Telkom cultivates an engaged, high-performing workforce by continuously enhancing employee experience, skills development and workplace culture.
Through strategic workforce planning, recognition programmes and targeted learning initiatives, we equip our people to drive business growth and strengthen our position as an employer of choice.
| 1 | Calculated as the number of recordable injuries over the number of person hours worked, multiplied by 200 000. |
| 2 | Calculated as the number of lost time injuries over the number of person hours worked, multiplied by 200 000. |
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External moderate assurance on selected sustainability indicators. Refer to the FY2025 Independent Assurance Report available online. |
Our human capital strategy enables a positive business experience by aligning employee and customer strategies across business units. It is grounded in an agile, business-led, HR-enabled approach. We refreshed the strategy to better align with evolving business needs.
The revised strategy has four key pillars. These are underpinned by Telkom’s ongoing culture transformation journey, Group shared values, and integration of HR technology and analytics to enhance decision-making and efficiency.
We conduct strategic workforce planning to ensure the right skills are in place for current and future business needs. We continually optimise workforce structures and processes for efficiency. We aim to attract and retain top talent aligned with our capability requirements and culture.
Telkom initiated a strategic workforce planning project to ensure that we have people with the right skills in the right places at the right times to achieve our current objectives and future growth and transformation ambitions. The project was launched in November 2024 and runs until September 2025 in three phases:
Phase 1 was completed in March 2025 and focused on aligning senior leadership with the project's vision and objectives. One-on-one and group sessions covered strategic goals and workforce needs. A leadership review identified critical capabilities, scarce skills and key roles required for future priorities. The outcome outlined current leadership capabilities, future requirements, gaps, and a leadership risk mitigation plan.
Phase 2 will focus on piloting and rollout to key areas of the business.
Phase 3 will concentrate on extending the rollout to other areas of the business. Both these phases, along with project close-out, will be completed in FY2026.
Total reward programmes ensure employees are fairly rewarded. Talent and succession planning builds a strong leadership pipeline. Ongoing learning and development supports continuous skills enhancement. Performance management aligns individual contributions with business goals. Recognition initiatives celebrate high performance and desired behaviours.
In March 2024, Telkom launched a series of recognition programmes led by individual business units to celebrate employees who consistently demonstrate the Group’s shared values. Each business unit tailored its programme to its unique culture while reinforcing the collective OneTelkom vision.
In May 2024, we relaunched our Spotlight Awards, which give on-the-spot recognition to individuals and teams for their exceptional contributions to Telkom’s success and the OneTelkom vision.
Since the launch of the OneTelkom Group Recognition and Reward Programme, we have received over 250 nominations from various business units. A total of 39 winners were voted for by their colleagues. We awarded 552 Spotlight Awards to individuals and teams for their exceptional contributions aligned with our shared values and business objectives.
Telkom spent R166 million on training, with a focus on leadership and future skills. We continued to build a Learning4Growth culture through online learning, mentoring, coaching and training, such as Back2Basics for leaders. In total, 799 employees benefited from structured learning programmes. In FY2026, we will upskill and reskill employees in line with our strategic workforce plans.
Highlights of our initiatives include the following:
We foster leadership and employee engagement to enhance the employee experience. We focus strongly on diversity, equity and inclusion. We prioritise employee wellbeing through holistic support. We position Telkom as a desirable workplace through employer branding initiatives aimed at improving our Top Employer status.
We held three engagement sessions with the top 150 leaders. This enabled leaders to connect around the Group strategy, embrace the OneTelkom vision, and discuss transformational leadership.
The FY2025 employee engagement survey measured various aspects of Telkom’s organisational culture to provide insights into the overall employee experience. The survey assessed employees’ perceptions of diversity, equity and inclusion and the extent to which these principles are integrated into policies and practices. It evaluated employee engagement, wellbeing, perceptions of the work environment and organisational culture, remuneration, reward and development opportunities, and Telkom’s overall reputation.
Employee participation in the survey was 65%, an 8% increase from FY2024. The employee NPS improved across all key areas, including perceptions of Telkom as a great place to work, confidence in the Group’s products and services, and satisfaction with the work environment.
The employee engagement score measures employee mindsets. It found that 86% of employees were prepared to “walk the extra mile” or go beyond the scope of their roles, 12% were “fulfilling what is required”, and 2% were “quietly quitting”. The improved results demonstrate stronger commitment and a greater sense of unity across the Group.
The employee wellbeing section indicated that 68% of employees are satisfied with our approach to employee wellbeing; 74% of employees feel safe in their work environment; and 70% indicated that Telkom provides resources or programmes to manage work-related stress.
Telkom was certified as a Top Employer in South Africa by the Top Employers Institute for the third year in a row, and BCX for the fourth year in a row.
We are actively driving B-BBEE transformation and have strengthened our female leadership pipeline to advance gender equity. We engage stakeholders to foster strong internal and external partnerships. We also take a proactive approach to identifying and addressing people‑related risks through systemic risk management.
Telkom continued to foster a more inclusive and representative leadership team, advancing overall transformation across the Group.
We retained our Level 1 B-BBEE rating and increased female representation in leadership to 35.5% (FY2024: 34.1%). These efforts align with our values and are critical for our long-term sustainability and resilience.
We are intentional about creating opportunities for female leaders while ensuring operational efficiency and business sustainability.
Telkom continued to optimise its workforce in FY2025, with the number of permanent employees decreasing to 9 509 following the S189 process concluded at BCX. Despite this, we achieved steady improvements in our diversity profile.
Female representation increased slightly, while representation of Black South Africans grew 1% year on year over the last three years. We continue to foster an environment that mirrors the country’s demographic makeup, with South African female representation at 33% and Black representation at 72%.
Voluntary turnover remained stable at 5%.1 We will continue to build a more representative and future-ready workforce through strategic workforce planning.
| 1 | Voluntary turnover includes voluntary exits such as resignations and retirements, and excludes Company-initiated losses such as retrenchments and inter-company transfers. |
Females in leadership roles increased to
The OneTelkom Challenge Series serves as a dynamic platform to embed Telkom’s shared values – collaboration, customer centricity, accountability, agility, and simplicity – while bringing the Group together. Collaboration anchors the series, reinforcing the need for synergy across business units and the shift towards a unified OneTelkom mindset.
This six-part series features two teams made up of employees from various business units, competing in challenges that bring these values to life. The format intentionally breaks down silos, encourages teamwork, and generates momentum through healthy competition.
– 6 612 employees engaged with the Challenge Series
The journey as OneTelkom has only just begun, but already the results are outstanding in terms of how employees are experiencing the workplace and contributing to overall achievements. Results from the 2024 Employee Voice survey show year‑on‑year increases in customer centricity, accountability and collaboration – ranging from 3% to 9% – signalling growing traction in how these values are lived. Supported by regional in-person and online engagement sessions, the Challenge Series is deepening cultural alignment across the Group.
Post-series feedback indicated strong alignment among ratings from employees, leaders and participants. This underscores the role of the series as a cultural activation tool that strengthens cohesion and supports performance across the Group.
In FY2025, we strengthened our diversity, equity and inclusion, addressed the risks associated with an ageing workforce, improved our succession bench strength for some key roles, and filled some gaps in our leadership structure.
In the last quarter, we began a strategic shift from traditional, reactive vacancy-based recruitment to more forward-thinking, targeted and strategic talent acquisition. This transition is grounded in comprehensive workforce planning and the alignment of our talent strategies with evolving business needs. It allows us to fill vacant roles while cultivating the right mix of skills and capabilities. In doing so, we are building a workforce that is aligned with our future goals, agile in capability and composition, and equipped to thrive in a digital-first environment.
Our future acquisition will use a variety of tools and strategies to attract technologically savvy, digitally enabled professionals who can drive innovation and support our long-term growth objectives.
We have a robust talent management and succession planning framework to mitigate vacancy risk. When leadership exits occur, our succession plans ensure business continuity, enabling us to seamlessly move internal talent into the relevant roles, either as full replacements or in an acting capacity as emergency replacements.
Our talent mapping process ensures we have 100% succession maps in place for executive leadership roles. While our succession bench strength at senior executive level needs more focus, 83% of successors are African and 42% are female.
Our talent framework feeds directly into our learning plans. This ensures we proactively invest in and develop future successors for key roles in the business.
Our leadership investments aim to fast-track the development of these successors to increase our bench strength.
Telkom continued to invest in learning and development, guided by a strategy built on three pillars:
We launched the Back2Basics People Leadership programme to strengthen core leadership capabilities in Telkom Consumer and the Corporate Centre. The programme was developed in response to low employee engagement scores, particularly in manageremployee relationships. It aims to equip leaders with skills to build high-performing, engaged teams.
The initial rollout was well received, with 91% of participants indicating increased confidence in applying leadership fundamentals. Early feedback highlights:
Further rollouts of the programme are planned for FY2026.
Telkom awarded 162 new bursaries for the 2025 academic year, investing R7.8 million in part-time bursaries. Further to the Telkom Foundation bursaries, we expanded our full‑time bursary offering to 46 students in line with our business needs. These students will feed into our Elevate graduate internship programme, which is in its second year with 159 interns.
The OneTelkom learning programmes saw positive uptake, with 406 employees participating in FY2025. These programmes include a leadership programme, the Female Leadership Development programme across three levels, as well as training in digital skills, innovation and design thinking.
Training and development spend (Rm)
| FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | |
| Telkom1 | 441 | ||
| BCX | 45 | 65 | 66 |
| Gyro | 22 | 2 | |
| Openserve | 54 | 46 | 54 |
| Telkom Consumer | 46 | 33 | |
| Corporate Centre | 10 | 12 | |
| Group | 145 | 168 | 166 |
| 1 | Telkom includes Telkom Consumer, Corporate Centre and Openserve in FY2023. |
| 2 | Gyro includes learnership stipends. |
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External moderate assurance on selected sustainability indicators. Refer to the FY2025 Independent Assurance Report available online. |
We continued to maintain cordial relations with organised labour by sharing information on matters affecting and/or impacting Alliance members.
Section 189 process
BCX embarked on a S189 process due to financial and operational challenges faced by the business unit. The S189A notice was issued on 1 August 2024, inviting unions with members likely to be affected by retrenchments to participate in the consultation process. BCX had 3 683 employees, of whom 475 were likely to be retrenched. Of these, 175 employees took voluntary severance packages and voluntary early retirement packages, 84 employees were retrenched and 216 jobs were saved.
Inter-company transfers
As a result of the Swiftnet disposal talks and related divisionalisation of Gyro, employees were duly consulted in terms of the transfer process.
Sale of Swiftnet
Employees who were dedicated to supporting the Swiftnet business will continue their employment with Swiftnet under the new ownership of Actis from 1 April 2025. Employees were consulted and have successfully transitioned to Actis.
| FY2024 | FY2025 | |
| Telkom Company1 | 25 | 25 |
| Openserve | 57 | 55 |
| BCX | — | — |
| Gyro | 28 | — |
| 1 | Telkom Company includes Telkom Consumer and Corporate Centre. |
Telkom fosters a safe working environment where employees, contractors and suppliers embrace a zero-incident culture. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is integral to our operations. We ensure compliance with statutory requirements while safeguarding employee wellbeing.
In FY2025, we revised the Group OHS strategy to align with evolving operational realities, regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations. This updated strategy emphasises visible felt leadership, employee engagement, hazard identification and risk assessment, and continuous improvement.
We conducted an OHS pulse survey to support data-driven health and safety decision-making and planning, with participation from 4 102 employees. The survey covered employee engagement, health and safety leadership, hazard identification and risk management, and employee awareness of policies and procedures. We were rated at 90% and above in all these areas.
To test the relevance and efficacy of existing controls, we conducted a health risk assessment of high-risk operations, in line with regulatory requirements. Key recommendations included improving motor vehicle safety and reviewing controls for employees p repetitive manual tasks. These recommendations have been adopted and will be implemented in FY2026.
We are pleased with our zero employee and third-party fatalities in FY2025, a milestone that underscores our unwavering commitment to safety excellence. This accomplishment stems from targeted safety interventions designed to transform our safety culture and operational performance.
Our flagship Safety Starts With Me campaign has been instrumental in cultivating personal ownership of safety practices across all organisational levels.
Complementing this initiative, we conducted a comprehensive human factor analysis to identify and address behavioural and systemic elements that potentially predispose employees to injuries. This evidence-based approach has enabled us to implement targeted preventative measures that address root causes rather than symptoms, creating more resilient safety systems.
The integration of cultural transformation with data-driven human factor insights has strengthened our safety foundation. This holistic approach reflects our philosophy that safety is not merely a compliance requirement, but a core value embedded in everything we do.
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
| Telkom1, 2 | |||
| Total recordable injury frequency rate | 0.61 | 0.50 | 0.57 |
| Lost-time injury frequency rate | 0.51 | 0.39 | 0.46 |
| Fatal injury frequency rate | — | — | — |
| BCX1,3 | |||
| Total recordable injury frequency rate | 0.29 | N/A | N/A |
| Lost-time injury frequency rate | 0.27 | N/A | N/A |
| Fatal injury frequency rate | — | N/A | N/A |
| 1 | Permanent employees only. |
| 2 | FY2024 and FY2025 figures include BCX. |
| 3 | FY2024 and FY2025 included in Telkom Group number above. |
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External moderate assurance on selected sustainability indicators. Refer to the FY2025 Independent Assurance Report available online. |
Telkom aims to foster a diverse, inclusive and thriving culture where the holistic wellness of employees takes precedence. Ten wellbeing goals are outlined for the next three years, covering mental health, physical fitness, cultivating a healthy culture, and enhancing financial literacy.
We hosted the annual wellness month in August 2024 and expanded the wellness days to eight regional sites. The main risk areas identified in wellness days were physical inactivity and unhealthy diets.
We hosted 10 online wellness sessions covering motivation, positive thinking, workplace bullying and victimisation, mental health, stress and burnout, financial wellness, nutrition, and skeletal health. We offered three online exercise classes and a session to help line managers identify wellness challenges among employees. On average, 10% of employees joined each of the sessions. Employees were asked to evaluate the webinar offerings and gave them an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5, indicating a high level of satisfaction.
We will support our culture transformation, engage and enable our employees and develop our capabilities. This will include: