Sam Tsima Network

The Annual HR Directors Summit 2012, IPM, South Africa

2012-02-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Institute of People Management (IPM), South Africa, held its annual HR Directors Summit at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), today, the 9^th February 2012. The summit was attended by 50 top HR Directors in South Africa, plus one delegate from Sri Lanka.

Every HR Director in South Africa ought to have been at this Summit.

The following key speakers delivered high level presentations and conducted well structured Q&As:

· Greg Solomon, CEO McDonalds, South Africa, and IPM 2011 CEO of the Year Award Winner. Topic: Improving company and individual Performance through targeted Skills Development (McDonald Case Study)

· Professor Cecil Bodibe (Holds a Doctorate of Literature and Philosophy): Special Projects – Empowaworx. Topic: Survey Report – How to navigate your way from an artisan level to an Engineer level. Insights from interviews conducted with 30 senior HR Executives who have a combined experience of over 300 years on how to develop a leadership pipeline

· Professor Shirley Zinn, HR Director – Standard Bank, and Fergus Marupen, HR Director – Absa Bank. Topic: The 2 case studies from the interviews, as well as responses to challenges facing emerging HR Executives.

· Professor Roy Marcus, Chairperson of the Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management. Topic: Design thinking, How could it be used to develop and train the critical talent required to unleash economic growth and contribute to global economic competitiveness.

The following panelists address the topic: How could we shield the South African economy from the devastating effects of the Euro-zone debt crisis – A people leadership perspective:

· David Conradie, Director in the Human Capital Service Area, Deloitte Consulting

· Sam Alexander, Managing Director, The Pacific Institute

· Dr Albert Woecke, Professor & Executive Director, Faculty at the Gordon Institute of Business Science

The Programme Directors of the day were:

· Humaira Mooketsi, HR Executive, Transnet

· Babalase Bulunga, Group HR Executive, Eskom

The highlights from the summit:

· The McDonald South Africa CEO, Greg Solomon, shared the McDonald philosophy with regard to Strategy, Organization, Culture and Leadership. Greg is certainly a CEO that believes strongly in the strategic role of HR in the company. The delegates were fascinated by the concept of Enthusiasm Committees, which played a key role in making sure that the introduction of the 24 hours service at McDonald’s restaurant was a success. These staff committees provided the solutions that they had to implement themselves. These are cross functional teams that address business issues across the company, than focusing on their specific functional issues. The McDonald succession philosophy is: One Ready Now – One Ready In the Future. For McDonald to duplicate and standardize operations across the globe they look at systems, processes and people. McDonald balances business needs with people value. The company’s Employee Value Proposition is categorized into: Family/Friends, Flexibility, and Future.

· Professor Shirley Zinn and Fergus Marupen shared their real life experiences with the summit delegates. They presented the following nine habits of the HR Professional from their experiences:

ü Stay close to your talent

ü Think employee experience

ü Share a sense of purpose

ü Replicate & enhance the wheel

ü Think it through

ü Match the speed of business

ü Embrace a sense of wonder

ü Keep the balance

The summit requested that Professor Shirley Zinn and Fergus Marupen package these nine habits and partner with the IPM on a national road-show to take these lessons to the bigger HR community in the country. The IPM national office will act on this request as a matter of urgency. The IPM national branch network will become part of this road-show and support in the mobilization of the HR professionals to attend.

· Professor Roy Marcus challenged the IPM as a member of the Human Resources Development Council of South Africa, chaired by the Deputy President, Hon Kgalema Motlanthe, to put together a working committee made of HR Directors to put together a systems thinking model to address job creation problem. He is prepared to facilitate this design thinking process, on behalf of the IPM, for free of charge. The aim is to present the design thinking model to the South African Government, President Jacob Zuma specifically, to be applied in resolving the unemployment problem. This will be the best way of contributing to solving this major problem facing the country by the HR Professionals. The IPM welcomes this challenge and will be coordinating this Working Committee as soon as possible. This is an opportunity for the IPM to also respond to the challenge posed by the Minister of Higher Education & Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, during the IPM 2011 Annual Convention at Sun City, where he requested the IPM to assist the local Government with HR solutions to improve on service delivery.

· The panel brought the day’s discussions into perspective by discuss the response by the HR professionals to the challenges brought by major economic developed and developing markets. The main issues discussed were talent pipeline and the fact that the graduates from the institutions of learning are not relevant to the needs of the industry.

Conclusion:

This was an excellent summit. The HR Directors expressed a need to have this summit at least two times a year.

The IPM acknowledged the attendance of a delegate from Sri Lanka, Mr Dinuksha Devasurenda, Head of Global Sales, hSenid Business Solutions (Pvt) Ltd.

My opinion: Human Resources’ Role in Economic Transformation & Change Management in South Africa

2012-02-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

Deafening silence of HR Professionals: The deafening silence of the HR professionals with regard to the Economic Transformation & Change Management in South Africa is a worry to me. In comparison to the Labour Movement, the HR professionals are not an inch close. Perhaps it is because the HR Professionals are also made to believe that they are invited into the board rooms, operations reviews meetings, strategic planning sessions, etc. If the CEO is not pro Economic Transformation & Change Management, HR tends to struggle to assert itself in the organization. My view is that HR invites this situation to itself. The professional organizations to which they belong are not vocal about these issues and do not drive the agenda that is pro Economic Transformation & Change Management. Otherwise if this as the case, we would not be having people outside HR Profession being appointed into positions like Transformation Directors, Change Management Directors, Diversity Management Directors, BEE Directors, etc., with reporting lines outside the HR Function. This is an indictment on the HR Profession itself, and we must correct this. This has been discussed within the IPM and we will be addressing it during this term of the current board.

Reflections on unavoidable South African reality: South Africa as a country come a long way; from Black Advancement Schemes of the 80’s to the current era of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment. All these interventions were and still are about achieving equality in the employment practices and economic participation, mostly for the black people, women, youth, rural people and people living with disabilities. The Black Advancement Schemes of the 80’s in South Africa came as a result of the work of the late African-American Baptist activist, Reverend Leon Sullivan, who made sure that all the American companies operating in South Africa implemented Black Advancement Schemes. These schemes entailed introduction of training and development programmes in South Africa and the US, bursary schemes for the black employees and their children, building houses for black staff, and appointing black people in management positions. Reverend Leon Sullivan launched The International Foundation for Education & Self-Help (IFESH), which introduced a number of exchange programmes between the US and Africa. Two such programmes was Financial Services Training (FST) for black South African bankers, which were also funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Best & Brightest for African Bankers. Under the Best & Brightest programme black bankers from South Africa were sent on banking development programmes with major US banks, mostly in New York. In 2000 IFESH organized an educational tour of the US for the South African banking mentors to visit banks in New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. I joined in this tour as banking mentor from the Absa Bank. The current South African Government Spokesperson, Mr Jimmy Manyi, joined us in this tour, then as a bank official of the then People’s Bank (Nedbank). Other representatives came from MEEG Bank, and African Bank. So, Reverend Leon Sullivan had a vision for this country, and believed in the ability of the black leadership in business, as in politics. It is only we, South African (black and white) that tend to doubt ourselves. This self-doubt has to change before we terribly disappoint our future generations.

Economic Transformation Activism along the aggressive Afrikaner Empowerment: So, alongside the Afrikaner Empowerment, which was not openly called as such, there was some economic activism of some sort, albeit very difficult, due to the oppressive laws of the then Apartheid Government. The Reverend Leon Sullivan intervention became famously know as The Sullivan Code. Many of the current black business leaders in South Africa graduated and benefited from the Sullivan Code. These schemes were copied by some of the European companies in South Africa, to a certain extend. The German companies, through the Southern African – German Chamber of Commerce, introduced the Commercial Advancement Training Scheme (CATS), of which I am a graduate of, and as a result I continued my development in Germany. Today the scheme gave birth to the South Africa – German Training Services (SAGTS), of which I am the founder and board member. The SAGTS is now made of the CATS and Soweto Builders Training Centre (BTC). Some companies introduced in-company training & development, Adult Basic Education, bursary schemes, and study programmes inside the companies. One can refer to these programmes as the early stages of Affirmative Action Programmes. Indeed, organizations like Black Management Forum (BMF) introduced a very controversial concept called the Basotho Hat Quotas – Affirmative Action. The BMF was convinced that the quota system was the way for the South African Government to follow in accelerating the appointment of black people into meaningful and higher positions in the companies. This quota system thinking was feared by companies, like it is the case with BEE today. As it is now the case, Affirmative Action, became a chapter in the Employment Equity Act.

The growth and role of labour movement in South Africa: One cannot talk about transformation of the work place without touching on the historical role played by the labour unions in South Africa. Of course, HR and the labour unions have never been friends, for obvious reasons. What is interesting though, is that the labour unions appear to be more decisive on issue of work place transformation than the HR professionals are. It is perhaps because the HR professionals are always perceived as representing management, and in most cases they are. So, HR professionals are court in between and must be creative in their stakeholder relationship management. In South Africa, the labour unions are further advantaged by the fact that the biggest labour movement, COSATU, is a member of the tri-partite alliance in Government, let by the African National Congress. They have the opportunity to influence the policy direction of the country. That is why most of their initiatives take off, for example the recently launched Corruption Watch, is highly welcome by all sectors of our society, business, labour, Government and citizens. Where the HR professionals are in this case and yet HR is supposed to be the champion of people issues. Corruption affects the work place as well. Another example, the HR bodies and practitioners have not been vocal on the labour broker’s issue, and yet this is one of the key roles of HR

South Africa as a constitutional state with strong Human Rights component: the South African constitution is regarded as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. The Human Rights component of the constitution makes every wrong people practice illegal and yet we require special laws like Employment Equity, Skills Development Act, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, etc. to correct the bad practices like discrimination in employment practices, unfair hurdles put in front of people who want to access entrepreneurship opportunities, racism at work places, lack of employment opportunities for people with disabilities, etc. The question is, what is the problem? Once again, laws that are not implemented by people who believe in them are of no use to the society. So, this suggests that transformation and change management start with the individual citizens of the country before they can become national programmes and change the society as a whole. So, companies that want to experience progress in Economic Transformation & Change Management must invest time in addressing transformation and change management of their individual staff.

Affirmative Action that only became a chapter in Employment Equity: while one welcomes this progressive Employment Equity Act, one wonders why such important implementation component of it, Affirmative Action, is not prominent in its articulation. Employment Equity itself became one of the seven elements of the B-BBEE Scorecard, making B-BBEE a very complex programme to understand and implement. It is the grand plan that only well trained and oriented practitioners can articulate. But what is interesting is that HR can use B-BBEE to strategically position itself within the organizations and the economy, namely by making sure that it masters the three elements of the B-BBEE scorecard, namely: Employment Equity, Skills Development, and Management & Control. The three elements are the competences of the HR function in employing organizations.

The new Department of Higher Education & Training pushes people related Economic Transformation & Change Management: When one looks closely at the strategy and the agenda of the new Department of Higher Education, one realizes the unlimited opportunities that the HR practitioners can use to reposition the profession and lead people related transformation strategies in the companies. The Human Resources Development South Africa 2010 – 2030 is driven from the highest office and yet it does not seem to be uppermost in the minds of the HR professionals. It is too soon to judge the impact of the National Skills Development Strategy III on the country’s Economic Transformation & Change Management. It seems to be correcting the wrongs committed post 1994 and repositioning South Africa on the path to produce the technical skills required so badly by our economy. We now have the National Skills Accord. It is a matter of time, and we hopefully will see social partners can uniting on this programme and allow the national skills strategies converging. The main aim is to create jobs and solve unemployment problem.

The role of the HR Practitioners and HR Professional Bodies: I am disturbed by the many HR bodies, most of which are not transformed, not representative of the South Africa demgraphis in their leadership, and shy away from tackling the lack of economic transformation and change management in the employing organizations in South Africa. It is for this reason why the IPM invited the Minister of Higher Education & Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, to address its Annual Convention at Sun City last year, 2011. We listened to him carefully, and have since committed IPM to put the HR profession in the front seat of Economic Transformation & Change Management to contribute in achieving the objectives that the Government of South Africa has set itself to achieve in 2030, under the Human Resources Development – South Africa 2010 – 2030. IPM cannot achieve this on its own. We are calling on all other HR Bodies to do self-introspection, make themselves relevant to the times we are living, and commit to assist the country in its Economic Transform and Change Management. We cannot pretend as if things are well in the economic sectors in which we find ourselves. The continued under-representation of blacks, women and people with disabilities in the higher levels of employment and all other critical categories, perpetuate the tension at the work place. No country will become productive with such unresolved issues. It is also about diversity management, equal access to opportunities, giving previously disadvantaged individuals meaningful jobs with powers to make contribution to the economic growth that will liberate the work places. Under-utilization of the previously disadvantaged in the employing organizations is as bad as not enabling them to access the opportunities.

Economic sacrifices for greater prosperity: For the HR professionals to make major impact in their organizations, they need to be prepared to make economic sacrifices and push the people related grand plans that are pro Economic Transformation & Change Management. Of course, one is mindful that the business of business is business. But this cannot happen in a continued abnormal economic environment which is marked by underrepresentation and under-utilization of the skills in certain sections of our society. We still have to strive for our HR to be among the best in the global business practice, and be a competitive leverage for business in South Africa, and the continent at large. However, ours is to first resolve these historical anomalies before we can even start competing out there. Otherwise, these issues will keep on haunting us for many decades to come. Lastly, the challenges are compounded by the fact that HR profession in South Africa cannot fold arms and be overtaken by the unfolding events in global, especially emerging markets. We must strike a balance. Therefore, IPM’s Call is: follow the emerging leaders in Economic Transformation & Change Management.

End

Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users | Video on TED.com

2011-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users Video on TED.com

Cometsa Graduate Entrepreneurship Programme

2011-08-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

Cometsa Vision, Mission & Values

The Vision is to work toward the future that will become an inspirational legacy for many generations

Mission: By offering Human Capital Development & Management programmes and interventions

Cometsa Values: Promotion of diversity; Creation of harmony; Inter-cultural understanding; Entrenchment of professionalism; Encouragement of creativity; and Commitment to efficiency.

Value proposition

We help organizations identify management capabilities needed to accomplish the organization’s business goals, secure senior management support for the development processes, develop a tailored management development interventions which are aligned with the business needs, introduce integrated coaching for performance, and achieve individual and organizational accountability within their businesses.

Partnership with the Cooperative Education Departments

Cometsa Human Capital Investments works closely with the Cooperative Education Departments of the Universities of Technology, Comprehensive Universities, and Further Education & Training Colleges in identifying graduates with potential to succeed as entrepreneurs with the Enterprise model of employment.

Sourcing and placing graduates

We are using non-traditional approach in sourcing the graduates for our clients.

The sourcing process:

· Briefing sessions with the Cooperative Education personnel of the learning institutions

· Submission of CVs of the potential candidates

· Screening & first short listing of the candidates

· First interviews by Cometsa officers

· Second short-listing of the candidates

· Submission of the shortlisted candidates to the company

· Interviews by the company

· Appointments

· Successful candidates attend a one day Cometsa Entrepreneurship & Employability Skills Programme and six weeks in-company orientation/induction and products training programme, as part of three months probation period

Profile of Entrepreneurs within the Enterprise

The graduate must

· Be quick in grasping the concept of the Entrepreneur within the Enterprise.

· Be able to convert theory into practice

· Be creative, innovative and

· Be hard working.

The graduates should possess the following qualities:

· INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

ü Organization skills

ü Negotiation skills

ü Presentation

ü Displays responsibility

ü Self-esteem

ü Sociability

ü Self – management

ü Integrity and honesty, and

ü Extends these skills to facilitating working well with others

ü Working under pressure in high performance culture

THINKING/INFORMATION PROCESSING SKILLS

ü Thinks creatively

ü Makes decisions

ü Solves problems

ü Visualizes

ü Knows how to learn and reason, and

ü Acquire and utilize information to aid these processes where necessary

SYSTEMS/TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

ü Understands complex interrelationships of systems and works with a variety of technologies

ü Handling Databases, and Software solutions

Entrepreneurship Skills Programme

Topic 1: Communication Skills

Topic 2: Entrepreneurship behaviours, skills and tools

Topic 3: Techniques to improve attainment to sustain entrepreneurship –related goal: Dealing with stress; Anxiety management; and Time management

Topic 4: Effective attitudes/behaviours in business: Personal qualities required for the entrepreneurship; Attitudes – in running business; Dealing with diversity in business; Assertiveness; and dealing with conflict

Topic 5: Development of self-esteem and confidence: Team building; and Confidence building

Topic 6: Thinking skills, learning styles strategies: Attention and concentration; Memory; Planning; and Problem solving and decision making

Continuous professional support through Cometsa Friends & Supporters Club

Upon appointment, the graduates are encouraged to join Cometsa Friends & Supporters Club, and benefit from continuous mentoring and coaching support:

Type: a non-profit making organisation (NPO) serving the interests of the members and friends of Cometsa development organizations.

Vision: to provide development and social life opportunities for all the friends and supporters of Cometsa organizations

Mission: by organizing networking functions, events, special offers and development programmes for the members.

Main objective: mobilize people support and ensure that the members experience quality of life by belonging to Cometsa

Monthly Graduate Entrepreneurship Programme Indaba, Central Johannesburg College of FET

The last Saturday of every month is reserved for face to face Cometsa Graduate Entrepreneurship Programme workshop. These workshops bring experienced business leaders into contact with our graduates who need to be inspired to go extra mile in starting and building their professional careers, as Entrepreneurs in Enterprises, by way of owning their jobs and careers, and for those who chooses to become entrepreneurs to go all out and become successful. The story of the professionals’ careers is inspirational enough for these graduates and other participants in the programme. This is the Cometsa way of contributing to the growth of our society and the economy. We are taking the country forward.

For further information contact Cometsa Shared Services at callcentre@cometsa.co.za

music2deal.com

2011-01-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

music2deal.com

Talent Management, Free Talent Management Publication Subscription

2011-01-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Talent Management, Free Talent Management Publication Subscription

Cometsa Applied Sport Programme to reach South African regions in 2011

2011-01-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

Cometsa Applied Sport Programme is the product of Cometsa Applied Sport Academy, a division of Cometsa Sports Development Agency. We intend to empower individuals, communities, sport organizations and governement administrators and officials in the rural villages, peri-urban and urban towns with the knowledge in sport administration, management and leadership. The programme modules are offered as bundles of certificates programmes of about two to three units over two or three days. These are not academic programmes, but practice based programmes, backed by well researched theoretical material. We are not motivated by profits but the desire to impart practical and applied sport administration, management and leadership knowledge to the South African sporting communities. Hence the programme and the academy are owned by our non-profit section 21 organization, Cometsa Sports Development Agency. The members of Cometsa Friends & Supporters Club are enrolled on reduced rates. To find more about the membership, visit our site http://www.cometsa.co.za/ or http://www.samtsima.com/ .