Capitec Bank chief executive officer Gerrie Fourie says the bank is still looking to fill hundreds of positions at the company – ranging from graduates to senior positions.

Speaking to BusinessTech following the bank’s financial results on Thursday (30 September), Fourie said that there are 500 vacancies across the group that need to be filled.

He said that around 200 of these positions are in call centres and branches, with the bank still maintaining a strong physical presence.

However, he noted that there has been a steady shift from Capitec towards digital in recent years, with the bank now specifically looking to fill tech positions in emerging fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Fourie said that South Africa faces a skills shortage in several areas, and some of the job roles are proving challenging to fill. Specific openings that Capitec has been looking to fill in recent months include:

• Business analysts;
• Developers;
• Analyst developers;
• Data engineers;
• Scientists;
• BI analysts.

You can find the full list of vacancies here.

Vaccines and working from home 

Fourie also confirmed that Capitec was firmly in favour of Covid-19 vaccines – but would not follow the steps of other companies, such as Discovery, in making vaccines mandatory for staff.

Instead, Fourie said the focus would be on the company’s strong corporate culture, with employees encouraged to get vaccinated as part of a return to the office to prevent further waves and get back to normal.

He confirmed that Capitec was still using an alternating work-from-home model, with around 60% of the company’s employees in the office, while 40% are working from home at any given time.

This aligns with the country’s other major banks, which are planning a permanent shift in their workforce structure. In July, Nedbank said it would also be introducing a 60/40 split and consolidating its real estate portfolio in line with the change.

“Nedbank has been on a journey over the past few years, rethinking its operating model and ways of working to keep up with the changing world and world of work,” said Deb Fuller, group executive of Human Resources.

“Subsequently, Nedbank has gradually introduced new Ways of Work and incorporated flexible work practices.”

Standard Bank chief executive Sim Tshabalala says that the bank is also set to keep a work-from-home strategy in place for much of the next year. Standard Bank forecasts that the country’s vaccination rollout will gain momentum in the coming months, enabling more employees to return to normal working.

However, Tshabalala said that the bank, which employs more than 45,000 people, will continue working on a hybrid basis in 2022.