Recruitment at Britehouse Automotive may look similar to recruitment in general, but there are unique challenges that the organisation is addressing in innovative ways to help it maintain its market leadership.
"The single biggest challenge we have is finding software developers with experience in the automotive sector," says Britehouse Automotive JHB HR, Suzette Diedericks.
For Britehouse Automotive, it means finding, recruiting, and retaining software developers who predominantly understand how the automotive industry functions. The Automotive business is competing for talent and a competitive edge on a global scale.
Having been a leader in automotive enterprise systems for three decades and now in the process of expanding the product range in such a way as to keep customers at the forefront of the digital revolution, the business needs to source talent that will help it stay ahead of potential competition.
Britehouse Automotive must confront this challenge in the midst of a global shortage of IT skills. This makes resources expensive and poachable. Also, developers move frequently in search of new challenges and the business is often forced to replace them quickly, usually in the middle of a development project.
The situation is exacerbated by the continuous emergence of new development languages and methodologies in which developers are not yet proficient. This creates risk for companies like Britehouse Automotive in trying to offer the latest technologies while ensuring quality and continuity of service to customers.
The skills shortage also puts Britehouse Automotive in the extremely delicate situation of having to fish in the talent pools from which its customers draw their own technology employees. Business has therefore made a strategic decision to reduce the impact of market variables on its recruitment options and build its own talent pool in order to ensure its competitive edge.
"Obviously, training and then promoting people from inside the organisation to step into progressively more critical roles throughout the business, cannot happen overnight," Diedericks says.
While internal skills development will ensure that Britehouse Automotive always has access to the talent most relevant to its offerings, it will also ensure that transformation becomes naturally embedded in its recruitment activities.
"In addition, it guarantees that transformation is inherent in our succession activities," Diedericks says. "The talent we train now will automatically become the leadership team that takes Britehouse Automotive and its customers into a future that is transformed both socially and technologically."
"So, we are shifting our recruitment focus into high gear in terms of identifying people who may not have all the skills we need right now but have the potential and show the eagerness to acquire them."
"Over the past year and in the next year we will continue to drive internships that become the bedrock of our future and consider that those interns brought into the business a year ago are now all part of our permanent workforce. We look forward to the next group which commences in August / September of this year," says Claudio Camera, Group Executive of Britehouse Automotive.
"While those people are being trained, we will continue to use our traditional recruitment approaches to attract the high-level skills for which we are known in the marketplace."
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