Faritec leads the way in promoting women development

JSE-listed IT services and solutions specialist Faritec was recently recognised by the Business Women's Association's Women in Corporate Leadership Census as a top-performing company, with 27.3% female representation on its board and 22.2% at executive manager level.

Debbie Radford, Faritec's HR Executive, says the company is committed to employment equity and skills development.

"We make a concerted effort to work on our gender and race make-up," she says. "We monitor our figures closely and report on a monthly basis. Our remuneration policy is not gender-biased in any way and we have eradicated any inequalities that may have existed."

Faritec's achievement in terms of board representation is strategically by design. "When we had an opening for a financial director we looked for the best possible female FD and were fortunate to find Tshidi Nyembe," Radford says. "We maintained this approach by appointing Makgosi Mabaso as our IT executive. We couldn't ask for better quality women executives."

In creating these role models, Faritec conveys an important message to its staff and the industry - that women in the company can go places. By embracing and honouring the diversity among people, Faritec creates an environment which encourages great achievements from all its staff.

In an industry renowned for being male-dominated, Faritec is proving that women can add significant value to the industry and be very well suited to its demands.

"We are committed to bringing women into the industry through our learnership programme and we have found that women have a definite aptitude for positions like IT engineers," notes Radford. "They also exhibit a great work ethic and we have been able to take most of our learners into full-time employment with the company."

Sharlene Naidoo, HR Manager of Faritec, is directly responsible for the learnership programme. "The learnership programme is approved by the ISETT SETA and aims at placing newly qualified IT graduates in suitable positions while reducing the risks faced by organisations," she explains.

"We believe there is a strong demand for greater facilitation of skills development, to create the necessary structures for effective transformation. The local IT industry is under increasing pressure in the form of greater competition from globalisation and the urgent need to meet employment equity targets and close the skills gap."

The programme is a year-long learnership, and of the 12 learners on the last programme there were equal numbers of men and women. A new group of learners has just embarked on the programme, of which 82% is female.

"From an HR perspective, learnerships provide the opportunity to shape performance in line with company standards," Naidoo says. "At Faritec, it's not about statistics or chasing targets, it's about enabling people to improve the quality of their lives. We are more interested in developing skills and improving performance than in grants or tax benefits."

Radford believes there is nothing stopping women from taking the opportunities out there. "We owe it to ourselves to fight for ourselves - to raise the issues if they need to be raised, to form forums and bring solutions. As women we also need to take responsibility for our own prospects and ensure that our contribution is valued," she says.