People at the centre of everything

Keep people at the centre of everything

Samsung’s Dr Zain Reddiar believes that HR is best done by heart, as employees are multi-faceted and have unique needs that need to be understood and addressed so they can build an emotional connection to the company and the brand.

BY CHUMA MXO

Zain Reddiar, HR director for Africa at Samsung Electronics, believes his life skills were seasoned during his upbringing, and equipped him with the finesse to lead people from all walks of life. Having spent a considerable period outside of South Africa, Zain has brought his talent and experience back home.

“I learnt that people are at the centre of everything,” he says. “And if, as an HR head, you genuinely see your role as nothing more than being the servant of the people, that sets the tone for everything else.” When it comes to employee engagement, he explains that it’s crucial to remember that employees are multi-faceted and have unique needs. Understanding and addressing these needs in this spirit is what builds an emotional connection to the company and brand. Another contributing factor from an HR perspective is communication, which is key to creating dialogue and engaging in meaningful conversations. He also emphasises the importance of doing regular pulse checks. “We are only as good as our last change. Human psychology is fascinating. Knowing what makes people tick and being able to respond adequately to that is powerful. Regular pulse checks, therefore, not only highlight areas for improvement but also test alignment of strategies,” he says.

The winding road into HR

Zain’s path into the HR space was not intentionally taken, but he believes that it fitted into a greater design. He started out in the field of emergency medicine where he worked as a flight medic and first responder. He spent some time working alongside medical fund managers doing medical case management in various call centres. A change in career led him to HR, and he later joined the MTN Group, which he was with for 17 years, starting as a general manager before assuming the role of HR director.

“All efforts must be channelled towards building sustainable societies and this requires authenticity and commitment from all players.”

Zain is very proud of the MTN brand and praises the organisation for its dedication to the people agenda. He recognises the role leaders and mentors play in honing the skills of talented people, and counts it a rare privilege to have been part of such a vibrant HR community across multiple geographies. He has vast experience with diverse cultures, languages and organisations, and is a transformation expert who believes that when working across borders, language is a crucial part of optimising the HR function, echoing the words of former president Nelson Mandela, who said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

Zain’s early career highlights in HR include staffing National Treasury with economists, a role of critical national importance during South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy.

Opportunities disguised as challenges

But being an HR professional does not come without challenges, he notes. And organisational challenges create unique opportunities for HR. The most recent example being the Covid-19 pandemic “which has shifted so many paradigms and fast-tracked age-old boardroom discussions like the work-from-home concept”. He adds that when the pandemic hit, everyone turned to HR for a response. “In addition, HR has also been pivotal in shaping business continuity. As the pandemic draws to an end, we hope that a unique opportunity will again be presented to HR professionals, where they can take the reins and partner with the CEO as organisations are steered into the ‘new normal’,” he says. Zain has experience in crisis management and has over the years navigated business through political turmoil, civil unrest, earthquakes, floods, employee strike action, health threats such as the ebola, malaria and cholera outbreaks, and even air crash disasters.

Navigating transformation

Zain is of the opinion that to be able to move forward, HR has an obligation to guide leaders and employees to look to the future with optimism.

“The African continent is alive with possibilities and living life looking in the rear-view mirror could be detrimental, without discounting the travesties of the past through invasion and colonisation, coupled with the need for true transformation,” he says.

He believes that this can only be done through a side-by-side strategy.

“A divided society is easy to conquer, so concerted efforts must be made to build a united front to mitigate the possibility of another invasion in future as we advance into the digital era and tip-toe into the fourth industrial revolution.

“All efforts must be channelled towards building sustainable societies and this requires authenticity and commitment from all players. The HR fraternity is entrusted with the transformation agenda. There is no greater task than one that allows innovation and co-creation. HR practitioners should weave the transformation agenda into the talent strategies in a life giving way. If it can be done in a way where everyone feels valued, then we will have exceeded the expectation,” he adds.

The complexity of the topic must not be underestimated, he says.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion remain the order of the day, but much work needs to be done as the employment equity statutory guidelines in South Africa are now outdated. In its current form, it is exclusive of the new identities people rightly have to opt for. Life is about choice,” he says.

“We are more alike than different!” he adds, explaining that he is a multilingual and culturally sensitive individual who is passionate about protecting the rights of employees and believes in creating a safe and equitable working environment.

“We are only as good as our last change.”

About Zane Reddiar

Zain Reddiar is a multi-faceted individual, because when he is not wearing his HR hat, you can find him flying high above – quite literally. In addition to his academic and professional achievements in human resources, Zain is an accomplished aerial performer on both the trapeze and aerial hoop. The circus has always been a real passion, he says. Zain holds a number of qualifications, including a Dr of Management and Msc Science from The Da Vinci Institute. He is also a certified human resources professional and has completed the global advancement programme, Organisational Leadership, at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

FINDING NEW WAYS TO PAY

With unprecedented levels of financial stress affecting employee productivity and mental health, companies are looking at innovative ways to prevent the ‘payday poverty cycle’.

BY JANE STEINACKER

Both employees and companies are facing increasing economic pressure, much of which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 induced lockdowns, which restricted movement, curtailed operating hours and forced changes to long-standing operations with a large number of people in one location.

Employers are therefore looking for ways to support employees who are facing unprecedented levels of financial stress, while keeping a close eye on payroll and ensuring that retrenchments are kept to an absolute minimum.

While consumer price inflation in South Africa stood at 5.3 percent in the third quarter of 2021, economic growth in the country plummeted with a 1.5 percent drop in the GDP. In simple terms, the cost of living is increasing while real income, both for companies and employees, is decreasing. Companies are keenly aware that employees under financial distress affect the business adversely.

Taking strain

“There’s a lot of financial strain and businesses aren’t able to realistically meet inflation in terms of increases. A lot of people have lost their jobs, so they're really battling in terms of monthly payments,” says Emma Durkin, head of human capital at Altron Karabina. She adds that there has been an increase in requests for salary advances, however such an approach is not sustainable.

“We prefer not do salary advances, it’s like putting a plaster on an open fracture. It might solve the initial problem but in two months’ time the employee will be in the same financial position as they were before,” says Emma. Instead, Altron Karabina decided on a two-pronged approach to assist employees. The first was to partner with a financial wellness company that is able to offer loans at a preferential rate.

“It’s a safe loan machine and there's a payment schedule where they can be paid back over time,” she explains. While this stop-gap solution is available to employees, the business has also instituted another long-term solution, by providing financial wellness education.

“We've all been in the same situation that Covid has hit us hard, where we just try and rather give education on managing your finances, rather than doing advances,” she says.

Loss in productivity

Looking at both long-term and short-term options is important as employees in financial distress have a negative impact on the business as well.

“A financially stressed employee will spend, on average, 20 hours a month dealing with financial issues at work equating to about 27 working days being lost,” says Simon Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Smart Wage. According to Simon, the focus should be on “eradicating the payday poverty cycle”. He adds that after more than 18 months of disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, finances are proving to be the main cause of employee stress, ranking higher than job, health and relationship stress combined.

“In South Africa, according to a 2019 survey by DebtSafe, debt-related stress is one of the key factors attributed to negative mental health in the workplace. Debt collectors, landlords and emergency expenses have little respect for work-related pressures, and the loss in employee productivity that happens as a result is estimated to cost employers a substantial amount each year,” he says. Simon says that there are options to provide employees with the necessary tools to better manage their money.

Access

One way of doing so is through Earned Wage Access (EWA), where employers can offer employees access to their already-earned wages throughout the month. There are also innovative solutions for employees to receive salary and wage payments via a digital wallet, as part of the disbursement mix, without incurring transactional and related traditional banking fees. Funds received by a digital wallet are protected from external deductions such as debit orders, with the options of making purchases at major retailers, prepaid airtime or data, electricity and water at a zero transaction charge. “Most employees get a monthly salary, but in principle if they’ve worked a week in the month, why shouldn’t they be able to access that week’s wage when they need it? Many employees have expenses throughout the month and want to access what they’ve worked for to date,” says Warren van Wyk, director at PaySpace, which works with payroll and HR software. 

“A financially stressed employee will spend, on average, 20 hours a month dealing with financial issues at work equating to about 27 working days being lost.”