."
The Department of Labour's national scarce skills list was aimed at reflecting the skills that SA needed most at any given time. It was intended to address a number of purposes, including helping SA's Home Affairs Department establish its work permit quota list, providing the Education Department and other training institutions with a guideline to develop courses, as a career guidance for students and to feed into national initiatives, such as the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills (Jipsa).
Although the biggest shortages are undoubtedly in farming, followed by teaching and various medical disciplines, the ICT sector is also one of the worst affected by the lack of skilled professionals, ranging from ICT managers to sales people, systems analysts to software and applications programmers.
Gibson cannot agree with the Labour Department's numbers but says they are probably not far off the reality of the situation. He says three steps would help solve the problem.
The short-term solution for Britehouse is to import skills from India, through its relationship with Nihilent, in which Didata owns a stake. It is also using more contractors than it would like to, says Gibson (they're expensive), through Paracon (in which it holds a 31% stake) or it could steal people from competitors, although Britehouse preferred not to as that ultimately inflates costs.
Though importing skills is necessary over the short term, it clearly isn't the answer over the long term. Gibson says SA needs to rather aim at exporting skills, as India now can. He says Britehouse's medium-term goal is to position itself as an "employer of choice" – as that is crucial in being able to attract the right skills. Although money is an important first consideration, ICT professionals also want to be assigned exciting projects.
With regard to long-term objectives, Gibson says Britehouse is in the very early stages of establishing an academy. Many other companies are doing the same – to bridge the gap between becoming qualified and feeding skills into the workplace.
For example, Neotel announced last week it had launched the Neotel Telecommunications Academy, in conjunction with the Government-owned National Electronic Media Institute of SA. It partnered industry players such as Nokia Siemens Networks, Cisco Systems and Huawei Technologies to access proprietary curricula, training material, equipment, instructors and internship opportunities and has so far brought 10 people on board through a pilot project and selected another 26 students.
However, Gibson says it's imperative to first expose people through SA's tertiary institutions to gain the right qualifications. And that starts at school level, teaching subjects such as maths and science.
Finweek
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