Johannesburg - Human Resources practitioners should use the recent census results as a tool for planning ahead in order to be able to deliver efficient and effective public service.
Practitioners also need to retool themselves and check if they have enough capacity to deal with the issues raised in the report, reports the Gauteng Provincial Government.
This was a message from Gauteng Provincial Government's (GPG) Director-General Margaret Diedricks to HR practitioners who converged at the Birchwood Hotel, Boksburg for the Human Resources Management Summit on Thursday.
"As HR practitioners you cannot afford to be flat-footed, you must be able to make necessary adjustments. You should also be able to move with speed where strategic needs and improvement without destabilising your organisation's programme.
"Skills retention is still a huge problem. You need to come up with a retention strategy of making GPG an employer of choice. Find ways of making people stay in public service without retaining deadwood and also find ways of dealing with non-performers," Diedricks said.
She also said that as GPG is a global city region competing with other cities globally, it was of utmost importance to strengthen intergovernmental relations to be able to deliver a seamless public service.
"For us to take the rightful place on the globe, we need to ensure that we work collectively from all spheres of government. We also need to access the skills of international people who have chosen South Africa as their workplace of choice," said Diedricks.
She said though GPG was satisfied with the improved recruitment turnaround times, which has shrunk significantly, the struggle to meet the two percent target of recruiting people with disabilities remained a concern.
University of Pretoria's Professor Jerry Kuye said that the role of HR practitioners should be interventionist, in that they should take charge, create path for growth as well as remove obstacles that pull the organisation down.
"Skills capacity deficiency is of great concern and as HR practitioners you need to conduct an audit needs to be done as it will assist to decipher what is focal and what is it that needs to be taken out," Kuye said. - SAnews.gov.za
