Key talent businesses are seeking to employ in 2020

Most private firms in Kenya plan to recruit this year despite a cloud of economic uncertainty.

A report on talent acquisition trends released by Shortlist, a human resource advisory and training firm, states that 92 percent of the firms will this year hire for technical, sales and business development roles.

The prospects, however, represent a slight drop from 96 percent of the firms that indicated plans to hire last year.

The report shows that smaller companies with less than 100 employees are more bullish.

A total of 58 percent of about 135 Kenyan human resource professionals and hiring managers from the SMEs indicated a plan to hire a contingent workers including independent contractors and consultants.

Overall, large corporates and medium-sized companies plan to increase headcount in 2020 but at reduced rate of five percent lower than last year’s.

About 27 percent of the respondents are looking to hire for marketing and communication roles, 23 percent for customer service and 19 percent are keen on finance people.

Other areas of hiring, according to the survey, include operations, HR, tech, data analytics and business intelligence.

Attracting top talent were among the top challenges for companies last year. As a result, firms are looking to come up with ways that connect them to great talent while saving on time.

“Going into 2020, these organisations are looking to answer questions like: Is our recruiting process selecting the right talent? What value do new hires add to the company? Will they stay?” the report said.

Recruiters are moving from waiting for candidates to apply for open jobs to reaching candidates that could be a great fit, the report said.