Talent Acquisition Alone Isn't Enough: Why You Need a Workforce Strategy in Africa
- Last updated: May 7, 2025
Simply hiring the right people in Africa is no longer enough.
While talent acquisition is crucial, companies operating across the continent must go beyond recruitment to truly succeed. Enter workforce strategy: a comprehensive, future-focused plan that ensures your talent approach is aligned with your long-term business objectives.
As an Employer of Record (EOR) in Africa, we’ve seen firsthand how companies that move beyond recruitment and embrace strategic workforce planning are the ones that thrive, scale rapidly, and adapt to market changes with confidence.
What does a workforce strategy in Africa look like?
A workforce strategy is a structured approach to choosing and onboarding talent. It aligns your organisation’s talent management and staffing practices with its broader business objectives. Workforce strategies include:
- Anticipating future workforce needs
- Spotting potential skill or experience gaps
- Developing targeted plans to ensure your business is equipped with the right talent in the right roles at the right time
This strategic alignment enables your business to meet current and future goals effectively by securing the necessary human resources.
Main components of a workforce strategy in Africa:
- Current Workforce Analysis
This includes evaluating the existing workforce to understand workers’ skills, experience, and growth potential - Forecasting Future Needs
This involves estimating future talent and staffing requirements based on strategic goals and anticipated changes - Gap Analysis
This has to do with comparing current capabilities with future needs to identify shortfalls in skills, roles, or organisational capacity - Strategy Formulation
Designing specific initiatives—such as recruitment, employee development, or succession planning—to bridge identified gaps. - Execution and Evaluation
Implementing the strategy and continuously monitoring its progress to ensure it remains effective and relevant.
1. Plan for mid to long term growth
Talent acquisition may just seem like enough to get started, especially given how difficult hiring the right candidates may be. But have you considered how your needs will evolve in the mid to long term? Right now, you may be able to sustain operations with the talent you have, but what happens when demand grows? Will you be able to source more talent – in diverse roles, to boot – to support growth? Will you have the resources, the networks, the time, and agility to onboard the right talent at the right time to meet growing needs in Africa?
A workforce strategy prevents this kind of last-minute rush where you may have to make concessions and compromise on the qualities and qualifications of the staff you are hiring. Because workforce strategies provide a high level of foresight, these situations can easily be planned for beforehand.
2. Scalability: how far can you grow?
Even when talent acquisition and planning are accounted for, there are other elements that need to be considered to allow for growth, namely your administrative ability to keep up with scaling.
If you are using an Employer of Record (EOR) model in Africa or if you have an in-country entity and are outsourcing payroll, it is imperative that you ask just how far your current partner can scale with you. When it comes to payroll especially (which is also a function that EORs take on, thereby also affecting EOR partnerships), many payroll providers cannot keep up with your growth past a certain stage. Their teams and systems can simply not keep up with your rising number of employees, and other requirements including detailed payroll reports. Some payroll providers and EORs in Africa may be able to keep up with you…in certain countries only.
For instance, an EOR may be able to scale with you in South Africa, Swaziland, or Morocco, and then be unable to expand this support to Madagascar, Senegal, or Botswana.
This is where Africa HR Solutions can support you.
We cover 46+ African countries and provide scalable EOR and award-winning payroll solutions that will grow with you as far as you will go.
3. Where in Africa should you focus your efforts?
Where will you source talent from sustainably in the mid and long term in Africa? You may be growing in the fintech industry in Cameroon for example, but it may be that you will find specialised talent that best meets your requirements in Kenya. So, the question of where you will grow your operations, and where you will source your talent from is extremely important. Bearing in mind your business goals, you will also need to verify if your requirements for growth align with the labour laws in that specific African country. Otherwise, you will need to revise your expected growth rate or even change some end goals so you may be compliant with the law and maintain your workers’ rights.
A workforce strategy is helpful in this context, allowing you to foresee these possible blockers, and work with or around them when it is legally allowed.
4. A pay cheque alone is no longer enough
African workers – especially highly skilled ones in competitive industries – want more from their employers than just a pay cheque: they want a good work-life balance, growth, employee benefits, purpose, and culturally intelligent leadership, among other things.
A workforce strategy anticipates all these requirements and needs, giving you enough time to carefully source talent, while catering to the needs of these new kinds of workers. Working with an EOR like Africa HR Solutions – Africa’s largest EOR solely focused on Africa – allows you to gain cultural insights and understanding, meeting talent where they are, onboarding and retaining them with greater ease.
5. Future-Proof Your Business
Technology and innovation are transforming the African workforce both from the inside-out thanks to pioneering African technology and from the outside-in. Whether it’s the rise of AI, remote work, or green energy, a solid workforce strategy helps your organisation stay agile, anticipate disruption, and navigate changes with confidence.
Why work with Africa HR Solutions?
We have over 15 years’ of experience supporting organisations like yours in Africa. Through our Employer of Record (EOR) solutions across 46+ African countries, we help you:
- Access talent across borders without legal risk
- Understand and navigate local labour law
- Build culturally conscious onboarding programmes tailored to specific countries
- Stay compliant with evolving labour laws and tax regulations
If you are looking to expand to Africa or to scale your existing operations there, we would love to share more about how we can help you.