Mukuru, Africa’s leading Next Gen fintech provider, was named a top ten company in LinkedIn’s second annual Top Companies South Africa ranking. Backed by unique LinkedIn data measuring different elements of career progression, the list reveals companies that are helping their employees build careers that will set them up for long-term success. The list uses LinkedIn data to rank companies based on eight pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression: ability to advance; skills growth; company stability; external opportunity; company affinity; gender diversity; educational background and employee presence in the country.

“This ranking is testament to the fact that Mukuru provides a motivating work climate, offering employees all the ingredients to develop both personally and professionally,” said Savina Harrilall, Chief People Officer at Mukuru. “Mukuru is an enabler of dreams, and our aspiration is to make the impossible possible for our people, be it our employees, customers or our partners.”

With a loyal staff component spread across 14 geographies, Mukuru has a remarkably low attrition rate compared to other companies. Part of their success in this regard is the fact that Mukuru is a very personal business – with many staff members using the platform and products for their families.

“Our staff members feel they are part of something that makes an actual difference in their lives,” added Harrilall. “We are a purpose-led business, and our people understand the impact of our technology and how it serves communities around the world.”   

Another standout element is gender diversity: Mukuru has 56% female representation in the business, with strong female representation at the C-suite level. “We also have a diversity of skills in the company, ranging from employees with formal schooling qualifications and post-graduate qualifications all the way through to a few PhDs. Additionally, experience is deemed a competitive advantage,” said Harrilall. 

Empowering employees

Mukuru aims to provide a consistent growth experience by providing skills development opportunities - equipping employees with the knowledge and tools necessary to deliver on the roles they are being held accountable for, and also enabling growth in their career journey. “This ranges from something as simple as Excel training to specially designed leadership programmes,” said Harrilall. “Our goal is to create an environment in which employees feel equipped to perform at their optimum and are valued and appreciated for their contribution.”  

To ensure high levels of motivation, Harrilall says her team evaluates levels of “engagement” using a variety of measurements, utilised at different intervals. Sample questions relate to the employee’s own perception of their role; support received from line manager; and perception related to growth and opportunities. These diagnostics inform tactical plans, aligned to the overall Mukuru People Strategy. 

With the aim of driving high driving promotability, Mukuru strives to ensure that each role is aligned to its job architecture and has relevant skills and competencies attached to it. “This enables us to assess each role and understand what capacitation (relevant to the person) is necessary so that our people can perform well. It also facilitates us selecting the right talent required to fulfil the role requirements,” said Harrilall.

Looking ahead, Harrilall and her team will continue building on their metrics and diagnostics to continuously assess and measure progress against commitments, with the voice of the employee featuring prominently. These initiatives will contribute to their efforts to create a motivating climate, with highly engaged people. 

“We are a people-centric business, and everything we do is within the context of elevating and promoting engagement,” she explained. Our low attrition rate shows that people are very happy to be here, but we should always aim to level up.”

About Mukuru 

Mukuru is a leading next generation financial services platform in Southern Africa that offers affordable and reliable financial services to a customer base of over 13 million across Africa, Asia and Europe.

With over 100 million transactions to date, our core was built providing international money transfers and from this base, we’ve developed a set of services to address the broader financial needs of our customers. We now operate in over 50 countries and across over 300 remittance corridors.

We are a business that puts the customer at the centre of everything we do, and for that reason, we serve clients across physical and digital channels, by various payment methods (cash, card, wallet) as well as a range of engagement platforms including WhatsApp, USSD, contact centre, App, website, agents and a branch and booth network.

Mukuru has, for the fourth consecutive year, been listed as one of the top 100 Cross Border Payments businesses in the world in the 2023 FXC Intelligence Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies, one of only six African companies to receive this accolade.

In April 2023, Mukuru officially ranked sixth on the 2023 LinkedIn Top Companies List in South Africa.

Further information can be found at https://www.mukuru.com.