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'Mad dash' for AA candidates
17/08/2003 21:31 - (SA)
Johannesburg - An expert in executive recruitment predicts a "mad scramble" for affirmative action candidates will begin next year, when the government begins enforcing the Employment Equity Act.
Speaking at a seminar on black economic empowerment, Brian Khumalo, CEO of the executive recruitment firm Leaders Unlimited/Korn Ferry International, said very few companies had come close to meeting the quotas they had set for themselves in the employment equity plans they submitted to the government.
"There has now been a sudden realisation that employment equity has become a reality and that companies are expected to comply with these plans," said Khumalo.
A direct result of this scramble for appropriately qualified employment equity candidates will be that salary packages will go through the roof, he said.
"It is common cause and we see this in our business every day - there are far fewer qualified candidates than available positions. Already, there is fierce competition to attract the brightest and the best.
"This race is going to look more and more like a prize fight, where corporates are going to slug it out among each other to get the best employment equity candidates in their boardrooms and in their executive suites," he said.
He said inquiries for highly qualified affirmative action candidates had increased substantially over the past six months and there was no indication that the graph was anywhere near levelling out.
"Particularly, larger companies who are dependent on government contracts for their survival are keen to get the mix right as soon as possible, and here we have seen salary packages increasing substantially over the past year," he said.
The fact that the government had indicated it was now getting ready to enforce employment equity legislation had also sent shockwaves through the private sector, Khumalo said.
"I've been getting the impression in my dealings with some CEs and CEOs of major corporates that they did not believe the government was actually going to put down its collective foot on the issue.
"Now that it has happened, many of them are completely unprepared for the monitoring stage of the Employment Equity Act."
Khumalo berated what he called "mercenary blacks" for taking advantage of the situation.
"The word has gone out that there is a dire shortage and particularly senior black executives are taking shameless advantage of the situation by demanding unrealistically high salary packages," he said.
Khumalo cautioned against the indiscriminate hiring of blacks purely to comply with employment equity legislation.
Given the fact that the Employment Equity Act makes provision for fines of up to R900 000, it was vitally important that companies actively started their recruitment drives now rather than waiting until the last moment, he said.
"This is the last moment. The pool of available talent is very limited and in order to attract the right people, companies are going to have to actively sell themselves to prospective job applicants," Khumalo said.
- City Press
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