Finding skilled workers for projects in Zambia, DRC, and Ghana is a time-intensive process for mining companies. Your competition for talent in this region is high, and projects are heavily scrutinised for local hiring. Localisation isn’t optional; regulators, communities, and governments demand it.
But, not many companies take the time to research local talent availability before they start recruiting. As a result, they need to make more last-minute expat hires and rely heavily on contractors. It’s a reactive approach that exposes them to delays, higher costs, and missed targets.
There’s heavy competition from other mines for the same skilled people, so you need to be well informed to get your recruitment plan right.
That’s where talent assessment tools like talent heat maps come in. You get a clear picture of which skills exist locally, how demand will change, and when shortages could put projects at risk.
The challenge
In Zambia’s copper sector there is high demand for skilled, experienced workers and potentially not enough local talent to go around. One expansion project we worked on needed 35 qualified managers for a new leadership team and 2,500 hires for their engineering and construction ramp-up.
They needed to hire 1000s of people from many disciplines including mining engineers, metallurgists, and senior managers. Additionally, they needed large cohorts of specialised trades and operators.
Local hiring policies made this even trickier. In Zambia, the government and communities demand that mining companies prioritise local employment. Our client knew that skills shortages would force them to heavily rely on expats, but they had to balance compliance with operational needs. Getting this wrong could put a whole project at risk.
How talent heat maps helped them reduce risk
To quickly scale a new workforce in high-demand regions, you need to know where critical skills are concentrated. Talent heatmaps can show you where skilled workers are found, both within the country and across the region. They also give you realistic data about size and depth of the talent pool for each role.
They can layer in-demand signals specific to your project, such as:
- Which project is coming online?
- What roles will this project require?
- When is competition for talent likely to peak?
In Zambia, our HR Consulting team did just that. We identified where local professionals were working, but also where Zambian expats were employed abroad, anticipate future pressure points or obstacles, and plan ahead more confidently. For example, the report would better help them create a plan to reach out to people with essential skills and offer repatriation to Zambia.
A closer look at the Zambian expansion project
Using desktop research and other data sources, we could accurately forecast demand.
Our Skills Analysis revealed three key elements:
- Local workforce availability: which roles could be filled domestically, and where shortages existed.
- Expat potential: visibility into where Zambian professionals were working abroad and the roles they could fill if repatriated.
- Future competition: an analysis of other projects in the region that would compete for the same trades and technical staff.
Armed with this data, the HR team could phase recruitment alongside the engineering and construction ramp-up.
How HRBPs can use this data
You get the most value from a Skills Assessment Analysis when you connect the labour-market intelligence to your project planning.
The research will identify local skills availability within the country and call out any potential local skills gaps and challenges.
These insights can be used to:
- Align recruitment timelines with project phases
- Engage contractors with localisation data
- Balance internal succession with external hiring
- Reduce wasted effort
Avoid the risks of traditional project recruitment
In our experience, too many internal HR teams on mining projects take a reactive approach to recruitment. Their talent acquisition processes tend to follow project milestones, instead of anticipating them and planning ahead.
Without labour-market intelligence, they risk being forced into costly, last-minute measures like having to bring in expats on short notice, rely on contractors, and compete with other operators on salaries.
With proper skills analysis, you can be well-positioned to reduce recruitment costs, maintain localisation requirements, and keep the project on schedule.
The practical benefits are clear. With the right regional data, you can know where to look for scarce skills, when to recruit them, and how to plan for competition. You can make sure your project succeeds by ensuring the right people are in the right place at the right time.
