SKILLS DEVELOPMENT, ANTI-FRAGILITY KEY TO THRIVING AMID DISRUPTION
- BEE NEWS
- Nov 4
- 3 min read
Nicola Mawson | 31 October 2025
With youth unemployment above 60 percent, IT leaders stress the urgent need for strategic skills development, mentorship programmes and anti-fragile organisational thinking.
South African organisations must adopt more strategic approaches to skills development and embrace anti-fragility to navigate an era of rapid technological change and economic uncertainty, industry leaders said during a session at the recent IT Indaba.
With youth unemployment exceeding 60 percent in South Africa, the urgency for action has never been greater, yet many businesses still lack the strategic frameworks needed to address the crisis.
Ebrahim Rahman, head of IT at Epson, noted that mentorship and skills development in business is vital.
“Mentorship programmes are extremely important and should be formalised within business,” Ebrahim said. He noted that many programmes exist in pockets without a strategic approach and don’t link skills development to performance metrics or bonuses.
There is also a gap in accountability, said Ebrahim. He asked: “How many of you have got a KPI that talks to skills development as an IT leader?”
With youth unemployment exceeding 60 percent in South Africa, Ebrahim stressed the need for targeted action.
Aligning graduate roles
“We should actually have the most aggressive plan to address this, but we don’t have it at that strategic layer as yet,” Ebrahim said. At Epson, a practical approach has been to reinvest savings into hiring graduates, aligning their roles with long-term roadmaps.
The focus, Ebrahim argued, should be on people rather than technology. “With youth unemployment being so high, we need to have plans, and we need to find ways to solve this problem.”
Warren Hero, product lead for Sars architecture design, emphasised the importance of diversity and inclusion. “Diversity is being asked to the dance. Inclusion is having the opportunity to dance. So, making sure that somebody gets onto the dance floor and that they actually dance,” he said.
Head of operations and partnerships at non-profit Digital Skills Africa, Jezeiyn Naidoo, said that there are gaps in digital literacy. He noted that not everyone has a fundamental baseline of education in digital skills, while stressing that AI isn't just for technical teams but also for operational staff.
Digital Skills Africa, present in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, provides access to industry certifications at no cost to marginalised communities while also facilitating mentorship opportunities.
Organisations can prepare for future skills needs by integrating emerging roles into teams, educating leadership, and creating a curriculum that provides “a fundamental understanding” of AI for the workforce, said Jezeiyn.
A role of the future
Jezeiyn added that an emerging role in the US, which is entering Africa, is that of a go-to-market engineer.
This role is one in which the employee makes sure data, tools and workflows all work together to drive growth. Their work gives sales, marketing and product teams a shared foundation from which to execute.
Jezeiyn said the role illustrates that “skills are not siloed”, with individuals needing knowledge across AI, cloud and cybersecurity to support organisational growth.
Another topic that Warren brought up was the idea that organisations need to be anti-fragile, a concept introduced by Nassim Taleb in his book, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder.
“It is not enough for organisations to be robust, what we’re looking for is for organisations to be anti-fragile.”
Unlike fragile items, like a porcelain cup that breaks when dropped, or even robust tools that eventually wear out, anti-fragile systems thrive under disorder, said Warren. “The idea of anti-fragility is this understanding that what we want is for organisations to gain from randomness, to gain from disruption.”
Drawing on management thinking, Warren highlighted that “the problem in times of disruption isn’t the disruption, it’s the fact that we think with tomorrow’s or yesterday’s logic”.
Organisations can leverage capabilities connecting their business and operating models, particularly in digital contexts, to generate what Warren termed “digital dividends”, which allow companies to move from “linear performance to exponential performance”.
By linking capabilities to the business model, organisations can unlock digital dividends to thrive in an unpredictable environment, Warren said. “A loyal customer is the result of an engaged employee. Purpose, play and potential are the things that we have to bring to bear.”
‘Disclaimer - The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the BEE CHAMBER’.