Attracting and retaining talent

The ability to attract and retain talent is critical amid increasing competition for skills. Our emphasis is on identifying and developing existing staff, through a "Make or Grow" approach to building our talent base as opposed to a "Buy or Acquire" approach. Our internal talent market is segmented according to the organisation's priorities and the scarcity of certain skills. From a risk and sustainability point of view, we recognise that Sanlam needs to focus more energy on a number of high priority groups. These actions include the monitoring of the professional group as well as succession lists at Board level and the development of a Graduate leadership Program. A more interventionist approach is taken to managing the careers of members of these groups while for other employees' information and tools are made available to empower them to manage their own careers.

In line with our decentralised model, the businesses take ownership of identifying and developing the talent in their Clusters.

From a Group perspective, we are interested in the overall leadership bench strength of the organisation and focus on: (1) assessing the strength of the talent pool against future organisational demands; (2) monitoring and reporting on the development of the high priority groups; and (3) designing and executing interventions to further the development of the high priority groups as well as the remainder of staff.

We have consolidated our approach to recruitment by sourcing across the Sanlam Group and by making use of a preferred list of recruitment agencies; this helps to build stronger relationships with these agencies, and improves their understanding of the Sanlam brand and employee fit. In 2011 we launched a project to redesign the recruitment process across the Group, paying closer attention to the candidate's experience. The new process and new technology is due to be launched in the first quarter of 2012.

Various initiatives have been implemented across the group to enhance staff retention. This includes the monitoring of staff turnover specifically amongst black staff members and retention measures in terms of remuneration and incentives where indicated. In addition to these measures, two share schemes specifically for black staff members especially at the more senior levels are available.

In order to address the career aspirations of our staff and improve retention, a transfer policy and a project to harmonise benefits across the Group have been implemented. This will allow for greater mobility of staff members across businesses with the Group.

Finally our performance-based reward strategy plays an important role in retaining key talent.

Group employee turnover

The overall turnover rate for Sanlam was 23.27% compared to 28.65% in 2010. The decrease was due to retention initiatives. Turnover amongst the commission-based staff is high – a normal trend in our industry. Excluding commission-based staff, the turnover rate was 11.1% compared to 15% in 2010.

Currently, turnover statistics are satisfactory with the highest rate of success at a more senior level (across all demographics). The highest rate of turnover is among African males (46.6%) followed by African females (39.3%). Retention is more challenging, especially among the lower level positions where employees tend to leave more readily for minimal salary increases. Encouragingly the recruitment of African males and females is also the highest, in both cases exceeding the turnover rates for these groups.

Sanlam identifies key individuals for their contribution to the Group and aims to retain their skills through specific retention initiatives. These initiatives range from retention bonuses to development opportunities.The majority relate to bonus packages. Currently the value of these initiatives is R87.1 million, compared to R90.5 million in 2010.