Sustainable human capital strategy for White youth in a transformed South African Navy

Abstract

On its inception to power, the Government of National Unity inherited a society marked by profound social and economic inequalities as well as serious racial, political and social divisions. In forging ahead with the process of national reconciliation, reconstruction and development, the public service was expected to play a very critical role as an executive arm of the state. The public service thus needed to transform into a coherent, representative, competent and democratic instrument in line with the Constitution to fulfil this role effectively. Human capital refers to the accumulation of competencies, knowledge and skills to perform a task. To a degree, the effectiveness of an organisation depends on the quality and effectiveness of its employees. Without a high-quality workforce, an organisation is destined for mediocre performance. The Human Resource Strategy of 2010 of the Department of Defence aims at ensuring the availability of the right number and quality of personnel in the right place and at the right time. The SA Navy as part of the department is also governed by this strategy. Since the integration of the seven armed forces in the South African National Defence Force, the SA Navy being the least service that benefited from this process, implemented an aggressive recruitment strategy to ensure representativeness of all groups in the organisation. Before the democratisation of the republic, the SA Navy consisted of predominantly white people as blacks were debarred from joining the organisation in the past. The recruitment strategy post-1994 saw the number of whites declining annually and currently, less than what is prescribed in the Defence Review of 1998 and the Navy Review of 2002. The reported intakes from 2015 to 2020 in the SA Navy also confirm the continuous decline of white youth joining the organisation. The study established possible reasons for the decline of white youth in the SA Navy. The demographic representation in the Republic contributes to the problem. Blacks, in particular Africans, increase annually and the 2007 to 2016 community survey confirms this impasse. The subsequent Mid-term community surveys of 2018 and 2020 depict the same trend. However, without an aggressive recruitment strategy to attract white youth, the declining percentages will continue to increase even outside the demographic representation of the Republic. The qualitative and quantitative approaches undertaken during the research propose an interactive intervention on the part of the SA Navy to attract and retain white youth in the organisation.