30 August 2023
Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and industrial automation, has been awarded Topco Media’s Top Empowerment Company: Job Creation Award at the 22nd annual Top Empowerment Awards Ceremony, held at the Indaba Hotel in Johannesburg. This follows the company’s Topco Top Gender Empowered Company certification for 2023.
The award recognises those companies that are committed to creating meaningful employment, focusing on diversity and inclusion. It also celebrates organisations that have contributed towards reducing the country’s high unemployment rate through programmes that give participants meaningful work experience and improved employment prospects.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Devan Pillay, Cluster President: Anglophone Africa at Schneider Electric said: “Our purpose at Schneider Electric is to empower all to make the most of our resources particular in a time when the country faces an energy crisis. This award is indicative of Schneider Electric’s strides to provide all with the opportunity to work in this dynamic, all-important industry. I would like to thank Topco for this prestigious award.”
Schneider Electric had to meet various criteria to be awarded the Top Empowerment Company: Job Creation accolade, which included its commitment to alleviating poverty, creating work experience programmes for these candidates, and ensuring meaningful employment for them post-programme.
“The measurable evidence of our success lies in the numbers. We track how many people we have hired from our learnership, internship, and graduate programmes and, more importantly, how many of them we have converted to permanent employees. The figures are impressive, showing our commitment to creating lasting job opportunities,” says Nimmita Maharaj, Diversity and Transformation Director, Anglophone Africa at Schneider Electric
“Our long-term vision is to scale this approach even further. We are not only creating employment opportunities but also extending our efforts to provide skills development and training to communities where we undertake projects. By doing so, we hope to make a broader and more sustainable impact on society. A significant number of our employees are also under 35,” she explains.
Commenting on the Schneider Electric’s sustainable development initiatives which include skills development, Carina van Zyl, Sustainable Development Specialist at Schneider Electric adds: “Many of our students come from challenging circumstances and we have seen great success in uplifting and empowering them in line with the Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) focusing on training and empowering 1 million young people by 2025.
In partnership with the Schneider Electric Foundation, we support with vocational and entrepreneurship training to ensure students in our partnership network are job-ready and provide employment opportunities to them whenever possible. We also emphasise promoting gender diversity, with about 40% of our students being women at our Centre of Excellence at the Vaal University of Technology.”
Globally, Schneider Electric has been ranked as one of employer branding specialist, Universum's 2022 World's Most Attractive Employers, voted for by business, engineering, and IT students. Universum surveyed over 185,000 business, engineering, and IT students in the world’s nine largest economies.
Image From Schneider Electric:
Top left to right: Quintin McCutcheon, global marketing director, Devan Pillay, cluster president and Kabelo Ramodike.
Left to right: Carina van Zyl, Sebolelo Hoohlo, Matamela Mhlanga, Nimmita Maharaj, Kim Naidoo and Modlay Davids.
