The South African state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have drawn
criticism in the country concerning their performance.
Retrenchments and government bailouts have been resorted to for
South African SOEs in a bid to avoid liquidation. As a result, Human
Resource Management is regarded as a source of organisational
competence which aims at improving employee morale, reducing
cost of operations and quality service improvement. An
investigation was undertaken at a selected South African SOE to
examine the challenges facing human resource professionals in
obtaining organisational competitiveness. A qualitative research
design was applied, and interviews were used on human resource
practitioners who occupy departmental supervisory positions. The
study revealed that Human Resources departments experienced
challenges such as lack of technology, high labour turnover, and not
attracting skilled technical personnel thus impending company
competitiveness.
