Mining for talent in Africa

Localization programs vital for sustainable development of Chinese companies

Though China's engagement in Africa has risen steadily over the years, there has been a sea change in the nature of the relationships with most African nations. From what started purely as hands-on ground support for African enterprises, the interaction has moved on to a higher plane of enhancing technical and managerial skills through training.

One reason why China and other Western nations actively involved in Africa are now undertaking such training programs stems from Africa's reluctance to spend precious foreign exchange to acquire the much-needed external infrastructure and technology support.

Another reason is that most of the past exchanges have done little to improve the talent pool in Africa or its technological capabilities.

Since 2010, African nations like Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Chad, Sudan and Ethiopia have all changed the rules of engagement for foreign nations participating in development projects.

Chinese and foreign companies are now required to provide more job training opportunities for African workers, and to run professional courses for engineers, managers and officials.

With destination markets setting such high bars for Chinese companies, it is no longer a case where they can depend on homegrown Chinese talent to do the work in Africa.

"What this really means is that Chinese companies need to move up a notch and start additional training programs for local workers, rather than depend on Chinese personnel for all technical and management problems," says Feng Nian, managing director of the Ghana branch of construction firm China Geo-Engineering Corp.

Feng says that Africa's limited educational and human resource training conditions have made it difficult for many foreign companies to recruit qualified employees locally. These hurdles have also proved to be stumbling blocks for investment in Africa's emerging industries such as tourism, low-end manufacturing and transportation systems.

Citing an example, Feng says that in Ghana, the proportion of educated young people is fairly low due to lack of educational resources at different levels of the society. Feng says that despite Ghana's high economic development, more than 40 percent of its university graduates leave the country to work in South Africa and developed countries.

In addition, about 230 million African people between the ages of 20 and 35 are currently jobless. For African authorities, this figure needs to be reduced urgently to prevent potential social instability and crime caused by poverty, according to a report published by the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University in East China's Zhejiang province.

"Over 75 percent of our employees are Ghanaians. We have no other choice but to accelerate the pace of localization and let more people know what Chinese companies can do in Africa," Feng says.

"Commercially, this also makes sense, as it suits the long-term development in West Africa's booming infrastructure market."

Last year, China Geo sent 13 Ghanaian managers and 22 field employees to participate in six-month enterprise management courses at the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in Hubei province and in professional construction training courses at the Shandong Jiaotong University in Jinan, Shandong province for three months.

"After completing the training courses, most of our Ghanaian employees now have a certain degree of Chinese language ability, practical business and legal knowledge, and requisite experience to deal with work challenges," Feng says.

With 160 Chinese and 800 Ghanaian employees, 158 sets of different construction machineries and vehicles, the Chinese company won $50 million worth of highway, hospital and water projects in Ghana last year.

"It is a challenge for us to retain and motivate the trained African talent on a long-term basis," Feng says.

"We sometimes use the incentive approach or in some cases higher pay packages to ensure that we do not lose the trained talent to our competitors.

"Two Ghanaian graduates were promoted to assistant engineers while six became foremen last year."

Helped by its local employees and effective publicity campaigns, China Geo in Ghana has also diversified its investments to manufacturing, farming and farmland development, engineering, geological exploration and mineral development.

"On the other hand, it is also not that easy to recruit enough high-quality integrated talent from China to work in Africa, as most of them are keen on working in developed countries or in the nation's top-tier cities," says Ai Yi, general manager of Chongqing Lifan Industry (Group) Co's Ethiopia branch.

The Chinese carmaker employs more than 145 Ethiopian workers and 18 Chinese employees at its Addis Ababa facility.

Ai believes that effective localization tactics such as investing in teaching facilities and providing vocational training to the management-level employees are the right way for Chinese enterprises to stay in the African market.

"Such measures can help eliminate local people's misunderstandings or concerns about Chinese companies," Ai says.

"Unlike Japanese or European companies, which only teach local people to operate high-tech machinery, equipment and end-products to assemble cars, dig mines and build power stations, we are trying to impart more automobile-related knowledge and useful mechanical skills to Ethiopian workers."

Ai says companies such as Lifan are also adopting direct sales as a marketing strategy to develop the Ethiopian market, with ultimate goal being to completely localize management of its African facility.

With this in mind, the company has dispatched three teaching personnel from China to train the workers at the Addis Ababa plant and to impart advanced business skills. To encourage more broad-based participation for its skill enhancement program, the company has invited final-year students from the College of Business and Economics at Addis Ababa University to participate in its marketing course every Friday.

Such training programs are not only organized across the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in Africa, but also actively pursued by Chinese technology companies such as Huawei Technologies to increase skilled human resources in Africa.

Yang Wei, the deputy managing director of Huawei Technologies in Ghana, says that the company's human resource department received more than 40 applications from Ghanaian personnel for overseas training programs last year.

Huawei has 890 employees in Ghana, with 80 percent being local personnel. Yang says many Ghanaian workers are keen to learn more advanced skills in information technology, telecommunication services, network products, and even in professional courses for public relations.

"To further assist their professional skill development, selected applicants are sent to different locations in the world, such as the US, Europe, India and China," Yang says.

"The study period has been specifically designed by the company's training department, and it normally lasts between three months and one year."

The company sent 22 Ghanaian employees to different locations throughout the world to undertake various training last year.

"Supplying affordable mobile phones and technical services are the key to developing the market in West Africa. Another opportunity for us is 4G, as the Ghanaian government has recently invited major operators to upgrade its telecommunication network," Yang says.

"Competition in West Africa is intense and surely the market has gathered enough players from Europe, the US, India and South Korea. We need to train more Ghanaian computer and business talent to tap these market growth points over the next five years."

zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/31/2013 page8)