The other markets certified are Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda, earning DHL Express as a Top Employer in Africa.

The company was certified by the Top Employers Institute at the prestigious Top Employer 2017 ceremony at the Sandton Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.

Commenting, Hennie Heymans, Chief Executive Officer of DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), said, “We are extremely proud of this achievement. This is testament to how much we value our employees and reaffirms that DHL Express is a rewarding place to work at.”

“Having motivated people is the first pillar of our global internal focus strategy and being an employer of choice is one of our three bottom lines. This demonstrates how seriously we take employee engagement and development at a global level and on the ground in SSA. We’re committed to having a team of high performers who operate in a high performance culture and in a region that promotes and drives diversity of leadership,” he said.

“I believe that DHL Express has something very unique. You don’t often find a company that can maintain the same culture across the world. The fact that you can walk into any one of our offices around the world and feel that same drive towards customer centricity from the minute you walk in the door is truly amazing. Our focus pillars lay the foundation for this success and the abundance of employee engagement and recognition programmes are perfectly positioned to support this.”

“These initiatives and programmes include our Certified International Specialist (CIS) program, which is a cultural change program that all our employees across SSA have gone through. An extension of CIS is our Certified International Manager (CIM) programme, which focuses primarily on ensuring that our leaders are equipped with the knowledge and skills to meet the demands of today’s complex working environment and promote effective and quality leadership among managers.”

“We also run an annual Employee Opinion Survey which is 100 per cent anonymous. This gives us great insight into areas that require improvement, as well as reaffirms areas that we are doing well in. Much like how we rely on customer feedback to improve our customer service quality, direct feedback from employees is imperative to our success. From an employee recognition point of view, we run employee appreciation weeks and functional focus weeks which celebrate and recognise our employees’ achievements in each country. In addition, we present quarterly and annual awards to our star performers, based on employee nominations,” added Mr. Heymans.

To be certified as a Top Employer in Africa, a company needs to operate in four or more countries and have exceptional employee conditions. The Top Employers Institute conducts comprehensive and independent research by getting employees in the relevant companies to complete a HR best practice survey.

The survey assesses the company’s HR strategy, policy implementation, practices and employee offerings, to reveal whether the company provides exceptional employee conditions, develops talent on all levels and demonstrates leadership through optimising the development of its employees and employee practices.

Each completed survey is reviewed by the Top Employer Institute and subsequently audited by a third party. Only organisations that qualify from the selection process receive the Top Employers title and Certification Seal but all participants receive a comprehensive Feedback Report.