This is what makes these firms rank top employers

The British American Tobacco Company (BAT) was crowned the overall Employer of the Year at a ceremony held in Nairobi last Friday. At position two was Centum Investment Company Ltd, with the University of Nairobi coming in third.

The awards ceremony was the first one by the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE). The awards were put into eight different categories.

FKE Chief Executive Jacqueline Mugo urged employers to pay keen attention on personnel, as it is the human resource, more than the capital that drives various businesses forward. “By the end of the day, it is all about the people,” she said.

In determining the overall best Employer of the Year, the research firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Pwc) looked at how the organisations performed in all the eight areas.

They included learning and development, inclusiveness and diversity, work place environment, effective human resource practices and human relations.

Others were leadership and governance, innovation and productivity, responsible business conduct and corporate performance. According to PwC, 128 organisations participated in the Employer of the Year Awards, out of which 78 were shortlisted for site visits.

BAT Kenya, in its journey towards the overall winner slot was shortlisted in all the eight categories, managing to top three positions in four of the eight categories. In the rankings, Centum Investments scored big in learning and development, followed by East African Breweries (EABL) and BAT.

In terms of inclusiveness and diversity, the University of Nairobi (UoN) was ranked top, followed by East African Portland Cement Company Ltd while General Motors East Africa was ranked third.

East African Breweries Ltd scored big on work place environment, followed by General Motors East Africa and EABL.

BAT won the top award in effective human resource practices and human relations, followed by General Motors East Africa (GMEA) while Ballore Transport and Logistics took the third position.

In leadership and governance, Centum Investments Ltd was the best performing company while BAT Kenya and the University of Nairobi came in second and third respectively. Innovation and productivity category saw Crown Paints upstage rivals to run away with the award, followed by UoN and GMEA.

Responsible business conduct saw Lewa Wildlife Conservancy scoop top position, followed by GMEA while Davis and Shirtliff came third. Centum won in corporate performance, followed by BAT and UON.

In the learning and development category, what stood out was the ability of the company to create a learning hub which includes e-learning portal developed locally. Robust career development process that is automated, targeted training and development for all employees through on the job and off the job training was key to this ranking.

Effective human resource practices and industrial relations category required shortlisted firms to excel in workplace wellness and wellbeing programmes, and have critical employee benefits for attracting top talent.

They were also required to have highly engaged employees and sound human resource practises in place.

BAT Head of Human Resource Razeeah Belath attributed the victory to a culture that fosters freedom through responsibility and open mindedness. “As an organisation, we are happy to have won this award and we thank all BAT staff for their hard work and commitment, as well as all other stakeholders, as this is definitely the culmination of excellent team work,” she said.

The United Nations Resident Coordinator Siddharth Chatterjee, who was the chief guest said the work done by employers to create jobs cannot be matched by any government anywhere in the world. “That one million Kenyans join workforce every year shows how important the role you play as private sector is. No government can generate the jobs that private sector does,” said Chatterjee.

He, however, told the employers to recognise the need for them to create not just jobs but decent ones.

GMEA Chief Executive officer Rita Kavashe, attributed the company’s good performance particularly in innovation and creativity to their initiative dubbed ‘mashinani’.

“In Mashinani we actually decided to engage youth groups in the distribution of our spare parts. By doing so we created jobs for the youth who then got meaningful engagements while at the same time increasing business performance in terms of sales,” said Kavashe.

Ms Kavashe noted that how the company engages with the employees has been a key priority of the business.

“We have had to structure our operations by having flexible working time so that the employees can also attend to family matters, considering the various age groups that we have, gender among others,” she said.