Global hunt for talent

Gatsha Mazithulela

On reading the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset), the impression that I got was that of someone really meaning to press the restart button. The strategic direction of industrialisation is driven by this document and even as we speak, I can now see that some of the decisions that we are seeing are driven by Zim Asset, particularly the aptly named quick-wins that have been identified starting in 2013.

In other words, the clock has started ticking and those that want to march in step with the policy that drives everything in our socio-economic lives must familiarise themselves with it. It is a document that calls for all hands on deck and to abuse a famous quotation, I will say, “Zimbabweans should not ask what Zim Asset must do for them; rather, they should ask themselves what they must do for Zim Asset”.  It is the ticket to entering the race to the top.

In past weeks in this column, I wrote about the need for individual industry level translation of what needs to be done in response, not only to Zim Asset, but to all policies in general. Policy blueprints do not provide you with a plan in your individual economic activity so it is the duty of the owners and management to translate policy into specific plans in their environment.

I don’t suppose that the Office of the President and Cabinet will sit down and start writing corresponding business plans for us all, government ministries included. The cross-cutting areas that I will discuss today are the pitfalls contained in industrialisation drives and the global hunt for talent during industrialisation.

My starting premise is that during the industrialisation that is envisaged in Zim Asset, there will be significant inflows of new technologies, equipment, operating procedures, licences and other enablers of modern industries. All this is good but it will come at a cost, which makes ensuring that planned industrialisation targets are reached to avoid these becoming white elephants.

However, the process of setting up these new initiatives is not as straight forward as purchasing a commodity and using it, something that unfortunately is now too prevalent in this country. Technological change and industrialisation in developing countries is initially a process of acquiring and improving capabilities rather than innovating at the cutting edge of science and engineering.

It involves learning to use and improve on industrial processes that already exist elsewhere, but this is not a cheap or riskless task. Success therefore depends on how well the learning process is managed since all countries have the choice to buy the same equipment for the same processes. In other words, differences in industrial performance in times of change depend on the speed and rate of learning and perfection and that is done by people, not the imported machines.

A famous study by Riane Essler, the Austrian-born American scholar, writer, and social activist, showed that when machines are in place, a 10 percent increase in capitalising (giving more money) to the firm led to an average growth of 3,4 percent but a 10 percent increase in education in the same industry leads to 8,6 percent growth.

Therefore investing in human beings is the best way of increasing productive capacity when the machines are in place in the race to the top. This is the reason I have constantly decried the lack of the key phrase, human capital development, in the turnaround resolutions of firms that are in difficult times. Some are therefore in leadership positions in the race to the bottom as a result.

Fortunately, I am pleased to see that phrase being prominent in Zim Asset, but again, it is not the President’s Office that will come and train your workers; they have only pointed you to a solution to some of your industrial problems.

Industrialisation of Zimbabwe under Zim Asset is occurring in a globalised environment and this country knows very well what happens when skilled labour is not motivated (and this is not only related to money) – it votes with its feet by moving to other countries. There is a global hunt for talent and as we move to industrialise in this context, we not only meet competition on investment levels, natural resources and so on, but also on the talent pool available in the world.

I have mentioned the UK’s Lord Sainsbury Report, the USA’s “Rising above the storm: Energising and employing America for a brighter future” and Canada’s report on the same issues, all written in 2007. These countries and many others are hunting for talent and we know that they make it easy for talent to come to them.

Under these circumstances, the issue of constant human capital development becomes even more important because of its impact on productivity as I have explained above. The fact remains that if you are using talent within a globalised environment, you will donate some of it to the world. No country can stop its skilled workforce from choosing where they want to go and ply their trade.

In other words, there is very little that economies can do to stop a so-called brain drain. The global hunt for talent requires that countries make the conditions necessary for them to be involved in global brain circulation instead – this is the realisation that brains come and go around the world and today’s skilled worker will probably work in more than one country during his or her career.

They are not sellouts!
What underpins the concept of brain circulation are constant human capital development and provision of exciting and challenging work, especially for the younger generation as skills migration is not always about money.

It is clear that every business should respond to this cross-cutting aspect of Zim Asset by starting to plan for these issues raised. It is clear that industrialisation at national level, as envisioned by the same plan is crucially dependent on these so-called soft issues. What is shocking is a report given at a recent trade conference that over 80 percent of final year students surveyed said they were thinking of emigrating.

We can invest as much as we want and import all the machinery possible but if this is true, then we are in the race to the bottom before we have started. My clarion call is therefore the need to further elaborate national level plans on retaining our talent and repatriating of skilled diasporans.

• Dr Gatsha Mazithulela is a scientist with international experience and holds a PhD in Genetic Engineering and Molecular Virology.  Among other posts, he has served as innovation manager and executive director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and vice-president of the Research Infrastructure and National Research Facilities in South Africa.