Pupkewitz, BoN scoop Deloitte best company awards

NDAMA NAKASHOLE

Pupkewitz Holdings and the Bank of Namibia (BoN) have won the Deloitte Best Company to Work For awards in the categories for large and small-and-medium companies.

The survey results were announced at an awards ceremony held in Windhoek yesterday.

Deloitte said the survey is a crucial tool for all organisations looking at their attractiveness to existing and potential employees and in determining their employees’ engagement with the organisation.

In the large company size, which looks at organisations with over 500 employees, the Pupkewitz Group was first and Trustco took second place.

In the small-and-medium-size category, the BoN was first and the Road Fund Administration(RFA) came second.

Speaking on behalf of his company, which has over 1 800 employees, Pupkewitz’s talent management executive Schalk Pienaar said that he emphasised to employees that their participation in the survey was never to be in competition with anyone.

In fact, Pupkewitz’s participation in the Deloitte Best Company to Work For Survey was to help people to be the best they can be, according to him.

“We have decided to re-strategise and show love and care to our people,” Pienaar said in his acceptance speech.

The Bank of Namibia’s Leah Namoloh said winning meant that the central bank was doing something worth the trust of its employees.

She called them to work together to achieve the bank’s mandate of ensuring the economic growth of the country.

“Our millennials have spoken through their pens. They have spoken that they like what the bank has done for them,” she said.

Millennials power

The keynote speaker at the event was Raelene Clarke, who is the co-founder of youth-led innovation start-up Springage, which was acquired by Deloitte in 2016.

She highlighted the importance of “millennials power” in organisations.

Now called Springage by Deloitte, this millennial insights unit aims to help organisations understand, engage and collaborate with the millennial market, both internally as employees and externally as customers, to meet their business aspirations as they strive to future-proof themselves.

Clarke said according to the data they have collected, by the year 2025, 70% of the workforce will be millennials. However, 66% of those are planning to leave in the next two years.

She said companies are losing millennials to start-ups and side hustles because they feel like their opinions and ideas are not taken seriously.

According to her, millennials are not solely interested in cash rewards but want to be part of the responsibilities, and not listening to millennials can cause a disconnect.

“The millennials force is sensitive to inequality and non-inclusivity. We can’t afford not to listen to them,” she said.

She gave an example of the H&M Kids-branded hoodie backlash as well as the eNCA presenter’s ‘doek’ debate as one of those issues that showed millennials are sensitive and will speak up for themselves.

“In South Africa, we have 14.5 million millennials and this group is growing at twice the rate of growth of the whole population,” she said.

She urged companies to start engaging millennials, not only internally but externally too.