On 11 November 2021, employer branding agency Universum Global named South Africa’s Most Attractive Employers, as a result of the country’s largest, most comprehensive and independent career-related study, the Universum Talent Survey. This year, the number of professional respondents increased from 20 504 in 2020 to 24 053. The survey is revealing, not only for uncovering the most attractive employers, but also for unpacking key market insights about the ever-changing employment landscape in the country.
The survey includes 48 industries over 50 different occupational groups.
What do experienced hires say about their career choices? -The change in the number of considered employers has shifted throughout the years and business/commerce is leading the pack in terms of employer choices. Interest in searching for a career in education, however, has reduced, as has health/medicine. This reveals that the industries demonstrating growth are the ones experienced hires feel would fulfill their current career trajectories.
Where do experienced hires find information and how has this changed over the years? – Although LinkedIn is the front-runner for online usage in finding information about employer brands and information, the employers’ career websites and corporate websites are still relevant in finding the most up-to-date, credible insights.
WhatsApp ranks highly for information sharing and it emerged that it is considered important to keep hires’ online presence up-to-date and engaging thus having this medium to communicate effectively and quickly.
The most engaging employers on social media
The biggest players in the social space include (among others). The top five of each are as follows:
In business/commerce –
- Woolworths
- Discovery
- Microsoft
- Unilever
In engineering/technology –
- Tesla
- Sasol
- Anglo American
- Amazon
- SpaceX
In sciences –
- CSIR
- Unilever
- Sasol
- WWF
- SANBI
These answers emerged as written in by respondents. In the word clouds below, the bigger the box, the more frequently the word was mentioned by the respondents as being most engaging employer brand on social media. The below is ranked according to the various Main Fields of Occupation.
Many respondents indicated that, while engaging with talent is important, another important factor is understanding current talent’s satisfaction within their main fields of occupation. These are scaled answers, ranked from 1 – 10 on how satisfied current talent feels within their industry:
As the industries are analysed more deeply, specific industries emerge as forerunners in the satisfaction stakes. This is likely to encourage staff to be promoters of the brands in question. The front-runner is still computer software, with e-commerce growing in the wake of the pandemic in terms of recommendations.
What else makes sense to talent? – The desire to change employers correlates with professionals looking to leave their current workplace within the next six months. This impacts TRUST in general within an organisation and the following should be taken into account.
- Trust in the organisation’s vision has improved from 2020 to 2021 and this shows that a lot of the most attractive employer brands were communicating their vision well. Interest in changing jobs is still at an all-time high of 47%.
- Digging more deeply, the internal view of trust from the experienced hire’s perspective was explored. Surprisingly, the industry that delivers the highest satisfaction is within the business/commerce group, followed by the computer/technology area, revealing positive word of mouth from employees and brand ambassadors. E-commerce comes close to this score as this industry is rapidly growing in the wake of the pandemic.
While keeping with the trend, it’s apparent that, over the years, the need to change employers within six months has increased steadily. Trust in organisational leadership has improved, however – there is still room for more improvement. And many respondents noted their trust in leadership helped them determine more readily whether or not to leave their current employers.
Where do professionals prefer to work? – 62% of the respondents would prefer to work for an organisation founded in South Africa – an encouraging statistic, as the country rebuilds its economy following the pandemic.
With that, here are the 20 Most Attractive Employers of 2021 in the Business/Commerce Main Field of Occupation:
- South African Reserve Bank
- Transnet
- Investec
- SARS
- Unilever
- AB InBev
- Discovery
- Coca-Cola South Africa
- National Treasury
- BMW Group
- First National Bank
- Standard Bank
- Deloitte
- Anglo American
- City of Johannesburg
- United Nations
- Price Waterhouse Coopers
- City of Cape Town
- Sasol
For further insights or to gain access to the full Professional Awards report for 2021, get in touch via https://universumglobal.com/.
About Universum: Universum is the global leader in employer branding. Advising the leading employers in the world to better understand, attract and recruit talent. During our 30+ years we have established ourselves in 60 markets with 20 offices covering the world. Our solutions are actionable research, strategic advisory, data driven communication solutions – and being a pioneer in social media solutions in the world for talent branding, sourcing and analytics. A trusted partner to over 1,700 clients, including many Fortune 500 companies, as well as global media partners that publish our annual rankings and trend reports, with 2,000 partner universities worldwide conducting research on the career and employer preferences of top talent. Universum surveys on an annual basis over 1,000,000 students and professionals worldwide.
