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AfricaRecruit
HR Newsletter
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Published By
AfricaRecruit HR Club March
2007 |
Vol. 3 Issue 1
The
Role of Human Resource Personnel in Corporate Social
Responsibility: Human
Resources Management a Critical Role in
Emergencies
| Mobilising
People in Emergencies
| The
Role of Foreign Investors in Africa’s Human Resource
Development
| IC
Publications classified services: An effective way to spread
your message across Africa
| The
Role of Recruitment Agencies in Ethical Recruitment: The
Commonwealth Code of Conduct
|
Findajobinafrica
|
Media
Partner to Achieving Best Value in Human Resources and Skills
using Information Technology
CREATE
STRATEGIC FORESIGHT IN YOUR ORGANISATION
Mandy
Jones
(T) 011 782 3719
Head:
Online
communications (F)
011 782 5160
www.hrfuture.net : Join the network : News : Advertise
Corporate Social Responsibility
has become a key word in today’s society with many organization
positioning themselves as being socially responsible through their
various charitable or foundation arms. This however has created some
skeptics, as the perception is that without any measurable key
performance indicators (KPI’s) most organisations are “window
dressing”. Human Resource Personnel can play a key role in building
these much-needed KPI’s both externally with their stakeholders and
internally with the employees and shareholders by adopting various
innovative approaches. This edition focuses on Human Resources Role
in Corporate Social Responsibility, looking at the value of skills
in emergency management in Africa; ethical recruitment and
investment in local or national workforce as an option for
organisations.
Human
Resources Management a Critical Role in Emergencies and for
employers seeking to be “ Responsible Employers of Choice” with
tangible social responsibility to the society at large and its
employees.
All
employers in Africa are a potential resource of skills and local
knowledge, which can be tapped and engaged in emergencies thereby
having the capacity to limit the impact of the crisis immediately
and in the long term.
In return for making skills and knowledge available in an
emergency, the employer provides its employees with a once in a
lifetime opportunity to make a vital contribution that may have a
long lasting beneficial impact on its workers both in their personal
and professional life.
Employers
in Africa, in particular Human Resource Personnel are critical in
pre-positioning their staff as well as engaging at the
organisational level to develop a robust human resource deployment
strategy for emergencies in Africa.
This
willingness and capacity to contribute people and skills to
emergency response benefits all stakeholders, the need’s identified
and practical processes for mutual collaboration established. For
the company there might be development opportunities for its own
experienced staff – e.g. volunteerism which can range from hours to
weeks and seconding an accountant, offering a pilot - or in-kind
contributions to those employed by International Organisation’s (IO)
and Non-Governmental Organisation’s (NGO) which will make them more
effective, perhaps information on local human employment law, shared
learning opportunities or sourcing guards for
warehouses.
The
challenges faced by organisations are both varied and dynamic and
these include:
- Immediate
mobilisation of people with local knowledge and understanding of the
culture
- Mobilisation
of skilled personnel at required level
- Training
of local staff on emergency response management
- Effective
communication between all stakeholders
- Capacity
to develop a robust crisis management plan
- Poor
information and knowledge management
- Lack
of or poor infrastructure
Perception
is a big factor also: is a licence to operate affected by how a
non-indigenous company reacts to a crisis?; is being seen as a good
corporate citizen a contributor to visibility and profitability (or
limitation of loss?).
Strong
human resource capacity is needed to
address existing development constraints and face the challenges of
a globalised economy. Strong capacity to plan and adequately monitor
their impacts is key to a country’s ability to respond and rebuild
following an emergency.
Response
needs to be immediate, and led by human resources: people who are
trained and have full access to local knowledge and resources.
Governments have the crucial role to play of course. They need
the human resources to plan, to respond, and to rebuild. Aside
from their own role and capacity, fostering the required skills and
coordination in other organisations will surely ensure a united and
more powerful response.
Mobilising
People in Emergencies:
The Role of Non-Governmental, Private and Public Sector in Africa
June 28-29th 2007, Kenya
www.africarecruit.com for details and register
The
event will explore:
- Impact
of emergencies on the continent
- The
need for preparedness, and working together
- Issues
around locating and deploying staff for an emergency – perspective
of NGOs, private and public sector
- Examples
of how private and voluntary sector organisations have collaborated
on people-related issues
- What
do NGOs need and what can the private sector
offer?
- What
role could the public sector play in terms of incentivising or
facilitating collaboration?
Benefits:
- Action
plan on how to build alliances and partnership between key
stakeholders
- Determine
how to effectively improve communication with crisis management
teams and various stakeholders
- Improve
the efficiency of manual processes required to mobilise crisis teams
ensuring timely data/information management
- Bridging
the skills gap in emergencies
- Good
practices
- Shift
the focus from traditional “adhoc” process to a more “proactive”
approach
For
details and how to register kindly visit www.africarecruit.com
Thoughts
from Jonathan
Potter, Executive Director of People In Aid
In a disaster situation
it is always local people who react first. This came home to the
international disaster response community during the Asian tsunami,
ensuring increased concentration on the building of local capacity
both for the first few days (part of ‘disaster preparedness’) and
ongoing (the relief, followed by recovery phases). For Africa the need for this capacity is great,
and the response often controlled by non-African actors.
In December 2004, under
the auspices of the Ethiopia-based international NGO Africa
Humanitarian Action, non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
governments, parastatals, academics and others convened in Addis to
discuss building the capacity and resources of African NGOs. Two of
the symposium’s final resolutions were as follows:
‘African NGOs and
institutions to develop strategies for resource mobilisation from
the African public and private sectors….’ and ‘NGOs to develop
long-term human resource capacities, including through institutions
of higher learning, technical exchange and training programmes with
international actors’. People In Aid, an international network of
NGOs, attended this symposium to see what assistance it could give
to strengthen the capacity of African NGOs.
Jonathan Potter,
Executive Director of People In Aid, never tires of stressing the
importance of people and appropriate skills in a disaster response.
He says: ‘100% of an NGO’s knowledge derives from its people, and
around 93-95% of those people are nationals of the countries where
NGOs’ operations take place. The argument for strengthening the
capacity of existing staff is strong, and the need for other skilled
people to join the forces of those willing to combat the worst
effects of conflict, natural disaster and poverty is immense. One
source is clearly the African private sector and the conference we
are organising in Nairobi in June will be a key step
in raising awareness of the ways in which cross-sector collaboration
in people and skills development can take place. Do please join
us’.
The
Role of Foreign Investors in Africa’s Human Resource Development
critical to building a viable and skilled
workforce.
Foreign
Investments in Africa should mean increased job and employment
opportunities for Africa. However in many cases this does not
translate into reality. Many investors import their workforce
at the expense of local talent or nationals of the country abroad
who are skilled and willing to return resulting no spill over
economic benefits for locals. Socially responsible
investors should develop short-long term plan of bringing jobs to
the local or national community as part of their investment plans.
The aim should be to recruit and train where necessary into all
levels of the organisations; both skilled and unskilled. Best
practice can be adopted from many other countries that have used the
investments as a leverage to build local talents and skills creating
jobs directly and indirectly through the supply chain line. African
governments need to effectively leverage the increased foreign
investments into Africa for its citizens by setting employment
targets for investors from executive to unskilled levels and measure
the organisation against the targets relating it to the tax and
investment incentives.
 IC
Publications Classified Services: effective
way to spread your message across Africa
IC Publications is the publisher of New African and African Business, the
best-selling English language pan-African magazines. With 40 years
of experience, the magazines are sold in over 45 countries across
the continent and 100 internationally and are the ideal vehicle for
your classified advertisements. Whether they are vacancies, tenders,
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As a partner of Africa Recruit, we are offering you
the possibility of a free 2 months subscription to our magazines, New African and African Business. To take advantage of this
offer, please click on the following link and follow the
instructions:
Find
a Job in Africa Special Offer
www.africasia.com
New
African
& African Business –
Africa’s International Magazines
The
Role of Recruitment Agencies in Ethical Recruitment: The
Commonwealth Code of Conduct
Global
shortages of skills have led to some countries systematically
recruiting staff from lesser-developed countries, and from those
most likely to feel the impact such as small states. This has
created great concerns amongst stakeholders and led to the
endorsement of the Commonwealth Code of Practice for the
International Recruitment of Health Workers by the Ministers of
Health (2003) and to the adoption by Ministers of Education of the
Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol (September 2004).
“The
Teacher Recruitment Protocol balances the rights of teachers to
migrate internationally with the need to protect the integrity of
national education systems and to prevent the exploitation of the
scarce human resources of poor countries” says Roli
Degazon-Johnson
Chief
Programme Officer
Social
Transformation Programmes Division
These
instruments, which have been applauded as good practices by the
International Labour Organization (ILO), are intended to provide
governments with a framework within which ethical international
recruitment may take place. They are sensitive to the needs of
recipient countries and the migratory rights of skilled workers but
do not propose that governments should limit or hinder the freedom
of individuals to choose where they wish to live and
work.
For
details on the Commonwealth Code of Conduct visit www.thecommonwealth.org
 
Online job portal
www.findajobinafrica.com
A
one stop job search engine for Africa connecting recruiters in
Africa with jobseekers inside and outside Africa
Jobs
in Africa in all industry used by recruiters to target local;
repatriates and expatriates for details kindly visit www.findajobinafrica.com
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