3rd Annual Local Government Talent Management Seminar

Posted: 12 October 2021

CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT. In a world turned upside down by the pandemic and technology, how do you effectively manage talent?

On the 21st and 22nd of September 2021, SALGA successfully hosted the 3rd Annual Local Government Talent Management Seminar, under the theme “Managing Talent for Resilience in the Era of Change”.

The Seminar:

• Provided a platform to the municipal collective responsible for talent management to reflect on their experiences and emerging approaches that would need to be incorporated going forward.
• Reflected on human capital management legislative prescripts, which would thus influence a widely embraced talent management policy direction and practices.
• Empowered municipal executives to employ principles and tools for talent analytics, measurement and selection, career planning and development.
• Kept the political and administrative leadership and practitioners abreast of important developments.
• Created a platform for network and sharing of best practices based on the audience’s particular, and/or peculiar on the round experience.
• Created a platform for thought leadership and engagement between industry thought leaders and the municipal delegation.
• Created an enabling environment for effective advocacy and constituency immersion on SALGA programmes and interventions.

While remote working and the impact of 4IR have been with us for a while, the pace in which it has changed and impacted organisations has increased due to the pandemic. Last year saw many organisations scrambling to understand just how to manage people in never-before experienced situations.

Just what does resilience mean in today’s working world? It’s defined as being able to recover and adapt quickly from a traumatic event or stressor – and this relates to being able to face difficult situations with ease.

Mr. Rio Nolutshungu, Chief Officer: Municipal Capabilities & Governance at SALGA, says that - “Municipalities have faced numerous challenges due to the different lockdowns – ensuring seamless service delivery while adhering to the disaster management restrictions meant that adaptability and agility had to be in play. With the majority of municipal worker unable to work remotely, managing productivity and team cohesion has become a vital component.”

The seminar unpacked key talent management value chain elements such as, managing productivity talent acquisition, talent on-boarding and other COVID-19 induced dynamics ranging from digital transformation to employee wellbeing. Additionally, the seminar provided and unearthed insights on how best to respond to Organisational Design (OD) demands, responding to the new concepts of work brought about  by the pandemic through capitalising on technology developments and 4IR opportunities.

The lessons learned since the outbreak of the pandemic and its impact on organisations around the world have indicated that resilience is a key factor in ensuring the workforce can continue to operate optimally.

The two-day online seminar included specialist speakers who gave delegates the very best advice, tips and methodologies to move into the future. The sub-themes centred around:

• Recruitment/Talent Acquisition
• Talent Mobility – Recruiting and Talent Acquisition/Management in the era of Covid-19; Attracting Top Talent in a Virtual World
• Talent Management: How the service standards will assist in Managing Talent for Improved Service Delivery
• Shift from managing the employee experience to managing the life experience of employees; Redefining Onboarding in the Era of Change.
• Digitisation: How digitisation advances a blended learning strategy, Virtual On-boarding, Human Capital Metrics and Analytics; The digital employee experience.
• Human Capital Management Policy Reforms: Explore how emerging policy, regulatory and legislative reforms will impact on the Talent Management space.
• Municipal Perspectives on Talent Management: Peer learning and best practices
• Learning and Development Re-imagined: a re-imagined workplace during and post Covid-19; The New Roadmap for Learning and Development.
• Leadership Effectiveness: Exploring how to lead a flexible and remote workforce in the new normal; Redefining your Human Capital Strategy in a time of rapid change; Managing Change for an engaged workforce to positively influence Organisational Culture and create a culture of engagement.

Since 2018, SALGA has delivered this seminar as an annual offering. Since inception the seminar has sought to provide municipal practitioners with the necessary tools to manage a dynamic talent management environment through a range of effective approaches and programme for business continuity and instil an organisational culture of high performance, more so in the face of a fast-changing world of work exacerbated by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of its strategic agenda, SALGA continuously formulates and implements a range of municipal leadership focused interventions aimed at enhancing the capacity of municipalities to adequately respond to the challenges facing local government.

Brought to municipalities as a value-add service under the auspices of the SALGA Centre for Leadership and Governance (SCLG), this seminar was an integral part of a suite of capacity building continuous professional development offerings.