Heritage Month is a time when South Africans celebrate their diverse cultures and heritage. But even though the month has passed, it remains important for South Africans to foster greater social cohesion, nation-building and a shared national identity.

At MTS, diversity, equality and inclusion go beyond being mere buzzwords in our employee handbook. We believe effective communication can promote diversity and inclusion and that it’s imperative for organisations to have internal and external communication channels to facilitate robust and honest stakeholder engagement programmes that will lead to transparent relationships.

As companies engaged employees and local communities this Heritage Month, it’s important to keep in mind that MTS can support your stakeholder engagement and communication endeavours with our comprehensive range of tools that include blended solutions, communication materials, public participation programmes and training solutions.

When people communicate regularly and transparently, stakeholder relationships can be managed strategically to embed an operation’s social licence to operate.

Economic inclusion

Despite years of compliance-driven social transformation strategies in South Africa, we have one of the most unequal societies in the world with a Gini coefficient that remains above 0,6; much higher than the average when compared with other emerging markets (see graph below published by the IMF).

The reasons for the high levels of inequality are complex. However, one of the key drivers remains the lack of employment opportunities and more specifically, the challenges regarding youth employment.

Sluggish economic growth and the continued rise in inflation has placed increased pressure on the livelihoods of South Africans and in particular, the viability of small business (a key employer in our economy). A further challenge is the discrepancy between the available skills of job-seekers and skills requirements of business.

It is our firm belief that the levers provided by tools such as the B-BBEE scorecard can guide business to develop robust business plans where there will be greater economic inclusion through a focus on the capacity-building of potential employees and small business. This will create an impetus for economic growth and inclusion through diversification of the supply chain and the talent pool, not just for one business, but for South Africa.

Our new INSITE B-BBEE module takes our work beyond the mining industry to promote inclusive business practices across various sectors and enable business leaders to meet regulatory requirements while leaving a positive legacy.

Equality for all

At MTS we believe that every person should have an equal opportunity to maximise their potential. Equality for all means treating everyone equally, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age.

Although South Africa ranks among the top 10% globally in terms of female representation on listed companies, there’s still room for increased representation. Several studies show that greater gender equality, together with salary parity for women, can provide significant benefits for a business. Including women across all business sectors increases resilience and profitability, which is critical at a time when South Africa is reconstructing and resetting its economy in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis.

Access to workforce data through various dashboards and tracking skills levels, occupational levels and workforce plans enable our clients to strategically manage their talent pool. Through the various automated reporting categories, our clients can track income equality, management representation and skills development activities through direct access on our portal. This leverages your baseline data from an annual reporting chore to becoming a strategic tool in the daily running of your business activities to ensure long-term growth and sustainability.

Skills development

The transformation and economic prosperity of South Africa rely on developing skills in the workplace as well as unemployed people and small business. However, for skills development opportunities to be effective, they should be supported by access to employment and/or procurement opportunities. The need to provide access to opportunities requires businesses to make long-term investments in support programmes that will diversify their workforce and supply chain.

Through the implementation of INSITE, our clients gain valuable insights into their baseline data, allowing them to easily understand and track their current impact.

Further, senior management gains insights into the trends regarding skills development and the absorption of talent either through the recruitment process or their procurement spend, enabling scenario planning and alignment between strategic intent and implementation capacity. This effectively leverages the requirements of the B-BBEE initiative to build more robust business models that will meet the regulatory requirements while contributing to the development of a more stable socio-economic environment in South Africa.