How AI is Helping South African Companies Retain Talent and Reveal Hidden Skills
South African businesses face talent loss amid skills shortages and brain drain. AI helps identify and develop hidden employee skills, boosting retention and internal mobility.

South Africa’s Employment Landscape in Flux
South African businesses face a pressing challenge: stopping the loss of skilled talent while fully leveraging the abilities of their existing workforce. Emigration, semigration, global brain drain, and ongoing skills shortages are pushing companies to rethink traditional talent management. Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is being used not to replace people but to better understand and develop them.
Workday is focused on revealing hidden potential within organisations. Its mission aligns with a broader vision of using AI and machine learning to enhance skills, support internal mobility, and improve retention by recognising employees for their skills—not just their job titles.
From Job Based to Skills Based
Historically, recruitment and workforce planning in South Africa followed a job-centric model. Employees were hired against fixed job descriptions, and career paths were rigid. But roles evolve faster than organisational charts can keep up.
Workday promotes a skills-based approach powered by its Skills Cloud. This system gathers and infers skills from multiple data points across the company. Instead of matching candidates to job titles, it matches them to the skills they actually have. This uncovers lateral moves, career growth opportunities, and cross-functional potential that might otherwise remain invisible.
This shift is crucial in South Africa, where youth unemployment is high alongside specific talent shortages. By prioritising skills over positions, companies can better address these gaps.
AI as a Lens for Internal Mobility
Most organisations have untapped talent within their ranks. Without the right tools, leaders often miss the full range of their employees’ capabilities. AI helps close this gap.
Through Workday’s platform, South African employers can identify adjacent skills and uncover internal candidates who may not appear ideal on paper but can succeed with minimal training. This boosts internal mobility and helps retain talent.
Employees who see clear growth opportunities within their company are less likely to leave—a critical factor given South Africa’s skilled worker emigration. Many companies struggle with high turnover while still advertising external vacancies. Workday’s AI tools reveal when these roles could be filled internally.
Building Resilience Amid the Brain Drain
South Africa’s brain drain has heavily impacted sectors like finance, healthcare, and engineering. AI can help companies build resilience by identifying underused or overlooked talent.
Retention efforts should focus not only on top performers but also on mid-level employees who can grow into leadership roles. For that to happen, their skills need to be clearly visible.
Workday enables personalised learning pathways and predictive insights into workforce capabilities. This empowers organisations to develop their own talent pipelines instead of relying solely on external recruitment. Proactively growing internal talent is key to strengthening the middle layer of skilled professionals in South Africa.
Equity, Visibility and the Human Factor
AI-powered talent programmes also support greater equity. Career advancement used to favour the loudest or best-networked individuals. AI helps make talent visible objectively, giving more employees fair access to opportunities.
However, it’s not just about the algorithms. Workday emphasises ethical AI practices—transparency, explainability, and responsible data use are central. Their AI is built with governance at its core, so organisations can trust the insights they rely on.
This approach is about helping people be recognised and grow, not hype or replacing human judgement.
A Vision Rooted in South African Realities
Workday’s approach is based on real challenges faced by South African businesses and workers. Whether dealing with semigration, retaining high performers, or addressing youth unemployment, the message is clear: applied thoughtfully, technology can empower people.
AI helps surface hidden and underestimated potential in the workforce. For companies ready to invest in their people, the tools now exist to do so at scale and with precision.