Introduction
In order to achieve an effective, efficient, competent and competitive workforce the City of Cape Town has to ensure that all staff is accurately trained in their designated fields. There are currently several vacant positions that require the employee to possess certain critical scarce skills. As part of the training and development strategic management plan, a process map has been designed to indicate the method the Human Resource department will use in order to achieve its objective, namely; to provide training and development mechanism that will enhance and provide a solution to the critical scarce skills shortage. The process map designates responsibilities and is a visualised workflow chart that indicates how the City of Cape Town will achieve its objectives. In order to attain its objectives the Human Resource Department of the City of Cape Town will do a skills inventory analysis, create funding, liaise with stakeholders, implement their initiatives and start a monitoring and evaluation process that will determine if objectives are met.
Process Map Defined.
Process map is a visualisation of an objective into reality and the procedure that will be used to attain the objective. Furthermore it consists of what will be done, who will do it and how it will be done. Therefore, “process mapping consists of constructing a model that shows the relationships between the activities, people, data and objects involved in the production of a specified output”(Biazzo, 2002:42). Klotz et al (2008:623) explains that “process maps are just one means of visualizing and controlling the activities of an organization and collectively these visual approaches have been characterized as increasing transparency, or process visibility”. The process map created by the Human resource department to alleviate critical scarce skills within the City of Cape Town will be discussed below. It will also indicate who is responsible such as line-managers and Human resource component and link the objectives to a process of how to achieve it.
Skills inventory analysis
“A compilation of skills, competencies and qualifications of the entire workforce is described as a skills inventory. Its preparation may involve the determination of the sum of the employees’ experience, knowledge and education and skills levels. Actually, the quality and size of the skill inventory of an organisation will influence its business strategy and HR plans decisively” (Durai, 2010:116).
The human resources component will embark on a skills inventory analysis this will assist human resources in determining how many vacant posts there are that require employee to possess the needed skills and how many employees who are currently within the post require training and development that will assist them to effectively do their jobs.
The process for this will be as follows:
• HR & line managers to assess current skills and identify shortages
• HR & managers to assess where training and development is required
• The aforementioned focusing on critical scarce skills and attaining the correct employment equity status
• Skills inventory to be completed and submitted 3 months before end of financial year in order to procure funding for the new financial year.
Funding
At the City of Cape Town, budget is not given to implement a strategic plan; instead it is given to a specific department as a financial resource to obtain the objectives of the department within the City of Cape Town. “In almost all government institutions all over the world, budget allocations are made according to structure and not strategy” (Minnaar, 2010:151). This implies that the funding for this process is not based on the strategic plan, but on the Human Resource department’s objective to alleviate critical scarce skills within the City of Cape Town.
The rationale that the skills inventory analysis has to be completed 3 months before the end of financial year stems from the fact that training and development require funding. In order to effectively create and implement the required measures that will provide the desired outcome, Human Resource department has to budget and motivate for the next phase of the training and development process.
The Human Resource department has funded their initiatives such as bursaries, SETA workshops, and external training providers. This budget will align to the fact that the Human resource department is focused on alleviating the critical scarce skills problem within the City of Cape Town.
The following key aspects will be focused on:
• HR to strategically align bursaries with the skills required for the organisation
• HR to give first preference to employees applying for bursaries within the identified critical scarce skills shortage
• HR to implement training and development workshops (SETA accredited)
• HR to coordinate in-house training provided by Training administrators
Stakeholders
Goodstein, Nolan and Pfeiffer (1992) in Smith (1994:45) explain that stakeholders are “those individuals, groups, and organizations who will be impacted by or who are likely to be interested in the organisation’s strategic plan and the planning process. Included are all who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they have a stake in the organization’s future”. This definition clearly indicates that no attempt made by any individual to implement any changes can be effective without the input of stakeholders. Since stakeholders believe that they have a stake in the organisations future they will determine the success of the strategic management plan.
In order to achieve the objective, which is to ensure that the problem of critical scarce skills is alleviated, any plan that the Human Resource department wish to implement requires buy-in from stakeholders. This is to mitigate any complications which might occur during the implementation phase, specifically problems with regard to stakeholder confidence in the plan. If the people who the programme was designed for are unhappy about it, then it will be unsuccessful.
Consultation will be held with the following stakeholders for input and comment on the initiatives:
• Employees
• Unions
Trade
• SETA
• External Service Providers
Implementation
After the skills inventory analysis has been completed, funding for the various initiatives have been approved through a budget as well as stakeholder communication, the next step in the process is implementation. This is where the critical scarce skills shortage will be addressed through the various initiatives. Implementation is the actual activities that will alleviate the critical scarce skills crisis.
The following are the implementation methods that the Human Resource department will utilise:
• HR to market bursaries on the City intranet
• HR to coordinate Information and counselling sessions with line managers.
• Line managers to structure career pathing with employees.
• Line managers to recognise suitable employees and implement succession planning.
Monitoring and evaluation
According to Minnaar (2010:157) monitoring is “the systematic collection and analysis of information as a project process. It is aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation”. This suggests that monitoring involves levels of control that must be created in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Evaluation on the other hand is “the comparison of actual project impacts against the agreed strategic plans. It looks at what you set out to do, at what you have accomplished and how you accomplished it” (2010:157). These processes often work in tandem but are unique and are not interchangeable. It is thus crucial for any process to undergo monitoring and evaluation in order to determine the success thereof.
The final steps in the process is monitoring and evaluating, this is where the Human Resource component determines if their strategic management plan was a success or failure. It also determines how much impact was made, was there an alleviation in the critical scarce skills problem within the City and should the programme continue.
The following mechanisms will be used during thee monitoring and evaluation process.
• Quarterly appraisal reports to be submitted by line managers.
• Determine whether outcomes have been achieved through evaluation reports that are submitted by training administrators and external service providers.
• Participation surveys to be conducted with employees which will provide statistics on the implementation and development of the strategic objective
• Reanalysis of skills inventory and process begins again if needed.
Conclusion
The process map created by the Human Resource Department clearly explains how the City will address the critical skills shortage. It depicts the process from start, where the skills inventory analysis is done, to the end of the process which depicts that an evaluation of the process will be done to determine success.
References
Biazzo, S. 2002. Process mapping techniques and organisational analysis. Business Process Management Journal, 8(1): 42-52.
Durai, P. 2010. Human resource management. 1st ed. Chennai: Pearson.
Klotz, L., Horman, M., Bi, H. & Bechtel, J. 2008. The impact of process mapping on transparency. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 57(8): 623-636.
Minnaar, F. 2010. Strategic and performance management in the public sector. 1st ed. South Africa: Van Schaik.
Smith, R. 1994. Strategic Management and Corporate Planning in the Public Sector. 1st ed. Essex: Longman.