Mining human assets

T+D, May, 2004 by Haidee E. Allerton

South Africa's government has established the Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter of 2002-2003 to "deracialize" the country's economy. The aim: to "encourage black economic empowerment and transformation at the tiers of ownership, management, skills development, employment equity, procurement, and rural development." To that end, AngloGold, a South African gold mining company second largest in the world, contacted U.S. retention firm TalentKeepers because the mining company wanted to move away from its autocratic process of telling the workforce what to do and work towards a more pro-education and retention process.

TalentKeepers implemented an e-learning solution that AngloGold's workforce with no computer experience is using to assess and improve skills, and develop as leaders. The solution, which focuses not just on leadership development but also on employee retention, centers around four main stages: 1) launch, 2) awareness building, 3) retention competency development, and 4) sustaining momentum.

The TalentKeepers program is helping AngloGold's larger effort to bring adult education to its historically disadvantaged workforce.

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Dick Finnegan, chief client services officer of U.S. employee retention firm TalentKeepers, arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, after a 22-hour flight, knowing that the next morning he would be making his first-ever visit to a gold mine three kilometers (about 1.9 miles) deep into the earth. "I didn't know what to expect, but I was read), to suit up in my hazard gear and grab my trusty flashlight," Finnegan says.

What Finnegan saw when he stepped off the mine elevator the next morning was "an underground city" of corporate and training offices, ubiquitous kiosks housing training manuals, and an elaborate system of tracks leading to the areas where ore is blasted from the hard rock.

AngloGold, second in the world by production to the American gold mining company Newmont, was about to add an important element to its employee development program, in which TalentKeepers would play a big part.

How a South African mining company and a U.S. retention firm found each other is serendipitous. AngloGold has a resource center and library at its headquarters, and its manager, Belinda Roux, saw the article "Focus on Talent" by Craig Taylor, TalentKeepers's senior vice president of marketing, in the December 2002 issue of T D. She took the magazine and walked it up to Gustav van Veijeren, manager, human resources development, at AngloGold, Van Veijeren contacted TalentKeepers, and the collaboration was forged.

"It was opportunistic," says van Veijeren. "We were looking around for initiatives to expand the training and development of our first-line supervisors. We engaged with TalentKeepers.

"We already had been committed to first-line supervisory training programs, in which we train people on business Skills and performance management. For that reason, we found that the TalentKeepers approach complemented our hard management-type training, in which we've been investing for a year or two. In the next couple of months, we'll drive to get more data and then take a look at what we've gained from the pilot process and see if we want to implement it on a wider basis. This is so new, so radical, in our environment that there are a number of skeptics around. So, we're looking for some hard data to convince them to see if it can work."

One radical aspect that van Veijeren is referring to is TalentKeepers's e-learning solution. In many cases, the online tools were implemented at AngloGold with workers who had no prior experience on computers, Says van Veijeren, "We have a few pilots, and they're working very well with people who are used to computers. We also implemented it with workers who haven't had any contact with computers. In my view, that's also working rather well, with a bit of planning and effort. It's encouraging. The success of the pilots at our TauTona (which means "great lion" in the Sotho language) Mine is proof that under ground supervisors can make use of the TalentKeepers online process."

Says Finnegan, TalentKeepers knows the ultimate goal is to provide leadership and retention-skills training to supervisors in the mines. To do so, those supervisors must be comfortable using online tools, online training. So far, there has been progress through Gustav and his coaching that happen. I'd also say that AngloGold chose TalentKeepers because it saw the opportunity to focus not just on leadership development, but on employee retention as well."

Jan Norval, senior human resources manager at TauTona, and whose first language is Afrikaans, weighs in: "I can only support that. In one of our project sections, an operating section in the mines, we tried it with first-line supervisors, who generally are not computer literate, to get them into the process. Training personnel had to assist them initially, but what has been quite interesting is that using the TalentKeepers online solution stimulated computer literacy and an interest in this technology. Some of the supervisors have enrolled in other e-learning programs following introduction of TalentKeepers's program. In addition, these supervisors have expressed a great appreciation that here is an initiative from the organization for improving their management skills and an interest in keeping talent."