Following a successful sponsored learnership partnership with Red and Yellow School of Advertising that stems back from 2019 and other in-house upskilling initiatives, OLIVER is set to invest over R2 million in upskilling local talent within the next three years.
‘Our business is people – without people we have no business,’ said Paul van den Berg, Chief Executive for Middle East and Africa. ‘These resources are people with goals, dreams and aspirations, so it is critical for us to ensure we are able to attract, retain and develop the best people in our markets.’
He continued, ‘We are a learning organisation and in a Web3 post-info age, if you’re not learning, you are expiring. It’s with this in mind that we are committed to both aggressive and transformative change as well as investing in our staff with accredited training and development – fully company sponsored. We have already spent over R1.5 million on upskilling our talent over the past three years with Red and Yellow School of Advertising and other learner-based initiatives.’
He added that OLIVER is committed to change and upskilling talent. ‘We need to ensure our people are as agile and future-proof as they can be in our rapidly transforming and easily disrupted industry,’ he said. ‘This both protects them and their future careers while also giving our clients the most cutting-edge talent, technology and teamwork.’
Sarisha Govender, Head of Human Resources at OLIVER said, ‘We can proudly say that we have a number of people from Red & Yellow that have completed their two-year digital marketing learnership courses this year and have been absorbed into permanent positions.’
‘People are our greatest asset, and we go the extra mile to attain talent that has potential and experience while continuously striving to provide our employees with a culture of learning in order for them to be upskilled and afford them with future opportunities,’ explained Govender. ‘This not only enables growth and development and results in experienced, skilled and well-rounded employees, but also people who feel valued and cared for by OLIVER. We currently have a 90 percent employee retention which is backed by our Peakon App that tracks employee satisfaction.’
Govender added that investment into talent has a direct correlation with the growth of the company, client service and offerings, as well as the increase in staff retention. ‘We focus on having the best skills on offer to our clients in order to provide the most innovative service offerings on the market,’ she said.
On why investment into people is important for transformation, Dimakatso Mathe, the newly appointed head of transformation at OLIVER said, ‘If we invest in our people, we are automatically investing in the future of our organisation.’
Mathe said that OLIVER offers mentoring programmes, inclusive leadership training, apprenticeships, coaching and much more. ‘By investing in our talent and equipping all our people with the tools, support and insights they need it will ensure that we can close the gender gap in senior leadership roles and also ensure that we can promote those from under-represented ethnic groups into senior roles across the business.’
She explains that people from diversified backgrounds bring unique skills enabling this growth. ‘Through various initiatives, including our unemployed bursary programme, talent bursary programme, graduate internship programme, enterprise and supplier development programme we have a huge impact not only on our BBBEE status but have supported the career development of hundreds of staff members.’
OLIVER
https://www.oliver.agency
