Erick Wafula talks BrighterMonday’s ambitious plan to bridge Africa’s talent gap

On Thursday, The African Talent Company (TATC) launched in Uganda where it will from now own the  jobs and career platform BrighterMonday Uganda.

Formerly known as Ringier One Africa Media Jobs (ROAM Jobs)The African Talent Company (TATC), owns the BrighterMonday brand in East Africa (Kenya and Uganda) and Jobberman brand in West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana).

Speaking to Nile Post on the sidelines of the launch, Erick Wilson Wafula, the Head of Marketing for BrighterMonday East Africa described the company as one that helps provide talent management solutions.

“We do recruitment, talent management solutions and many things like skills assessment, outsourcing, partnerships and last mile connectivity for impact projects. BrighterMonday is part of a family with one agenda for Africa. Different countries are at different stages of completing this agenda but right now we are accelerating our efforts across all the countries,”Wafula said.

Explaining the work done by the company, the head of marketing at BrighterMonday East Africa explained that the company will continue using its four pillars to take forward its ambitious plan of bridging Africa’s talent gap.

“We are still looking at online recruitment which we have always done and known for. In case you want to advertise a job, you post it on our platform .We also have offline recruitment which you don’t have to come for our platform,” said Wafula who was last year recognized among the top 25 men in digital in Kenya by Kenyans on social media as well as one of the top three marketers in Kenya by Adworld Masters, a marketing agency based in Dublin Ireland.

Explaining about offline job recruitment, Wafula explained that this form of recruitment can also be termed as headhunting where companies might be looking for highly skilled individuals and can use BrighterMonday to get their CVs but also conduct interviews for them.

“We can find a way of looking for these people, get their CVs and conduct interviews for you.”

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is becoming a popular business partnership model that experts have said  can bring companies a lot of benefits.

According to Erick Wilson Wafula, BrighterMonday East Africa comes in handy to help businesses in this role.

“We enable business not employ people directly but for their own convenience and purposes of their businesses making sense helping them out. The business or company may for some reason not employ someone directly but we can do it on their behalf and the service is executed as if directly part of their business,” he says.

He however says this line has so far been successful in a few professions like IT, sales, coders and customer experience where BrighterMonday offers “a spectrum of possibilities” including recruitment and payroll management among others.

Partnerships

As part of efforts to bridge the talent gap for Africa, BrighterMonday’s head of marketing says the company also does partnership at different levels.

“We do this especially around impact projects. You might have NGOs with funds and they have a social impact project and target that they want to accomplish. Due to the nature of  the project, they might not have the last mile connectivity and infrastructure needed. We do have it,”Wafula says.

He explains that the company has a lot of data in what works and what doesn’t and through this, they can partner with NGOs to help them execute the projects.

“For example when it comes to hiring, we have the platform. They can partner with us.”

He cited examples in Nigeria the mother company partnered with the Mastercard Foundation to do training and placement for youths whereas in Western Kenya they partnered with GIZ to place youths in agriculture to help them with skills that may enable them get jobs.

“Our agenda is to bridge the Africa talent gap by providing talent management solutions and recruitment solutions as well by the needs of this continent.”

Opportunities

The BrighterMonday head of marketing says the company is ready to take advantage of the available opportunities to help bridge the talent gap in the region and continent at large.

“The work culture has changed and has impacted how people recruit and work. The global economy has opened up as someone can now work for a company in Europe and do it flexibly on their own hours,”Wafula emphasizes.

He explains that globalization has  opened up the market and changed the work culture and recruitment practices.

“People are starting to tap into the African market. People in other areas like Europe are setting up outsourcing and call centres in East Africa. There is an advantage to it because in terms of time zones we are close to Europe. East Africans are well versed when it comes to tech issues and stuff like coding, good internet speeds and quite decent internet covering. That is an advantage to us. Globalisation and how people work is a bigger advantage to us”

Future of job market

Speaking about the future of the job market in East Africa and Africa at large, Wafula says it is highly professional, dynamic and part of the global community.

“We are going to see highly qualified employees since education is becoming more affordable and available. You can do online learning even on you tube. We are going to see a situation where Africans are working for countries in Europe but basing here .Someone will be working for a company in France while in Kampala. There will be a lot more options.”

Wafula however advises that employers have to change and be flexible so as to retain the best talents.

“It means employers have to change a little bit in terms of the work environment to accommodate the needs of the job seekers.  They will need to do stuff like flexible hours or hybrid working systems and things like that.”

“Definitely it means more opportunities for employees, better working environment and people will be looking more at improving their skills rather than it was initially. People will be looking at what they gain other than the money.”

About Wafula

Erick Wilson Wafula boasts of experience in marketing, strategic leadership and growth hacking of over 15 years across the African continent including Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda & Kenya.

He has in the past led the marketing teams of Ringier One Africa Media Brands such as PigiaMe (Kenya), Cheki(Kenya) Qefira (Ethiopia), Expat-Dakar (Senegal)  since 2019 has led the marketing teams of BrighterMonday in Kenya and  Uganda as Head of Marketing.

Wafula has also handled accounts for global and  regional brands such as Toyota, the Nairobi Hospital, AIG Kenya, L'Oreal and Heineken among others.

He was last year recognised among the top 25 men in digital in Kenya by SOMA(Kenyans on social media as well  as one of the top three marketers in Kenya by Adworld Masters.