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GLOBAL TALENT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY: TALENT
MANAGEMENT IN ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI
Italia Boninelli
10 The Company: AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti is a gold-mining company with about 63 000 employees. It has a portfolio of many assets and differing ore-body types in key gold-producing regions. The company’s 20 operations are located in 10 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and the United States of America), and are supported by extensive exploration activities. The operations are run as four distinct regions – Southern Africa, Continental Africa, Australasia, and The Americas. The company is well positioned for future growth through substantial greenfields and brownfields exploration project pipelines.
AngloGold Ashanti’s primary listing is on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It is also listed on the stock exchanges in New York, London, Paris, Brussels, Australia and Ghana.
Our Vision is ‘To be the leading mining company’. We will achieve our business goals through our five core strategies:
• Recognise that People are the Business – organisational development will be a strategic value driver for the business.
• Maximise margins – manage revenues and costs to ensure delivery and protection of returns through the price cycle.
• Manage the business as an ‘asset portfolio’ – allocate capital to support delivery of return targets within a balanced risk profile.
• Grow the business – look for value-adding targets across all value-adding dimensions, including exploration, organic improvement and growth, and through targeted acquisitions.
• Embrace sustainability principles – understand and focus on creating value for both business and social partners to manage risk and opportunity.
C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 3 . K R P u b l i s h i n g .
A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .
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Implicit in achieving our Vision and Mission is the development of people, with our primary core strategy to recognise that ‘People are the Business’ and that Organisation Development is a strategic value driver.
Our emphasis that people are not assets is not random. Instead, ‘People are the Business’ was intentionally ranked first amongst our five core strategies for a number of reasons.
First, it is testament to our conviction that the people working at AngloGold Ashanti are central to our success. In our operating environment and across the global mining industry, there are known practical and potential human-capital risks. In general, these relate to: acquiring and retaining key skills; training and developing people; and how we relate to individuals by not relying on others to deliver our leadership message. These are identified and tracked each quarter as we seek to design and implement region-specific solutions to minimise our exposure and to maximise engaging, and constructive relationships, with relevant stakeholders.
Secondly, it reflects our focus on: practising our values; caring for ourselves and one another, particularly with regard to our safety and health; treating everyone with dignity and respect; valuing our diverse cultures, ideas, experiences and skills; being accountable for our actions and doing what we say we will do; and positively building up the communities, societies and natural environments in which we work. We commit to people currently and to leaving behind a notable legacy for future generations.
Thirdly, it articulates our Mission to create value safely and responsibly for all people. ‘People’ includes: our employees; the local communities and societies in places where AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) has a presence; our shareholders; and our and other business and social partners.
And, fourthly, it is aimed internally to draw attention to the fact that how we deliver on our Vision is as important as the outcome.
How ‘People are the Business’ Fits into Our Operating Model
When Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Cutifani joined AGA in 2007, the business was in a slow but steady decline. The business projections for the next three years showed the same inexorable trend. The CEO implemented a strategic change programme called Project ONE, which saw the projected results for 2008, 2009 and 2010 drastically improve (see figure 1 below). (Final audited results for 2011 were not yet available at the time of writing this article, but were expected to exceed those of 2010.)
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• We were not meeting our targets or fulfilling our potential.
• We needed to do things differently to prosper and progress.
Why ONE?
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Figure 1: AGA Performance
The broad strategic direction of AGA as it was defined in 2008 in our business framework – namely our Vision, Mission, values and five core strategies – compelled a new approach to leadership that supports people doing the right work. AGA has adopted a Management Framework that sets the approach to how we conduct our business. It places the required emphasis on strong leadership, line ownership of the work, the bringing together of employees and technical systems, and the importance of continuous improvement through ongoing measurement and review. The Management Framework is not a change model – it is a total management system with a focus on strengthening both our people and our work systems (technical, commercial and operating) so that, through our constantly changing business and risk contexts, we can always reflect an aligned and consistent working model to achieve results and engagement.
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2
• The management framework brings people and systems together to realise our vision to be the leading mining company
• It sets the framework of how we do things – delivering consistency and efficiency to enhance operating performance and control
The Management Framework
Management Framework
Mission
Vision
Values
Strategy
Leadership Line
Ownership HR
Systems Technical Systems
Measure & Review
Figure 2: The Management Framework in AGA
We have also focused on the implementation of Project ONE, our change programme. In terms of Project ONE, we have rebuilt our business processes quite deliberately through the System for People (SP) based on the work of Elliott Jaques1, the technical process re-engineering called the Business Process Framework (BPF) based on Deming’s2 model of Plan/Do/Check/Act, and Employee Engagement systems based on the work of Maurice Driscoll and Rob Evans in order to change our working environment and the work of people.3 These ensure the integration of People and Systems of Work as in figure 3 below:
1 Elliott Jaques (18 January 1917-8 March 2003) was a Canadian psychoanalyst and organisational
psychologist. He developed the notion of requisite organisation from his ‘stratified systems theory’,
running counter to many others in the field of organisational development.
2 William Edwards Deming (14 October 1900-20 December 1993) was an American statistician,
professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese
manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage.
3 Much of the information on the AGA Management Framework, SP and BPF comes out of documents
prepared by AGA’s internal teams that have worked so diligently with these systems for the last few
years and whose pioneering efforts I hereby acknowledge.
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3 3
The Management Framework defines the technical, commercial and social aspects of the business and how they interact to ensure we deliver our business goals.
The Management Framework – Delivering Results
Results
Line ownership with specialist
support Capable engaged
and effective employees
Employees involved and
engaged
People
Technical, commercial
and operating systems
Measure and
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In control and
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Business Process… detailing how all the tasks flow and fit together…and exactly how people interact within the operating system to get work done.
Roles are clear… defining the responsibilities and accountabilities… and exactly how we connect to every part of the business.
Leadership
Systems of Work
Figure 3: The Management Framework – Delivering Results
These three systems are integrated approaches to operating, and, together, they give effect to all our core strategies, but particularly to People are the Business. The SP begins with organisation design in order to describe clear structures and hierarchies based on levels of work, roles, and associated accountabilities and authorities that clarify exactly how we connect every part of the business. The SP, specifically, is a top-down implementation of Jacques’s Requisite Organisation4 and is aimed at ensuring AGA has the right people in the right roles doing the right work. The BPF details our business processes and how all tasks fit and flow together to explain exactly how people interact within the operating system and with one another to get work done. And the Engagement system encourages line ownership of people processes and teamwork, as we each have to step up and engage, ask the right questions, listen and connect, thereby further enhancing, systemically, the way in which employees do their work.
Simply put:
• The System for People (SP) is about making sure we have the right people in the right role doing the right work.
• The Business Process Framework (BPF) is about making sure we are doing the right work at the right time in the right way.
4 Jaques (1996).
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• Employee Engagement – or how we connect with people – is focused on making sure that we involve the right people in the right way to ensure we deliver the right outcome.
The Skills Challenge
The shortage of skills is one of the biggest constraints to achieving aggressive growth plans in AGA. The resources boom is both a blessing and a curse. While a higher gold (or other mineral resource) price drives up margins, it also lands up in higher input costs – which partially explains why the profit margin never widens as much as one would expect. It also intensifies the war for talent. Many companies used to think of globalisation from a very ethnocentric perspective, asking questions such as: “In which countries should we pursue our growth objectives, selling which suite of products?” Today, of course, globalisation is a double-edged sword, in that companies with names that were not well known just a few years ago, and which were once viewed as fledgling operators in obscure regions, are now recognised as serious competitors, not only for mature companies’ best customers but also for their top talent. Poaching is also not limited to direct competitors. Mining companies such as AGA lose top talent not only to other mining companies, but also to other sectors – sometimes, before graduates have worked even a day in mining! The three nonmining sectors which account for the bulk of lost mining engineering-related skills are the petrochemical, finance and consulting sectors.
What has been the traditional response of Human Resources (HR) practitioners in AGA and in other companies? There are many sound HR practices which are applied, and these include the following:
• Conduct exit interviews and stay interviews.
• Place more creative advertisements in newspapers.
• Do climate surveys to understand the cultural levers that could be pulled to both attract and retain top talent.
• Participate in ‘Best Company to Work For’ surveys.
• Do employment branding to better position the image of the company.
• Ensure all staff have Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and development opportunities.
• Design better retention bonuses.
• Convince the Compensation Committee to move from paying at the 50th percentile of the marketplace to the 60th or the 70th.
• Make sure we spend 3 to 5% of payroll on training (in the good times!)
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Most importantly:
• Let’s see how we can poach from our competitors!
Unfortunately, these traditional responses very often do not prove sufficient to ensure an ongoing pipeline of skills, often serving only to chase the same small pool of talent with ever-increasing pay packages. While I am not suggesting that HR practitioners abandon these practices, I am suggesting that a more strategic approach is necessary.
Talent Management in AGA: How It’s Practised To enable AGA to realise the full potential of its employees, become the employer of choice in the industry, and be considered by investors to be a leading corporate citizen with one of the industry’s most outstanding management teams, the company requires a systemic talent management strategy that transcends a generic approach to individual and organisational development.
Inherent in this approach are the following:
• Leadership commitment – without which we would not be able to establish a culture of accountability or trust, the success of talent management being driven and practised by the manager and ‘manager once removed’ (the manager’s manager) role holders.
• Change management – Project ONE is integrated, iteratively growing and a huge, all-encompassing change programme. Sustainability of the implementation approach receives ongoing attention, the principles of the system now being embedded in the implementation of AGA’s SAP project called oneERP (enterprise resource planning).
• Risk management to reduce and manage exposure to human-capital risks.
The company views all its employees as talent and will provide the opportunities for them to learn and develop to their maximum capability, and into higher-level positions should these match potential capabilities and personal aspirations. As a global mining company, we offer opportunities to work in different countries and contexts. We value cultural adaptability.
In addition to technical skills, we look for prospective employees whose behaviours are aligned to the six organisation values of AGA. This requires: embracing a zero-harm culture which ensures the safety of all AGA employees; treating one another with dignity and respect by promoting an environment of trust, transparency and equality; valuing the diversity of each of the individuals within the company from across the globe, ensuring that our differences are understood and respected; being accountable for our actions and delivering on our commitments by acting in accordance with the AGA Code of Business Principles and Ethics; and respecting the environment in which we operate, ensuring that we build productive and mutually beneficial partnerships within the communities in which we operate.
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Strategic talent management starts with the principle that AGA’s talent pool includes all of its 63 000 employees, the communities in which AGA operates, and the broader resources industry.
As provided for in the SP, the process starts with the Human Resources Planning Subsystem in order to establish a systematic approach for matching human resources with the short-, medium- and long-term future needs of the organisation. The objectives of the Human Resources Planning Subsystem are:
• To ensure consistency between the strategic plan and the anticipated human- resource requirements.
• To identify future challenges and provide human resources to match.
• To identify candidates for current and future roles.
• To be proactive in attaining and developing human resources to effect these future strategies and challenges.
The strategy focuses both internally and externally, with the internal focus on effectiveness of the SP to date, technical skills demand and supply, and country-/ region-specific challenges and needs; and the external focus on skills supply and development, industry collaboration, and the use of technologies such as social media and e-learning. While the development of all AGA’s employees is considered essential, it is also acknowledged that special initiatives may be required when ensuring a pipeline for scarce and critical skills. This starts with identifying which are the truly scarce and critical skills, and then crafting a strategy for the development of both an internal and external pipeline.
Defining the Scarce and Critical Skills
It is important to set objective criteria for defining scarce and critical skills, as, in my experience, every line manager who has experienced some turnover will consider the roles in his or her department or business unit as requiring ‘scarce and critical skills’. The following are some suggested criteria for defining this category of employees in a way that is both replicable and transparent:
1. Turnover: The analysis should start with a list of where turnover has been significant, that is, over 10% in the last year. This should then be broken down into categories, for example 10 to 15% (cause for concern); 15 to 20% (serious); and 20%+ (requires urgent attention). Particular attention should be paid to any roles where turnover has been over 15% in the year. (Ironically, very low turnover may also be a signal for concern, as young talent lower down the ranks may grow impatient at the perceived lack of promotion opportunities above them and start looking for external opportunities.)
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2. Vacancy period: The length of time that it takes to fill a job is another indicator. If the job remains vacant for three months or longer from the time the previous incumbent left the company to when the new incumbent joins, this is often an indication of scarce skills. Keep in mind that this excludes notice periods, which, at lower levels, could be one calendar month (ie four months in total to fill the job), and, at senior levels, notice periods could be three calendar months (ie six months in total to fill the job). If vacancy factors are longer than six months, then this requires special attention.
3. Criticality to the business: This should be defined by some measure of impact on the business, for example production would be brought to a standstill (most severe), to there would be a significant impact on production and the bottom line (medium severity), to there would be a noticeable impact on production and this would also affect the bottom line (some impact). Different companies could attach different metrics to this definition, as long as the metrics are used consistently and are well understood by the key players in the business.
4. Internal pipeline: This is an indicator of the ‘health of discipline’ for each key discipline in the business. One of the ways to measure this is to look at the ratio of internal promotions to external appointments to vacancies. While it is always desirable to have a certain number of new people join the organisation, as they bring different experiences and fresh perspectives, AGA would ideally target a 1:2 ratio of external appointments:internal promotions.
5. External pipeline: Analysing the external pipeline can be done on the basis of anecdotal information from line managers and from recruitment agencies, and then be defined in broad terms with descriptors, such as: (i) This role is fairly easily filled from local or in-country sources; (ii) This role requires skills which are scarce in-country or available regionally at some premium; (iii) This role requires skills which are available only internationally and may only come on expatriate conditions; (iv) This role requires skills where it is virtually impossible to find a competent person to fill this job even internationally, and an international premium will have to be paid. Alternatively, the external pipeline can be defined far more accurately with detailed studies of actual numbers of different types of graduates available in different countries measured against the projected needs of the company, its direct competitors and other industry players who may recruit these skills. AGA has gone the latter route, commissioning a study of the availability of global mining engineering and artisan skills which is informing the specific strategies needed to address specific gaps.
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Future Demand for Skills Understanding how to address specific gaps requires a detailed understanding not only of current vacancies, but also of the drivers of future demand. These include the following:
• Economic cycles: In previous, long cycles of economic boom, unprecedented growth has meant for almost everyone in the workforce, but particularly for those with key skills, a period of nothing but prosperity, good jobs, easy promotions and easy salary increases. We are currently in a period of economic recession and, as a result, the attraction and retention pressures on most companies become less intense and poaching activity should decrease. We may experience a temporary respite in the talent war. Companies are restructuring and downsizing, and there is a short-term increase in people available in the market compared with what has been the case in recent years (but not necessarily in key skills). Voluntary turnover is dropping as people stay put in an insecure job market where ‘last in, first out’ may see you on the retrenchment list. However, it is to be expected that, as soon as the economy turns and employment markets open up again, these individuals will move on very quickly. One of the other negative trends in times of economic crisis is that one of the first budgets to be cut in most companies is the training budget. Many companies have not learnt from previous cycles where the kneejerk reaction of cutting training budgets and even closing down training academies completely in hard times drastically reduced graduate and technical pipelines, leaving very little capacity for the upswing when it inevitably occurred.5 AGA has one of the largest training academies in the industry and has striven to maintain its training capacity consistently through all economic cycles.
• Innovation and technology: With new technology comes increased production efficiency and often progressive labour savings. However, this is often accompanied by the reliance upon a new set of potentially scarce skills and the difficulty of reskilling existing staff.
• Productivity factors: Critical to understanding the need for skilled labour is the understanding of the productivity of that labour. Where the productivity can be improved, it will often prove the case that less of that labour is needed to deliver the same outcomes. The opposite is of course also true. Key factors that impact the productivity of labour in the mining industry include the following:
o Age: While a decline in productivity related to age might only occur in office-bound roles from the late 50s onwards, the more manual the role the greater the impact of age on productivity. This is further exacerbated by environmental conditions such as heat, humidity and long travelling time
5 Boninelli (2009a).
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to the workplace often found in mining – resulting in a rapid, age-related decline in productivity from the early 40s. Retirement is furthermore posing a serious threat to the industry’s talent base, with 50% of the employee base being over 40 years old. In Canada, 60 000 employees in the mining sector are expected to retire by 2020. In Australia, a labour shortage of 195 000 workers is estimated by 2012 as increasing ‘baby-boomer’ retirements and the development of new projects with huge new skills demands coincide. In South Africa, the average age of mining professionals is estimated to be 50 to 55 years old. In the United States of America, 58% of industry members were already 50+ years old in 2005.6
– Health factors: Health factors in the workforce can have a serious impact on productivity. For example, South Africa has one of the highest prevalence rates of AIDS in the world, and the negative effects of AIDS are further compounded by other diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and silicosis leading to as much as a 10% loss of productivity in the workforce.7 There seems little option but to continue to educate, to administer antiretroviral therapy (ART), and to actively manage TB. In other African countries, diseases such as malaria have a serious impact.
– Lifestyle: While lifestyle choices in the First World have led to a greater need for work–life balance and to companies being forced to accommodate this in their work rosters and fly-in, fly-out arrangements, different challenges face the Third World. Many workers in Third World communities live in overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation and poor nutrition, which are compounded by the abuse of alcohol and cannabis. The impact of this is seen in biomedical and psychological issues. Prevention of issues is better than cure, and enhancing employees’ lifestyles has a positive effect on productivity, supporting the return on investment (ROI) in company wellness programmes.
– Competence: The mere presence of a qualification does not in any way guarantee competence. The declining standards and shortage of qualified teaching staff in many educational institutions have meant that many graduates of universities or technical colleges come with some degree of skills gap. In addition to this, a qualification may be only the starting point for true competence, as success in a role may require knowledge of many other things (the particular equipment used by the company, safety procedures, company policies, etc.). Existing internal skills need to be identified and assessed to determine competency levels and potential for ongoing training and development. Skills audits put together with the input
6 Deloitte UK Report.
7 Munday (2008).
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of the relevant line managers and technical consultants which are then conducted on the staff in the discipline often render surprising and often disappointing results.
– Utilisation of skills: Often, skills are not appropriately utilised in the workplace. In a study conducted in a company I previously worked for, we established that professional nursing staff were spending less than 43% of their time on activities that actually required a nursing qualification.8 This reinforces the need for companies to look carefully at productivity and review how jobs are designed and resourced. In cases of severe skills shortage, it may require re-engineering of the workplace to get away with less high-level skills.
– Workflow efficiency: Workflow efficiencies often leave a lot to be desired: the positive is that there are often many real opportunities for improvement. For example, travel time to the workplace in deep-level underground mines in South Africa can be as much as 24%. The re-engineering work done in AGA under the BPF has shown that, “if production and maintenance processes are effectively aligned and managed through a coordinated planning and scheduling process, improvements in productivity can be realized in excess of 30%”, and “if processes are moved from high to low variation performance, output can be increased by 15% to 30%, without significant capital inputs”.9
• Employee engagement: Employees should perform optimally when the job is well designed, they are properly trained, and the outcomes of the role are defined and resourced per the BPF/SP model. But the right managerial leadership practices will enhance the personal commitment of employees and their willingness to go the extra mile. Many companies strive to ‘maximise shareholder wealth’ – a goal that is inadequate in many respects. As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximisation lacks the power to fully mobilise human energies. It’s an insufficient defence when people question the legitimacy of corporate power. And it is particularly true in an economic recession when retrenchments and other cost-cutting inevitably result in poor employee morale and anxiety around job security. In turbulent times, we look to organisations that share our concerns, manage anxiety and take the lead. In these difficult times of economic crisis, leaders play a central role in not only attracting new talent, but also in retaining and motivating the remaining talent within the organisation. It has been said that people join an organisation, but leave their manager – if the assumption can be made that people come to work motivated, then the question is what prevents them from working to that full motivation? AGA has embarked
8 Thomas, Venter & Boninelli (2010).
9 Cutifani (2010a).
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on several initiatives around employee engagement utilising the work of Maurice Driscoll and others.10 Their work is based on the belief that the lift from satisfactory to scintillating workforce performance is based on the connection between managers, supervisors and employees being built upon: (i) managers setting the right context; (ii) managers and supervisors creating relationships of trust founded on requisite leadership practices, personally earned authority, beneficial decision-making influence and supportive behaviour; and (iii) supervisors and managers being enabled to deliver the leadership’s message to the workforce. The results of their initial pilots have been most encouraging. Another benefit is that the very process of engagement helps to develop talent that has hitherto remained latent.
• Legislative and other pressures: The strategic management of HR always occurs within a broader sociopolitical and business context. Legislation may create affirmative action or employment equity targets (sometimes called localisation in African countries where the intent is to replace expatriate staff with staff of local origin), increasing the pressure to develop people from designated groups. Community agreements (such as those AGA has in Brazil) may require that a minimum percentage of staff be recruited from within the community immediately surrounding the mine (which may prove difficult in areas that have not previously had a mining culture). Sustainability pressures may result in stricter governance on environmental or other controls, simultaneously creating a need for the skills to manage in those situations.
• Company and industry growth projections: AGA has five-year targets of 20% increase in productivity and a 20% increase in production to 5.5 million ounces of gold. AGA is extremely well positioned for high-value growth. Having invested heavily in exploration, AGA has one of the strongest greenfield and brownfield expansion portfolios in the industry. Expansion is concentrated in Australia, the Americas and West Africa, with combined, proved and probable ore reserves currently estimated as 75 million ounces. AGA will grow the production by 1 million ounces within 5 years. But the growth projections of the mining industry, and neighbouring industries such as oil and gas, are equally aggressive. For example, in Australia, a record $76 billion in mining-led business investment is expected in the next year, creating around 61 500 new jobs by 2015.11
All of the above factors clearly indicate the need for a strategic talent management strategy which focuses on developing both the internal and external pipeline of talent.
10 Driscoll & Evans (2009).
11 National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce (2011).
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Developing the Internal Pipeline
AGA’s SP is considered a critical component for supporting the repositioning of the organisation. The SP, with its interrelated subsystems, is based on the work of Elliott Jacques, and, more specifically, his later developments of ‘Requisite Organisation’ (RO). The RO management system proposes that most problems in organisations are caused by poor structure and systems, not deficient employees. Therefore, interventions which focus on fixing the organisation, free employees to work to their full potential, increasing efficiency, effectiveness and employee satisfaction. The SP model has been specifically developed to ensure integration of the critical managerial effectiveness subsystems to be implemented on a global basis. The three key objectives of SP are:
1. Creating the right organisation design.
2. Ensuring the right people are in the right jobs.
3. Developing effective working relationships.
What is Talent Pool Development? When we at AGA talk about ‘talent’, we’re not referring to a small, elite group, but to all of our 63 000 employees, who are essential contributors to our success. Therefore, Talent Pool Development is the AGA process for providing each and every employee with the opportunity to work to their maximum potential to fulfil our business needs.
Why is Talent Pool Development important to AGA? Talent Pool Development seeks to facilitate an understanding of how every individual can best contribute to the achievement of our goals, enabling us to match the right people to the right roles, providing all employees with the right balance between challenge and capability. This is critical in order to:
• Increase effectiveness, because business goals are assigned to people who are best capable of reaching them.
• Improve efficiency, because people are working at a level which matches their capability.
• Enhance trust, because people are being recognised for their capability and are not overstretched or underutilised, and both manager and subordinate can count on each other to do what is being committed to.
By understanding the capability and aspirations of our people, we will be able to determine whether we have the talent necessary to deliver on our current and future strategic objectives and to develop our own pipeline of talent, through which candidates can be sourced internally for role vacancies.
What does it mean to the individual employee? Talent Pool Development also provides for the development and implementation of appropriate career development
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plans for all employees, thereby facilitating the growth of our talent and supporting individuals’ aspirations to become the best they can be, within the scope of what is viable for the organisation.
The AGA talent management strategy incorporates all aspects of Project ONE, namely the SP, Employee Engagement and the BPF, and recognises that one of the key principles is that every employee is part of the talent pool – defined by the direct subordinates and subordinates once removed (SORs) reporting to that employee’s manager once removed (MOR).
Talent management in AGA is an integrated system that is underpinned by:
1. The right organisational structures (Organisation design) and work complexity (accountabilities and authorities).
2. The right people in the right role (Role accountabilities and Individual Capability).
3. Doing the right work in the right way (supported by BPF), with clearly assigned tasks that have a clear line-of-site up and down the organisational goals.
4. Effective working relationships (laterally and vertically – supported by our Engagement initiatives).
5. The right processes (supported by SP subsystems such as Talent management, Performance management, etc.) and measures (standardised in SAP).
The purpose of the Talent Pool Development Subsystem is to provide all employees with the opportunity to develop to their maximum potential capability so as to meet current and future business needs. The objectives are:
• To match individuals to appropriate roles based on current and future capability.
• To identify employee development needs in line with likely career progression and company objectives.
• To identify company-wide development needs.
• To support our individual employees in their aspirations to perform to their potential, within the scope of what is viable for the organisation.
All employees are included in the talent pool; this includes employees who are working under long-term contract to the company and who have an existing or potential career with the company, and/or if the contractor is a manager to subordinate employees.
The system is designed to adhere to the following principles:
• Work for everyone at a level consistent with their level of current capability, values, and interests.
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• Opportunity for everyone to progress as his or her potential capability matures, within opportunities available in the organisation.
• Fair and just treatment for everyone, including fair pay based on equitable pay differentials for the level of work and merit recognition related to personal- effectiveness appraisal.
• Managerial leadership interaction between managers and subordinates, including shared context, personal-effectiveness appraisal, feedback and recognition, and coaching.
• Clear articulation of accountability and authority to engender trust and confidence in working relationships.
• Opportunity for everyone individually or through representatives to influence policy development.
Every manager within the organisation is fully accountable for the outputs of the people who work directly for us; we are accountable for their safety performance, their production, their costs, and every other facet of measurable output, including their behaviour towards every individual inside and outside the business. Given that we are accountable for every aspect of their output, it is our specific accountability to select the right person for the role, provide them with the right training, give them the right tools, and coach and advise them to ensure that they deliver the required outputs for the business. How does it work? AGA has adopted a formal Talent Pool Development process based on a three-tier management structure in which the manager once removed (MOR) performs both an in-role performance management calibrating role to ensure fairness, and a career development mentoring role to guide the development of the subordinate once removed (SOR).
But talent management does not exist separately from other managerial practices.
The 10 Managerial Leadership Practices
At AGA, you’ll come across the term ‘accountability’ often, as opposed to ‘responsibility’. It is one of our stated organisational values: “We are accountable for our actions and we undertake to deliver on our commitments.” It’s also one of the founding principles upon which the SP was designed and is being implemented at AGA. Accountability is an obligation to honour a commitment made to someone else. Unlike responsibility, which resides in the person, accountability is attached to the role. Within our working context, accountability is the obligation of each employee to deliver all elements of the value that he or she is employed to deliver. Employers themselves are also accountable for delivering elements of value (such as, for example, proper working conditions and remuneration).
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Managers have two types of accountabilities: those as an employee and those specifically related to managerial roles; and the 10 managerial leadership and engagement practices.
5
The 10 Managerial Leadership and Engagement Practices
Two- way
Teamwork and Engagement Context
setting
Planning
Task Assignment
Personal- Effectiveness
AppraisalPersonal- Effectiveness
Review
Coaching and
Training
Selection and
Induction
Continuous Improvement
Deselection and
Dismissal
Figure 4: The 10 Managerial Leadership and Engagement Practices
All managers are held accountable by their managers for exercising leadership using these practices:
1. Developing a two-way, manager–subordinate working relationship that takes into consideration the input of subordinates.
2. Managers must provide their subordinates with an up-to-date context to ensure that they have a clear understanding of why they are doing what they have been tasked to do.
3. Managers must engage their subordinates in planning which could be
(i) delegated plans or those set by a manager, or
(ii) personal plans, or those set by individuals for themselves within the context set by their manager.
4. Chief among the managerial accountabilities is the assignment of tasks and being clear with subordinates about what they have to deliver (quality and quantity of required outputs), and the time and resources that they have to deliver it.
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5. Personal-effectiveness appraisals refer to the ongoing and often informal managerial accountability of providing subordinates with constructive feedback on their performance.
6. Personal-effectiveness reviews are the annual process when managers meet with their subordinates to formally appraise their performance and remuneration.
7. Coaching refers to that training provided to subordinates by their managers to enhance their effectiveness in their role and help them work as close to their full potential and the role’s maximum required effectiveness.
8. Managers are accountable for selecting capable subordinates who can perform the work required of them, and for personally ensuring that they are inducted into the role.
9. Managers are accountable to their managers for continually improving the processes that they control and delegate to their subordinates to use.
All these processes play a role in talent management, but the coaching and mentoring require further discussion.
• Manager Coaching is focused on developing the subordinate within his or her current level of work and focusing on his or her Current Applied Capability (CAC) and the way he or she is applying himself or himself in his or her role. Coaching has shown itself to be an equally effective, but more direct, form of development in areas where a manager is
– providing specific direction, interim support and ongoing feedback during new or difficult work assignments
– providing ongoing feedback on specific performance areas that need improvement
– covering sensitive areas where tactful and/or direct input is necessary, ie in the case of inappropriate behaviour, etc.
– covering any areas where work assignments or education courses are either not available, or are available but need local reinforcement or clarification in order to be meaningful
• MOR Mentoring is used to help an SOR to understand her or his potential and how that Current Potential Capability (CPC) might be developed to achieve as full career growth as possible. Mentoring can also assist in the development of knowledge and skills.
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The accountabilities are as shown in the following table:
TALENT POOL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
− MOR accountability − Focus on Current Potential Capability − Mentoring on career development − > 1 year
− Managerial accountability − Focus on Current Applied Capability − Coaching on personal effectiveness in role − < 1 year
The SP ensures that individuals work at the level (or stratum) of work that corresponds to their abilities, and their developmental and aspirational needs, and that match the organisation’s requirement to get work done at appropriate levels of complexity. The terms ‘Current Potential Capability’ and ‘Current Applied Capability’ are referenced to the level of work described in the RO.
Level of work (ie the felt weight of the role) and the term ‘stratum’ (ie measurement of the role in time span of the longest task) describe the complexity of work in a role and a person’s corresponding ability to handle the complexity. Stratum 1 is the first level of work and is concerned with the day-to-day provision of services or the manufacture of goods. Workplace collaboration in the form of teamwork and on-the-job training are characteristic of this level of work, which is usually routine in nature. Each next stratum requires additional cognitive capability and maturation to handle additional complexity. Stratum 4 and 5, for example, are responsible for adding value for the future. Stratum 4 requires the holding together of business in the present, whilst at the same time building for the future; it signals a shift away from central operational concerns to managing both continuity and change. Stratum 5 is accountable for the viability of the business over a 5- to 10-year time frame, taking into account the external environment.
Current Applied Capability (CAC) therefore refers to an individual’s ability to do a certain kind of work in a specific role at a given level at the present time. It depends not only on the individual’s Current Potential Capability (CPC), but also upon the extent to which she or he values the work (V), whether she or he possesses the necessary skilled knowledge (K/S), and her or his working within the boundaries of the required behaviours established for all employees, and the specific required behaviours established for the role, both of which are essential components of (RB). This is expressed in the formula:
CAC = ƒ CPC • K/S • V • RB
Current Potential Capability (CPC) is then defined as the maximum level at which an individual could work in a role at the present time, given that they value the work and possess the necessary skilled knowledge.
‘Potential’ refers to how large a role someone could handle if he or she were to acquire the knowledge, value the work, and apply the required behaviours at a particular level.
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In matching employee capability to role complexity, it is important to understand that Work Complexity defines the complexity of decision making required in a role. ‘Complexity’ refers to the number of variables operating in a situation, the clarity and precision with which they can be identified, and their rate of change. This is then compared with Individual Capability, which defines the mental capacity to handle the complexities of a particular role, and the actual ability of an individual to complete tasks – or solve problems – of a specific complexity in a specific time span (see figure 5 below).
Matching Employee Capability to Role Complexity
Stratum Typical title Accountability Complexity of the role Typical time span of the
role
VII Chief Executive Officer
Manage a Corporation
Sustaining a long-term future by understanding, predicting and influencing worldwide trends that will affect the viability of the organisation
20 – 50 years
VI Executive Vice President
Manage a Region/ Discipline
Creating the ethic on an international basis that allows entities to function, and managing the relationship between entities of a different character
10 – 20 years
V Senior Vice President
Manage a Business Unit/ Function
Creating and maintaining the organisation’s systems in order to be self-sustaining within its operating environment
5 - 10 years
IV
General Manager/ Vice President
Manage a Site/ Department
Integrating and controlling the interactions between a number of systems 2 – 5 years
III
Unit Manager/ Senior Specialist
Manage an Operating Unit
Creating and maintaining operational processes to optimise individual systems 1 – 2 years
II First Line Manager/ Specialist
Manage a Section Monitoring and diagnosing of operational processes 3 – 12 months
I Operator Execute Tasks Completing of procedural tasks 1 day – 3 months
5
ONE
Judging Employee Capability • Current potential
capability • Current applied
capability • Future Potential
Capability or Mode (maturation)
Defining Role Complexity • Levels of work • Structure and working
relationships • Accountabilities and
authorities • Role descriptions
Employee maturation
Complexity of information in problem solving
Mental processing ability Judgement and discretion capability
Time horizon ability
Mode VII
Conceptual Abstract
Serial Designing and/or transforming operating systems through alternative routes 20 – 50 years
Mode VI Cumulative Accumulating and diagnosing worldwide data influencing the business 10 – 20 years
Mode V Declarative Making practical judgements of immediate and downstream consequences of change 5 – 10 years
Mode IV
Symbolic Verbal
Parallel Processing parallel initiatives and trading off 2 – 5 years
Mode III Serial Constructing alternative routes to goals 1 – 2 years
Mode II Cumulative Accumulating and diagnosing data 3 – 12 months
Mode I Declarative Making direct judgements 1 day – 3 months
Matching Employee Capability to Role Complexity
Stratum Typical title Accountability Complexity of the role Typical time span of the
role
VII Chief Executive Officer
Manage a Corporation
Sustaining a long-term future by understanding, predicting and influencing worldwide trends that will affect the viability of the organisation
20 – 50 years
VI Executive Vice President
Manage a Region/ Discipline
Creating the ethic on an international basis that allows entities to function, and managing the relationship between entities of a different character
10 – 20 years
V Senior Vice President
Manage a Business Unit/ Function
Creating and maintaining the organisation’s systems in order to be self-sustaining within its operating environment
5 - 10 years
IV
General Manager/ Vice President
Manage a Site/ Department
Integrating and controlling the interactions between a number of systems 2 – 5 years
III
Unit Manager/ Senior Specialist
Manage an Operating Unit
Creating and maintaining operational processes to optimise individual systems 1 – 2 years
II First Line Manager/ Specialist
Manage a Section Monitoring and diagnosing of operational processes 3 – 12 months
I Operator Execute Tasks Completing of procedural tasks 1 day – 3 months
5
ONE
Judging Employee Capability • Current potential
capability • Current applied
capability • Future Potential
Capability or Mode (maturation)
Defining Role Complexity • Levels of work • Structure and working
relationships • Accountabilities and
authorities • Role descriptions
Employee maturation
Complexity of information in problem solving
Mental processing ability Judgement and discretion capability
Time horizon ability
Mode VII
Conceptual Abstract
Serial Designing and/or transforming operating systems through alternative routes 20 – 50 years
Mode VI Cumulative Accumulating and diagnosing worldwide data influencing the business 10 – 20 years
Mode V Declarative Making practical judgements of immediate and downstream consequences of change 5 – 10 years
Mode IV
Symbolic Verbal
Parallel Processing parallel initiatives and trading off 2 – 5 years
Mode III Serial Constructing alternative routes to goals 1 – 2 years
Mode II Cumulative Accumulating and diagnosing data 3 – 12 months
Mode I Declarative Making direct judgements 1 day – 3 months
Figure 5: Matching Employee Capability to Role Complexity
All employees’ CPC will be judged and equilibrated at least once annually; and employees’ career development needs will be assessed, recorded, actioned and monitored. The integrity lies in the process. The first assessment of the individual is
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done by the individual’s manager. A separate assessment is done by the individual’s MOR. These judgements are taken into an equilibration session for the MOR’s talent pool, that is, in a session chaired by the MOR. The CPCs of all his or her SORs are reviewed and compared by the MOR together with all the managers reporting to the MOR. The idea behind this is to have as many inputs as possible, for example the individual whose CPC assessments are being reviewed may have previously worked for another manager or other managers on the review panel of the MOR team of managers who may have different working experiences with the individual in question.
Once input from all those participating has been received and the MOR has reached a decision on the CPC, this is plotted on a maturity chart against the individual’s age, thus allowing a projection of future potential (sometimes called ‘Mode’) using the graph to read at what level the individual could be capable of working in their 60s and even 70s (assuming that Knowledge and Skills, Valuing the Work and Required Behaviours are in place). The results of the equilibration session are then translated into Individual Development Plans (IDPs) which are actioned through the MOR for mentoring and through the manager for on-the-job coaching, with the guidance of the HR Department as needed.
5
MOR
Managers
SOR’s
Integrity lies in the process….
Talent Pool Process
Equilibration
Mentoring Actioning the Plan
? Manager Once Removed CPC Judgement
H M L
Manager Once Removed Level
H M L
Manager Level
H M L
Subordinate Level
H M L
Below Current Level
Manager CPC Judgement
H M L
Manager Once Removed Level
H M L
Manager Level
H M L
Subordinate Level
H M L
Below Current Level
?
?
Career optionsCareer options
Career aspirations
Career development
Career
Development Plan
1. _____ 2. _____ 3. _____
Career Development
Plan 1. _____ 2. _____ 3. _____
Figure 6: The Talent Pool Process
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Just about any organisation will have some great natural judges of talent, but none have enough to ensure the assessment and development of all talent will take place as it should. AGA has focused on training all managers in the principles of SP and in how to make judgements of CPC and CAC with the assistance of trained practitioners as part of a process to institutionalise this expertise in the company. Those managers making the judgements have to know the talent they are assessing well. They have to know all about the job the person is being considered for. This particular form of talent management and talent assessment is practised, tracked, and learnt by all leaders until it becomes second nature – part of the established processes and daily routines. Through this process, AGA will create our own supply of good judges of capability. They calibrate individuals through a myriad of dialogues, using information collected through many observations of decisions, actions, and behaviours, and refined in group discussions. The discipline of pooling managers’ judgements about talent is comprehensive, continuous, and part of the culture. It integrates the development of people with the running of the business, and connects their capability with the business results. The judgements continue to improve with practice and experience; hence the importance of internally developed systems such as the SP which maximise the likelihood of a systemic and sustainable way of managing employees.
This significant investment of managerial time in talent management is considered essential to the success of the system. Ram Charan and Bill Conaty (2010) say:
Getting to the core of a person’s values, behaviours, beliefs, and talents may seem like a lot of work, but masters understand that the return on time is huge. It’s like analysing a business problem or opportunity: we drill down to find the causes, understand the context, and assess options. Similarly, when we get to know a person, we are able to develop insights and options to speed his or her growth and development. This is especially important for companies that rely on specialized knowledge and need to quickly develop the leadership potential of their experts. The right decisions build organizational capacity. Insight into an individual’s talents and foresight into where the leader could go turn traditional succession planning on its head. Rather than finding people to fill positions, it puts the emphasis on opening paths for leaders to grow their talents and become ever more capable.12
Succession planning in AGA, then, is fully aligned to the particular approach to talent management described above. We have the traditional charts that show possible successors ‘Ready now’, ‘Ready in 1-3 years’ and ‘Ready in 3-5 years’, but these are closely aligned to the maturation charts of successors so that we can match when the individual will transition to a new level of work to when he or she will be ready
12 Charan & Conaty (2010).
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for the next role. Clearly, manager coaching and MOR mentoring are also applied to addressing any gaps identified in Knowledge and Skills, Valuing the Work and Required Behaviours.
In addition, AGA also focuses on Health of Discipline for key functions. A discipline development committee is formed consisting of the head of discipline together with senior specialists in the discipline, supported by internal HR and Training and Development specialists, and, in some cases, even by external academic resources. This committee will set standards for the discipline by applying BPF principles to the processes of the discipline.
It will set technical and people targets for the discipline to be achieved and monitor recording of best operating practices to ensure:
• Capturing of discipline-specific technical knowledge.
• Safekeeping and accessibility of technical knowledge.
• Establishing the best way to transfer knowledge.
• Consistent transfer of best practices.
• Retention of technical/institutional memory.
It quality-assures the SP practices to ensure:
• SP and levels-of-work application.
• Qualification and standards setting (industry versus AGA requirements).
• Curricula development in the AGA training academy, in consultation with local colleges and universities.
• The approval of role and competency profiles.
• That skills matrixes and competency frameworks are in place.
• That skills audits are conducted.
• The supporting of coaching and mentoring practices.
• Performance management application and practices.
• IDP application and practices.
• Career paths and learning pathways application and practices.
• The tracking of pipeline delays from training.
But no amount of work on the internal pipeline would suffice to fill all our talent needs. AGA also has a strong focus on the external pipeline dynamics.
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External Pipeline
The challenge for the global mining industry is twofold: expanding tertiary training institutions for mining in absolute terms, while simultaneously considering a range of (often region-specific) measures to make mining careers socially more respectable in order to build a sustainable pipeline of candidates from the schooling level upwards.
One of the things to be considered in looking at the external pipeline dynamics is the attractiveness of the industry and the profession to new, young talent. A recent survey by Deloitte (2011)13 showed that mining ranked last in familiarity and attractiveness of 12 major professions considered (behind Hospitality, Healthcare, Information Technology, Transportation, Business Services, Construction, Government, Finance, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Utilities).
Quite apart from the attractiveness of the profession, there may not be enough entrants to mining engineering-related degrees because the basic mathematics, science and computer proficiency skills (and, sometimes, even the basic language literacy skills) are not in place coming out of high school. The ‘feeder’ line is broken in many countries, for example South Africa is in a particularly bad state with respect to skills, where only 4% of matriculants have higher-grade mathematics and 65% of these come from just 7% of the schools.14 In 2009, one South African university estimated that 47% of first-year students had sufficient English language skills, and only 7% of students had sufficient mathematics skills to successfully pass the engineering degree in the prescribed time15. The skills set demands are also changing with the entry of new technologies, and university curricula are traditionally slow to change.
In First World economies, we also face the reality of the disappearing ‘boomers’ with a greying of the workplace. These retirements, combined with the exit out of the profession for personal or other reasons of more experienced staff, not only leave vacancies which are difficult to fill, but also leave the young talent in the organisation relatively exposed without sufficient mentors and without the organisational memory that assists decision making in difficult times. This has a major impact on the transfer of skills, many of which can only be acquired tacitly and on the job from experienced mentors.
As AGA is active in more than 20 countries and skills are very mobile, AGA conducts research on the global supply of mining engineering graduates. A summary of the trends of mining engineering-related graduates is supplied in table 1, and the conclusion is that demand far outstrips supply!
13 Deloitte UK Report.
14 Howie (2005).
15 Boninelli (2009b).
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Table 1: Summary of trends with regard to mining engineering-related graduates
Country Mining Engineering Graduate Supply
South Africa Numbers of mining engineering graduates are increasing, but demand still far exceeds supply. Many graduates are lost to other industry sectors.
Southern Africa The only country with any real numbers is Zambia – all graduates are absorbed into the Copperbelt.
East Africa Produces only small numbers.
West Africa Only Ghana and Nigeria produce any significant numbers of mining engineering-related graduates – mostly absorbed into the oil and gas sector.
Canada Until recent years, a net exporter of graduates, but tar sands project demands will exceed local supply.
United States of America
Produces only 30 to 40% of its graduate needs!
South America Brazil produces the largest number, but all graduates are absorbed by companies that partner the universities. Chile, Peru and Colombia produce fewer graduates than their national needs.
Europe Best numbers from German-speaking countries. United Kingdom universities have high percentages of students from the Commonwealth or Asia – who return home after graduating. Most other European nations experience declining interest in mining as a career owing to the poor image of the industry.
Australia Produces large numbers of mining engineering-related graduates, but heavy poaching from petrochemical sector means it cannot meet its own needs.
R u s s i a / C h i n a / India
Growing number of graduates, but insufficient for their needs – and do not contribute to the global skills pool. This might change as numbers grow and English-language skills improve.
Depending on the success of continental European, South American and South African institutions in boosting their graduate and postgraduate throughput, an absolute decline in mining engineers of between 15 to 25% by 2020 is nevertheless a realistic scenario. Areas to potentially focus recruitment efforts on could be Germany, Turkey and Eastern Europe.
Then there is the issue of the ‘defectors’ or those mining engineering graduates who leave the sector after only one or two years of work, or, in some cases, graduate and never spend a day in the mining industry. Three sectors account for the bulk of lost mining engineering-related (MERS) skills – the petrochemical, finance and consulting sectors.
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Based on recent research conducted on behalf of AGA16, key initiatives we will be driving are the following:
• Addressing teaching capacity constraints: Development and retention of competent teaching staff have proven a global challenge. To structurally overcome this challenge, two types of industry professionals should be deployed: lecturers teaching the basic (boring) courses required for the general first degree, and professionals seconded for longer periods from industry with an explicit mandate to develop the curricula for the postgraduate specialisations that the industry requires for the longer term.
• Poaching from sectors to which MERS conventionally are lost: Three sectors account for the bulk of lost MERS – the petrochemical, finance and consulting sectors. Recovering skills from each of these sectors will require different strategies, but, generally, will contribute to payroll inflation.
• Lengthening the shadow of the headgear: The industry and its career options remain poorly understood, except in the very few societies where it is the dominant sector. To broaden the pool of potential recruits, the industry should bring awareness of the career-path options within mining to communities not traditionally familiar with it. This would also require the mining HR departments to take a more long-term, holistic and active approach to broadening, securing and nurturing the skills pipeline all the way from primary to tertiary.
Another strong trend is the global growth in mobility, as evidenced by our own statistics in AGA. In the financial year 2011, the talent AGA employed just at senior management level and above came from 22 different countries. Some months ago, I was paging through the Sunday Times newspaper (in South Africa) and worked out that the ads represented no fewer than 78 different countries, all trying to recruit skills out of South Africa. Changes in the psychological employment contract have increased mobility and decreased loyalty. Expatriate assignments are no longer the domain of the career expats, but we have had cases where local talent in African countries that was being trained up under localisation policies to take the place of expats left the company before that transition could take place – to go on an expatriate assignment themselves!
More flexible working practices are now also the order of the day. This might be by employing skills on a temporary basis for a particular project, allowing a permanent support employee to become part-time or bringing back retired staff on short-term contracts to meet certain needs. Not only do talented individuals expect to be given international assignments as part of their working experience, but experienced individuals with scarce skills are also demanding to work out of the city of their choice and ‘telecommute’. AGA has top technical specialists working out of cities as far afield as Melbourne, London, Washington, et cetera, but we have
16 Reichardt (2011).
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no offices in these places. They work from home, telecommute and only physically travel to a mine site as and when required.
We have also had to become more flexible in our employment contracts. Based on a preferred candidate’s unique situation, AGA can create an offer that will best suit their needs and wants.
AGA has also invested increasing effort into defining its employee value proposition and building an employment brand. While this is a work in progress, AGA considers it essential to defining what makes our company unique and what it stands for. In association, it communicates to potential employees what it is like to work for our organisation and why long-term employees are retained.
In 2010, Generation Y outnumbered baby-boomers – and 96% of Generation Y have joined a social network.17 AGA has recently experimented in social networking with channels such as Twitter and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. What we have learnt is that these channels require experienced and dedicated resources to drive them properly. One can never forget that social networking gives candidates the opportunity to share their interview and job-search experiences with a global audience – whether positive or negative.
Retention Of course, no discussion on talent management is complete without a reference to retention strategies. It is difficult to attract and keep top talent, but AGA believes that our company’s culture and climate are key to creating a system that works. In terms of Project ONE, we have rebuilt our business processes by landing the people (SP), technical (BPF) and engagement systems quite deliberately to change our working environment and the work of people. While Base salary, Bonus, Incentives and Benefits have a higher short-term impact, the factors driving longer-term retention are Recognition, Career opportunities, Feedback and Development, Leadership and Coaching, and, last but not least, Culture, Values and Brand.
As the CEO of AGA, Mark Cutifani said:
First, money is not a positive motivator in terms of delivering outstanding results. However, it can be a major demotivator if you do not pay at market – or at a level people believe is reasonable. Second, people look for a reasonable degree of autonomy – to be able to be innovative to deliver results they can own. In this context the key is to provide a degree of structure so that they can be innovative within certain limits. The use of the BPF actually opens up the ability to be more innovative, as we are able to open up degrees of freedom through involvement and a clear definition of boundaries (which can be broader if well defined and integrated across the activity chain). Third – the concept of Engagement. By involving people in the planning of their work
17 HAYS Resources & Mining Report (2011).
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we start to liberate their creativity. By giving more autonomy as part of the process it is amazing to see how quickly they respond to the challenge and how innovative they will become.18
Conclusion
There is no more fitting conclusion than the words of AGA’s CEO, Mark Cutifani, who said:
I live by a simple leadership philosophy: the business is ours to manage … the future is ours to create. Taking this starting point, the most important thing to understand about our business is that it is not grades, processing plants and headgears. It’s actually about people: People are the Business … Our Business is People. In recognition of the importance of our people to the success of the business, AngloGold Ashanti is committed to helping each and every employee to realize their full potential.
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