AngloGold turns to grad school to develop management

AngloGold has awarded a key contract to UCT's Graduate School of Business (GSB) to present management development programmes that have been tailored to the organisation's needs.

The programmes are expected to play a significant role in developing AngloGold's management talent as well as ensuring that the company fulfils it obligations in terms of the Mining Charter.

Nigel Unwin, executive officer of human resources and information technology at AngloGold, said that the company faced a number of challenges in respect of talent management and that the programmes had been crafted to meet these.

"We need to attract, retain and develop the best managers that we can for our business, while also ensuring that they are drawn from the full talent pool of the societies in which we operate," he said. "This is as much a commercial imperative as it is a statutory requirement in South Africa. The Mining Charter requires that companies aspire to a 'baseline' of 40% participation of historically disadvantaged South Africans within management within five years. We have long sponsored black graduates in all of our key disciplines, now we need to enhance their broader management development and underpin their commitment to AngloGold."

Dr Charles Carter, who runs AngloGold's New York office and who worked with Unwin on developing the new programmes, said the courses would supplement existing in-house technical training programmes, bolstering AngloGold's employer-of-choice and retention strategies, particularly among emerging talent.

"We want to give our future managers the best developmental opportunities available. We believe that this approach will strengthen existing technical training programmes and improve management development at a young age," said Carter. "The programmes represent a shift in AngloGold's approach to management development from 'one-size-fits-all' to matching individual training and development needs with individual aspirations."

In terms of the deal, the GSB will deliver programmes targeted at two distinct tiers of management. The first will be geared towards the needs of graduate trainees and junior managers and the second towards mid-management level. Both will result in academic qualifications from UCT, which was part of the attraction for AngloGold.

GSB director Professor Nick Segal said that more and more clients wanted their customised programmes to come with certification from a respected institution.

According to Carter, another advantage was that the GSB has access to expertise from other university faculties that will considerably strengthen the programmes.

"A key attraction of developing a partnership with the GSB is that the school can draw on the strengths of other UCT faculties to provide a teaching approach that offers both breadth and depth of learning while also seeking to structure content that is of relevance to our industry," he said.