Talent Acquisition expert Susan Waweru believes brain drain in Africa can be a thing of the past. Susan has been in the talent sourcing space since 2005, with her experience spanning different continents and sectors. Statistics from the African Youth Survey 2022, carried out in 15 countries by the South African Ichikowitz Family Foundation, found that more than 4,500 young people in Africa, aged 18-24, has found that 52% of them are likely to consider emigrating in the next few years, citing economic hardship and education opportunities as the top reasons. These figures show the need to increase efforts to retain human capital and attract the diaspora African workforce back to the continent to help develop Africa.
While living in Melbourne, Australia, Susan founded a healthcare agency, providing locum nurses and home-based care workers to different service providers. Upon returning to Africa, she established Adelko with the hope of building on the experience gained in Melbourne. However, all this did not come easily. “The formal sector in East Africa was shrinking, and gaining market entry was challenging. Susan settled on supporting international development organisations to find Program Managers, Technical teams and Leaders to support their humanitarian and sustainable development work, through a partnership with an Global Search firm.
“ I found this work very rewarding, to see nonprofits achieving their mission goals because we provided the best talent for them” notes Susan.
Over time, Adelko has evolved to providing high quality talent sourcing, Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Assessments and Coaching Services, Career Transition and Strategic HR services to diverse corporations across Africa, working in some of the most challenging markets including DRC, Central African Republic, and Burkina Faso, among others, to source suitable local talent. Working with a diverse team of experienced professionals, Adelko has extensive knowledge of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) markets and can source talent anywhere in SSA. Susan is excited about Adelko’s growing BPO product because it is an opportunity to create jobs for African young talent.
“We must all address the plight of our youth earnestly, and by being the reliable bridge for International Firms to outsource their non-core work to African talent, we are enabling our young people to participate in the world of work as useful talent”.
As the Managing Director of Adelko Consulting Services, Susan uses her strong talent sourcing and employer partnerships to enable sustainable connections through the state-of-the-art talent sourcing techniques. An understanding of the African market dynamics and talent market analytics puts Adelko in the front line in recruitment process outsourcing.
Adelko’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) -compliant recruitment values and tools ensure their processes are free from bias for or against any individual or group of candidates. With over fifteen full-time and adjunct consultants, Adelko supports its clients to create greater awareness of diversity by encouraging them to consider a broader range of skills and experiences and a more varied candidate pool outside of the status quo. They use these values as their guiding principles when it comes to sourcing talent and in their recruitment process. This is the Adelko way and it is ingrained in their DNA.
“We promote multicultural awareness and understanding among our clients by focusing on recruitment & selection processes that give no room to prejudices. Competency-based recruitment tools are worth their investment.” Notes Susan
Adelko’s offering is broad, balanced and tailored to meet the needs of its clients. The most significant aspect of their offering is their business process outsourcing (BPO) which enables them to cater for vital human resources functions such as Accounting, IT support, Payroll, HR service, Data Analytics, Event Management, Advertising, and Call Centres, among others among other administrative services. By having BPO Adelko has been able to create an environment for businesses to focus on their core functions, and foster enhanced growth and global expansion.
Through WeConnect International Susan has connected with potential clients at the match-making sessions. She credits her success to persistent followup, relationship building,, comprehensive research and understanding of the organisations’ requirements, quality, and timely service delivery. Susan’s last word is
Always aim for the moon because even if you fall short, at least you’ll land with the stars. Stay focused. – this was said to her by Pam Sands, VP, Supplier Strategy & Engagement, Kelly Services and a Mentor to Susan
