CASE STUDY

Developing a future-fit workforce

We seek to attract and retain the best employees to ensure we serve the people of South Africa, carrying out both our regulatory and grant funding mandates.

A critical part of this pursuit includes ensuring our workforce is diverse and representative. We are proud of the race and gender diversity of our staff complement and believe it makes us better able to learn and grow from one another. The organisation currently boasts 57% female representation at the executive level and a 4% staff complement comprising persons with disabilities.

The NLC continues to develop talent from within by inspiring a learning culture – encouraging employees to acquire additional skills, knowledge and competencies. In this regard, the NLC uses a blended approach. This includes on-the-job training, and coaching, especially during periods of transition as employees take up new roles within the organisation, as well as enabling external learning opportunities through study bursaries.

Supporting a growth-minded organisation is particularly relevant in our current context. The way we work today is distinctly different from the world of work just 10 years ago – and the pace of change has only been accelerated by the pandemic and the resultant adaptations all businesses needed to make to accommodate employees working from home.

For the NLC, however, preparation for the digitalised future did not start with the pandemic. Two years ago, we embarked on a Group-wide initiative to facilitate conversations around 4IR, hosting workshops and performing digital readiness assessments to understand where digital skills gaps lay and how we could best close them given each employees role – and potential future roles – within the organisation. In this way, we sought to enable the development of a competent and skilled workforce, aligned to technological advancements in the industry. Encouragingly, during these conversations with employees, it became apparent that the desire to upskill in this regard was intrinsically driven and has thus continued to gain momentum throughout the organisation.

Given the accelerated pace of change we are experiencing, including the growing functionality of the ERP and technological advancements in the lottery industry, we have embarked on an initiative to reassess the developmental timeframes initially determined and initiate an implementation programme that will fast track the process of closing of any remaining skills gaps across our workforce. To this end, the NLC has adopted a forward-looking skills agenda, one that focuses on infusing a digital mindset in the workforce by making technology and innovation the pinnacle of all training programmes.

(For more information on our digital transformation journey, please see here)