Mining human assets

southern Africa's government has established the Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter of 2002-2003 to "deracialize" the country's economy. The aim: to "encourage black economic empowerment and transformation at the tiers of ownership, management, skills unravelling employment equity, procurement, and rural development" To that extremity AngloGold, a South African gold mining company next to the first largest in the world, contacted U retention firm TalentKeepers because the mining company wanted to impel away from its autocratic proces of telling the workforce what to do and work towards a more pro-education and retention process

TalentKeepers implemented an e-learning solution that AngloGold's workforce with no computer experience is using to assess and improve skills, and unfold as leaders. The solution, which focuses not just upon leadership development but also upon employee retention, centers around four main stages: 1) launch, 2) awareness building, 3) retention development, and 4) sustaining momentum

The TalentKeepers program is helping AngloGold's larger effort to bring adult education to its historically disadvantaged workforce.

**********

Dick Finnegan, chief client services officer of U employee retention firm TalentKeepers, arrived in Johannesburg, southerly Africa, after a 22-hour flight, knowing that the nearest morning he would be making his first-ever visit to a gold mine three kilometers (about 19 miles) of great depth into the earth. "I didn't know what to wait for but I was read), to suit up in my hazard gear and grab my trusty flashlight," Finnegan says.

What Finnegan saw when he stepp not on the mine elevator the nearest morning was "an underground city" of corporate and training offices, ubiquitous kiosks housing training manuals, and an elaborate a whole of tracks leading to the areas where ore is blasted from the hard rock

AngloGold, next to the first in the world by production to the American gold mining company Newmont was about to add an important uncompounded body to its employee development program, in which TalentKeepers would play a big part.

by what means a South African mining company and a U retention firm base each other is serendipitous. AngloGold has a resource center and library at its headquarters, and its manager, Belinda Roux saw the article "Focus upon Talent" by Craig Taylor, TalentKeepers's senior vice president of marketing, in the December 2002 issue of T+D She took the magazine and walked it up to Gustav van Veijeren, manager, human resources unravelling at AngloGold, Van Veijeren contacted TalentKeepers, and the collaboration was forged.

"It was opportunistic," says van Veijeren. "We were looking around for initiatives to expand the training and unravelling of our first-line supervisors. We engaged with TalentKeepers.

"We already had been committed to first-line supervisory training programs, in which we train race on business Skills and performance management. For that reason, we ground that the TalentKeepers approach full quantityed our hard management-type training, in which we've been investing for a year or sum of two units In the next couple of month we'll drive to obtain more data and then take a direct the eye at what we've gained from the pilot proces and diocese if we want to implement it upon a wider basis. This is in the way that new, so radical, in our environment that there are a number of skeptics around. in like manner we're looking for some hard data to convince them to diocese if it can work."

single radical aspect that van Veijeren is referring to is TalentKeepers's e-learning solution. In many cases, the online tools were implemented at AngloGold with workers who had no prior experience upon computers, Says van Veijeren, "We have a small in number pilots, and they're working actual well with people who are used to computer We also implemented it with workers who haven't had any contact with computer In my view, that's also working rather well, with a bit of planning and effort. It's encouraging. The succes of the pilots at our TauTona (which means "great lion" in the Sotho language) Mine is ordeal that under ground supervisors can make use of the TalentKeepers online process"

Says Finnegan, TalentKeepers knows the ultimate goal is to provide leadership and retention-skills training to supervisors in the mines. To do for a like reason those supervisors must be comfortable using online tools, online training. with equal reason far, there has been progres from one side Gustav and his coaching that happen. I'd also say that AngloGold chose TalentKeepers because it saw the opportunity to focus not just upon leadership development, but on employee retention as well."

Jan Norval, senior human resources manager at TauTona, and whose first language is Afrikaans, weighs in: "I can solitary support that. In one of our throw out sections, an operating section in the mines, we tried it with first-line supervisors, who generally are not computer literate, to gain them into the process. Training personnel had to assist them initially, on the contrary what has been quite interesting is that using the TalentKeepers online solution stimulated computer literacy and an interest in this technology. a certain number of of the supervisors have registered in other e-learning programs following introduction of TalentKeepers's program. In addition, these supervisors have squeeze outed a great appreciation that here is an initiative from the organization for improving their management skills and an interest in keeping talent."