FNB creates more employment opportunities in support of retaining high-quality local skills

FNB, along with many other businesses in the market, is reigniting a call for the private and public sectors to prevent ‘brain drain’ by investing in high-quality critical skills in domestic markets. The bank is calling for a collective effort to avail economic opportunities, better employment and career prospects to quell talent migration to overseas markets. FNB further encourages local talent overseas to consider returning for opportunities in domestic markets across the African continent.

To expedite its bold fintech and platform-related aspirations in banking, insurance, investments and telecommunications, FNB will be recruiting 300 additional experts with engineering, technology, data and quant skills to supplement its existing cohort of more than 5 000 equivalent skills. It is looking for industrial engineers, software developers, cloud engineers, cyber security specialists, data and quant scientists, systems and solutions architects, test engineers, chemical and mechanical engineers, actuaries, business and systems analysts, customer and user experience specialists, as well as content and design specialists.

Jacques Celliers, FNB CEO, says: “Investing in top talent with critical skills allows economies and businesses to unlock innovation, investment, global competitiveness and social upliftment. As an employer to an inclusive and diverse group of more than 40 000 employees, our response to this challenge starts with recognising the need to empower the youth with meaningful work experience.

"Through our internal FirstJob programme, we’ve now enabled over 2 500 youth to gain experience with over R280 million invested since 2018. For over a decade, we’ve also been running a highly successful graduate programme and continue to employ most of the participants. Some of those graduates are leading key positions in our business to deliver helpful solutions to our customers,” he says.

As an employer of choice, FNB continues to enhance its employee value proposition. The bank is ahead of the curve in creating a conducive work environment for employees. Roughly three years before the COVID-19 pandemic, FNB began encouraging a culture of remote work in areas of the business where it is feasible to do so. In the last year, it accelerated its efforts by further investing in technology and infrastructure to enable a productive remote work experience.

As an example, FNB employees use the same award-winning FNB app that customers use to perform tasks like applying for leave, viewing and downloading payslips, accessing organisational content and fulfilling compliance requirements. Furthermore, the bank has already redesigned its main campuses to allow employees to adopt a blended work model, which comprises hot-desking, working remotely and using any of its campuses post the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People are the heartbeat of our organisation and remain core to creating life-changing financial services and fintech solutions for our customers. As a result, we’re investing heavily to create an innovative, productive and rewarding environment for our people across our markets. We also enable and support innovative minds through our industry-leading Innovators programme that has been running for over 15 years. We are excited to partner with top talent to delight our customers with contextual platform-based solutions to help them better manage their money,” adds Celliers.

The application process is now open, and applicants can apply here.

The bank is inviting top talent to submit applications via its LinkedIn page. FNB further commits to making the application process as smooth and swift as possible, requiring that potential candidates submit an abbreviated curriculum vitae, undergo a maximum of two interviews and be placed as quickly as possible in these roles.