​The City has renewed its vigour to tackle a recently highlighted double risk in human capital management, which if not addressed, will hurt organisational productivity.

A recent risk audit by Enoch Mafuyeka, the City’s Head of Talent Acquisition, shows the municipality is grappling with the lack of skilled human capital and protracted recruitment processes, which adversely affect its potential to perform optimally.

Enoch’s presentation – shared widely with the City’s top brass – examines the entire organisational vacancy rate for senior managers and suggests suitable solutions to mitigate the associated risk at economical cost. It highlights a high proportion of vacancies in contrast to the overall number of posts available within reporting levels 1 to 6.

The presentation shows that the City has employed 26 people in top management, with a vacancy rate of about 24%. This means eight out of 34 top management positions are vacant, while 59 are in the process of negotiating offers, of being advertised or awaiting shortlisting. There is also a 5% vacancy rate among professionally qualified and experienced specialists as well as middle management, with 116 vacant posts.

In general, the presentation reveals that out of 3 096 positions within reporting levels 1 – 6, about 183 are vacant as at 31 December last year.

The presentation shows that all chief executive and managing director positions in municipal entities are filled, except for City Power.

Enoch cites several reasons for a high vacancy rate within the top management, including the fact that the City’s recruitment process was laborious, making the filling of vacant posts a prolonged process because all applications had to be captured manually.

The report also implies the City’s salary offer is not market related and lacks stacked progression. Enoch says some vacant posts have not been filled because of scarce skills.

“These contributing factors are outside the control of the City and created challenges in attracting and retaining the required skills and competencies,” he explains.

To mitigate the risk of a high vacancy rate, Enoch says the City has institutionalised digital recruitment and instructed officials involved in Grading, Employment Equity (EE) and Organisation Development (OD) to prioritise filling vacancies.

Stringent deadlines have also been imposed for each stage of the recruitment process, with officials permitted to conduct interviews on weekends where necessary and to use social media for job adverts. There should be no delays in making an offer and the City has updated its remuneration philosophy.

“Due to the above action, the average recruitment turnaround time has gone down from 97 days at the end of the last financial year to 75 and 77 in quarter 1 and quarter 2 respectively,” he says.