Local human capital and business solutions firm HR-Focus has partnered with Lumesse, one of the world’s leading talent management companies, in a move geared towards addressing the failure of many South African companies to develop and retain talent.

Addressing these problems will contribute in putting SA in a world-class competitive position.

Lumesse, the US-based firm (originally known as StepStone Solutions) was formed in 2003 and has grown rapidly with more than 1700 customers in 70 countries.

It specialises in helping customers around the world to implement successful local talent management initiatives that identify, nurture and develop the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

In a telephonic interview with The New Age, Jeremy Langley, the regional managing director of Lumesse in Middle East and Africa, said South Africa was one of the worst countries in the world for acute talent management problems.

Langley said: “By bringing our technology to SA it will help turn around those talent management challenges they are currently facing.

“SA has huge assets of raw talent and if they can harness those resources properly, then it could be one of the great economic superpowers.”

Langley said they had already started running with workshops and had about 30 SA customers in their database.

Customers include big names such as FNB, JD Group, De Beers and one of the leading insurance companies, MunichRe.

“These companies have been using our technology over the last three to five years and their response to our service is incredible – people are interested,” he says.

One of the factors that prompted this partnership was that the Labour Market Survey 2009 – conducted by Statistics South Africa – exposed the dire state of talent management in South Africa.

During the global recession, the retrenchment of talented employees led to many organisations losing their competitive advantage.

“Despite a lack of retention of talented employees in South Africa, a growing number of organisations – not only in SA but worldwide – are embracing the concept of talent management as a large contributor to their competitive advantage,” says Lumesse CEO Matthew Parker.

“At Lumesse, we are building a new kind of company, a high technology talent management business that doesn’t talk about technology but about people and their potential.

“We’re building a global talent management business that acts like a local company – a company that can help both employers and employees have better jobs and better results,” Parker states.

Looking at the company’s track record, Lumesse is a success story in the talent management market on a global scale and some of their customers include major brands such as Bank of China International, Deutsche Telekom, Heineken, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Virgin Atlantic.

A number of experts around the world describe Lumesse as unique in the market as it is the only global company making talent management work locally and who are looking forward to contributing to South African companies by developing and retaining a number of required talents to turn the country around.

In April, Lumesse revealed the findings of Inspiring Talent – a detailed independent survey of employee attitudes regarding their jobs and employers.

The survey shows that age is a major factor in workplace happiness, with mid-career workers being the least happy.

Other findings in the survey include gender differences in pay rises, training, work satisfaction (which is still common in some countries), performance reviews, recognition and workplace trust.

Further, the survey revealed that challenges remain in the way many employers use the talents of their staff, where training, performance reviews and workplace trust remain an issue, with only half of employees reporting that they had an effective appraisal process and only one third saying that good training was regularly available.

However, less than one in five employees said they would always be rewarded for taking extra responsibility or working harder, the survey highlights.

“Many companies seem to be doing a great job in providing inspiring, supportive workplaces for their people.

“But the report card for many others has to be ‘could do better’, especially in areas like training, career development, performance appraisals and job recognition,” adds Parker.

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Written by: Bernard Sathekge

Publish by: The New Age

Date: 1 August 2011