ft-Should-SA-Consider-Special-Visas-to-Attract-Skills-XP

NEWS | SHOULD SOUTH AFRICA CONSIDER SPECIAL VISAS TO ATTRACT SKILLS?

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This, according to the Home Secretary, Piri Patel, is in an effort to attract the ‘’best and brightest heath and care professionals’’ globally to work and help strengthen the National Health Service (NHS).

Skills shortage in SA

South Africa is experiencing a mass exodus of healthcare professionals who look for greener pastures after graduating.  In addition, 48% of practising nurses in South Africa are due to reach retirement age in the next 15 years, with not nearly enough in training to fill the shortfall.

Attracting skills and investment

Marisa Jacobs, Managing Director at Xpatweb, notes that while we have the Critical Skills list that includes skills in high demand in South Africa, there is certainly a spotlight being placed on the Legislation used to attract skills and South Africa should be open to considering similar visa options to attract skilled workers and investors alike to strengthen the labour sector and economy.

Some examples include –

  1. Residency by Investment options;
  2. Special Dispensations for specific skills (similar to UK Health Care Worker visa above); and
  3. Remote Worker Visas (similar to Mauritius and Portugal Nomad Visas).

All these options are aimed at attracting only the top skilled labour, injecting the economy through tourism and travel, and inciting investors.

Enabling legislation

The pandemic has certainly highlighted various shortcomings across sectors, but it has also shown that nations on the continent and around the world can stand together in times of need. Policy and regulations enable growth and skills development in significant ways but only where we invite debate, comment positively and with insight on draft legislation and make our voices heard.

Xpatweb annually conducts the critical skills survey to gather feedback from employers to establish which skills should be included in the Critical Skills list. The survey data will be instrumental in commentary on the latest draft list currently open for public comment until 31 March 2021.

This is the perfect platform for employers and all South Africans alike to provide valuable inputs to the Department of Home Affairs on how to optimally leverage the list to attract skills to South Africa to strengthen the economy and local labour force for generations to come.

AUTHOR
Marisa Jacobs
Marisa Jacobs
Director

Don't Forget To Comment On Critical Skills

NEWS | DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT ON CRITICAL SKILLS

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Marisa Jacobs, director at Xpatweb, encourages organisations who rely on any of the omitted roles for the sustainability and growth of their business to comment on the draft list before 16h00 on 31 March 2021.

“If they don’t, they will have to wait several months longer before an employee critical to their operations can be onboarded due to visa application restrictions,” she warns.

Jacobs also invites these employers to complete the current Critical Skills Survey, which is more in-depth than previously. Doing so will ensure their needs are presented to regulators long before the next public comment process is announced.

Xpatweb has carried out its Critical Skills Survey for the past five years, providing reliable data on the needs of South African businesses. As a result, it was the only private sector organisation invited to present its findings before the Departments involved in compiling the draft List.

Source: IT Online

More Than a Balancing Act What Is The Future Like For CFOs

NEWS | MORE THAN A BALANCING ACT: WHAT IS THE FUTURE LIKE FOR CFOS?

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Even World Economic Forum leader Till Leopold warned white-collar jobs would not be spared in the onslaught of jobs for skilled and educated people in the coming year, saying that 35% of the skills requirements for many existing professions will change in the near future.

This has implications for accountants on the African continent, according to the CEO of CFO Africa and CEO of the South African Institute for Business Accountants (SAIBA), Nicolaas van Wyk.

He told Fin24 that the impact of the fourth industrial revolution and tech are changing the world of work for accountants.

“Five years ago, more emphasis came upon CFOs and there was a lot is being made of the role of modern CFO. The role has moved from a purely finance function into the boardroom.

Broader skills set expected

“Now people who are accountants are also expected to have business skills, strategy, operation, human resources and information and communication technology,” said van Wyk.

Van Wyk said 70% of JSE-listed company CFOs are accountants by study and profession, while the remaining 30% were led by corporate executives with broad skills and competencies. While chartered accountants are still present, they mostly serve to assist the CFO, van Wyk said.

“CFOs need to be more mobile and be able to work anywhere in the world. We set a benchmark to qualify a CFO and award the designation so that companies are assured of that person’s competence. It is all the more essential with the scandals in place surrounding the profession,” said Van Wyk.

He elaborated saying there might be corrupt politicians and state-owned entity (SOE) leaders, but most of the time they cannot act without an enabling CFO. He said CFO Africa and SAIBA have reached out to government to offer auditing and accounting capacity to its efforts in fighting corruption.

“We are making submissions to the Department of Public Enterprises. It is part of government’s efforts to clean things up and it is emanating from the Zondo Commission. Everyone is building up defences and we are doing it by bolstering the designation of CFO,” he said.

Independent labour analyst Andrew Levy said C-suite executives remained one of the most critical components to South Africa’s efforts when it came to drawing critical skills to help the economy recovery.

Xpatweb director Marisa Jacobs said the impact of Covid-19 on South Africa’s world of work would deepen the formal economy’s reliance of tech and the idea of virtual work.

“We only released the critical skills list after Covid-19, so it will be interesting to understand pre-Covid-19 versus post-Covid-19 world to see if there has been a dramatic shift, but we can see engineering remains in the top ten, which we weren’t expecting to see due to the impact on manufacturing. IT reliance is high because of the fourth industrial revolution and the high use of tech,” said Jacobs.

Intimidation of CFOs concerning

Van Wyk said the intimidation and murder of CFOs who have lost their lives in the fight against corruption in government departments and SOEs was also of serious concern.

“We have seen the State Capture Inquiry and it is a shame what so many people did to South Africa and the impact that it had on the poor. The pandemic is worldwide but there is global mismanagement.

“It is a small number of CFOs who are corrupt but many are in organisations where the culture cannot easily be shifted in a positive directed. For example, Markus Jooste didn’t act on his own. He had a CFO who facilitated things. We must strengthen the ethical role and technical knowledge,” said Van Wyk.

Van Wyk said he believed CFOs could assist SA at a strategic level as sovereign credit rating agencies have been giving downgrading South Africa, adding that CFOs we can improve the profession and the economic fortunes of the continent.

Source: fin24

 

NEWS | FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKERS ARE AN UNDENIABLE CRITICAL SKILL TO SOUTH AFRICA

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However, Foreign Language Speakers, a role that featured in the previous List, has been omitted from the draft List.

“Foreign language employees are more valuable than the language they speak and are critical to job creation inside South Africa’s borders,” says Marisa Jacobs, Managing Director at Xpatweb.

This skill appears high on the company’s Critical Skills Survey results, which were used as input for the draft List.

Export industry

Mary-Ann McCormick, HR Director at Indian Ocean Export Company (IOEC), says foreign language workers are essential to cementing strong business relationships in the firm’s French-speaking market abroad.

The company’s business development managers and export coordinators must be fluent in the language to a degree not found in South Africa. “If we are able to source them, they usually don’t have the skillset or experience we demand for the quality of service we must deliver,” she says.

Foreign language workers not only communicate complex information fluently but bring with them international experience and an understanding of the unique traits and expectations of IOEC’s target market.

McCormick reports that the company previously tried outsourcing these functions to agents in the destination regions but assuring service quality from a distance proved impossible. “For our model to work, our business development managers and export coordinators must be located in-house,” she says.

Contact centres

Organisations outsourcing their foreign market support function to contact centre operators typically insist that high quality foreign language consultants be available to their customers.

Contact centre services include telephone, chat and email support, as well as website translation and marketing programmes aimed at nominated countries.

“These activities require in-depth knowledge of the specific country, its customs, traditions, preferences, nuances and more,” says Sharon Haigh, CEO of Contact Centre Management Group (CCMG), a professional body representing over 2,000 South African contact centres. “Merely being able to speak the language without this knowledge has proven insufficient for our members’ needs,” she says.

According to Haigh, the 10 to 15 percent of foreign speakers typically employed at local contact centres ensures those companies can provide jobs to the 85 percent of local workers who support them. In addition, South Africa has been voted the world’s second most attractive BPO destination for three years running. It can improve this standing by focusing on authentic foreign language support.

Tourism

Few South African business leaders missed Finance Minister Mboweni’s 2021 budget speech in which he called for a focus on job-creating sectors, specifically naming tourism.

However, leaders in the tourism field have long complained that a lack of competent foreign language speakers is hurting the industry, especially during peak season. Travellers with money to spend would rather frequent regions where their native tongue is represented.

The Department of Tourism has acknowledged this need by offering a two-month course in Mandarin to local tour guides. However, one cannot learn a language effectively in two months and guides make up a small part of the overall business and marketing drive to attract tourists in the first place.

Jacobs agrees: “Tourism is a major contributor to the South African economy and native foreign language speakers are strongly linked to growth in that sector.” She adds that preliminary results from Xpatweb’s 2020/21 Critical Skills Survey reveal a significant increase in demand for this role among participants, jumping from 6 percent last year to 16 percent in 2021.

Critical Skills Survey

Xpatweb has carried out its Critical Skills Survey for the past 5 years, providing reliable data on the needs of South African businesses. As a result, it was the only private sector organisation invited to present its findings before the Departments involved in compiling the draft List. This demonstrates the quality of its data and research methodology.

Jacobs encourages organisations who rely on foreign language speakers for the sustainability and growth of their business to comment on the draft List before 16h00 on 31 March 2021.

“If they don’t, they will have to wait several months longer before an employee critical to their operations can be onboarded due to visa application restrictions,” she warns.

Jacobs also invites these employers to complete the current Critical Skills Survey, which is more in-depth than previously. Doing so will ensure their needs are presented to regulators long before the next public comment process is announced.


AUTHOR
Marisa Jacobs
Marisa Jacobs
Director

NEWS | BUSINESSES CAN GET URGENT APPROVAL FOR PROFESSIONALS TO WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA WITH A SHORT-TERM WORK VISA

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Xpatweb director, Marisa Jacobs, says the Short Term Work Visa has come to the rescue of many businesses, which for various reasons have urgently required specialist skills to attend to new installations or maintenance challenges in local factories or on rig, mining and construction sites. The visa, valid for three months, and is renewable.

“The Short term Work visa is the ideal solution for businesses that cannot afford to wait the two to three month time period that it takes to process an application to bring in an employee on a longer term work permit,” Jacobs says.

Benefits of short-term work visa

Businesses in the manufacturing sector and also in the oil and gas sector that require specialist skills for an acute period of time, for example, to install machinery on a once off basis, or to attend to a mechanical breakdown, can make use of this visa to speedily get the skills needed on site. The Department of Home Affairs understands the needs of businesses to import specialist skills and that it can cost businesses millions of rands in losses for every hour of production lost due to a breakdown, so this visa is relatively swift to obtain once an application has been lodged with the Department.

“The Short term Work visa is also useful in cases where you may need to bring in a professional urgently to kick start a brand new project and you cannot afford to wait for a long terms work visa application to be processed. Businesses can anticipate a five to ten day approval waiting period for the Short term Work visa but swifter approvals, of as little as two hours, have been achieved by our immigration specialists,” Jacobs advises.

Understanding the requirements

The main criteria businesses need to fulfil during the application process, explains Jacobs, includes providing the foreign professional’s credentials, such as a resume and a motivation for why his or her skills are urgently required for the particular project.

“The process can be fairly straight forward and the Department has been extremely supportive in granting this visa as it understands the knock on effect of the businesses’ production losses and the impact on the entire economy, not least the fiscus. For the quickest turnaround time and first time correct submission it’s advisable to engage an immigration specialist, who understands the process and deals daily with the High Commissions and Embassies in the Department, to oversee and facilitate the application,” Jacobs adds.

Closing remarks

Jacobs cautions that while the Short term Work visa may be renewed after three months, it does not provide a pathway to a longer work permit, and professionals required for longer periods will have to return to their home country once the visa has expired, and apply afresh for a longer term work permit from there.

AUTHOR
Marisa Jacobs
Marisa Jacobs
Director