Middle level managers are the most sought-after group of employees, a PwC survey shows. FILE
By Victor Juma
Majority of chief executives in Kenya are
worried that they are not offering enough pay to retain talent they need
to stay ahead of the competition in an expanding economy, a
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey shows.
The executives say they will need to widen the
scope of performance-related compensation and salaries to attract and
retain talent in what will leave them with a heavy cost burden.
This was the verdict of 31 CEOs in Kenya who
participated in a PwC survey conducted between November 2012 and June
2013 and covered 301 company heads drawn from 19 countries.
The survey showed that 97 per cent of Kenya’s
business leaders agreed that their firms needed to match the
compensation levels of their peers to retain top talent—which was above
the global and the continent’s average of 69 per cent and 79 per cent
respectively.
Middle level
“Companies are offering higher pay as a key talent
retention strategy,” said Kuria Muchiru, PwC’s human resource leader
for Central and Southern Africa. “This is largely seen in fast-growing
industries like banking and telecommunications,” he added.
In top demand are people who are technologically
literate, knowledgeable of global trends and capable of not only
developing but also executing strategy — forcing most blue chip firms to
widen their nets to include Africans in the diaspora.
The PwC indicated that majority of the Kenya’s CEO
at 48 per cent were less confident of sales growth this year. Mr
Muchiru observed that middle level managers are the most sought-after
group of employees.
But scarcity of local skills in Kenya’s emerging
industries like oil and gas sector has seen an international scramble
for even routine tasks like laying of the oil search infrastructure.
The fight to retain key talent comes at a time a
section of Kenya’s large companies plan to scale down annual salary
increments, citing subpar performance in 2013
.
.
A separate PwC survey showed employers anticipated
increment averaging 8.4 and 8.5 per cent for management and
non-management levels in that order. This is lower than the 8.9 per cent
and nine per cent paid in 2012.
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