Methodology

BEST Employers™ South Africa is an annual research-based HR publishing project designed to assist high-performing organisations with the overall assessment of their HR function.

The over-arching aim of BEST Employers™ is to identify, accredit and laud South African companies with a demonstrable commitment to and track record in talent management best practice on an annual basis as.

CRF’s holistic and inclusive research approach to employer framework (HR policies and practices) is unmatched, and for the 2008/09 project, the company cooperated with Deloitte and CRF International to better improve the HR Benchmark™ survey, which underpins the results of the project.

From the 2007 to the 2008 HR Benchmark™ survey, CRF added a more strategic focus on talent management as a self-contained function within the HR department, rather than a theme that runs through the department.

Companies have even greater challenges in the attraction and retention of talented staff today than ever before so this was done to better assist companies with access to information on what ‘talent management’ really means to the market, and therefore to their own organisations.

Developing the employer brand with BEST Employers™

According to, Samantha Crous, Publishing Manager, companies that participate in the annual accreditation project are what can be termed ‘intelligent employers’ due to their active and passionate development of their employer brand based on the scientific, comparative HR best practice data the project provides them with - data that is also responsible for identifying and accrediting South Africa’s BEST Employers™ each year.

Says Crous, "Ideally, an employer should gather all the necessary facts about human capital management trends regarding issues such as rewards, recognition, benefits, training and development and then strategise the means to address areas of concern relative to the norm, and better position the company as achoice employer in the mind of talent.

"This may mean training programme changes, or revised incentive structures or no changes at all. It may well be that companies should not necessarily make major changes, but rather communicate better with staff and the talent market about its people management successes. Through this, the employer will be able to address individual employee concerns by illustrating what the company is doing right relative to the market average, and be in a position to proactively address any HR framework issues that impact individual employee concerns, rather than adopting a reactive approach to general employee dissatisfaction".

In other words, it’s no longer enough for companies to say they are a great company to work for, the time is now to accredit such statements and market the organisation using an Internationally recognised mark of employer excellence to ensure the reach of the employer brand.

HR Benchmark™: Areas of research

The following areas are researched through the HR Benchmark™.

1. Organisational Strategy: What are the organisation’s talent management priorities?

2. The HR Function: The functioning of the HR department and its alignment with the overall business strategy.

3. The Leadership of the Company: What is the level of active involvement of the executive in talent management as a driver of employee engagement?

4. Communication: What are the lines of communication between employees and the company, and what is the impact of this?

5. Diversity management: How is the company responding to the diversity imperative (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment).

6. Corporate Social Responsibility: How is the company responding to SA’s social development imperatives and how are employees engaged in order to achieve this?

7. Knowledge Management: How is this aspect of the business managed, and how does this translate into organisational success as knowledge is gained and shared?

8. Talent Management and Employee Engagement: Assesses ‘vital’ statistics on employee entry and exit, and how this is managed.

9. Employee Training and Development: How are employees nurtured, mentored and developed in order for both them and the organisation to reach their goals?

10. Performance Management: Performance agreements and competency framework assessment.

11. Rewards and Recognition: How are employees recognised and rewarded for their achievements and successes?

The questionnaire offers a range of options per question, and many of the questions invite companies to include more information in an open field option contained in the question. In addition, CRF conducts interviews with the HR Director or Managing Executive, which together with the open field answers, provides additional insight which assists with vetting the accuracy of the information provided by the company in the HR Benchmark™.

Each area has an overall score that can be achieved, and some areas are weighted more heavily than others.