28 minute read
The human-centric approach to HR
South Africa CHRO of the Year 2021, Dieter Veldsman, shares his love for the science of HR – and explains how he helped Momentum Metropolitan put employees front and centre.
BY ANG LLOYD
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At the annual CHRO Awards in November last year, Dieter Veldsman was recognised for his work as CHRO of Momentum Metropolitan Holdings (MMH). He also received the HR and Technology Award and the Strategy and Leadership Award.
Dieter held the role of CHRO at MMH until September 2021, when he relocated to the Netherlands to join the Academy to Innovate HR, a leading provider of HR thought leadership and digital learning, as an HR and organisational development (OD) thought leader.
Dieter began his journey at Momentum Metropolitan in 2018, when he was appointed group executive for people and organisational effectiveness. He was tasked with building an organisational effectiveness function within the Group’s HR division, with the goal to support the ‘Reset and Grow’ turnaround business strategy. In 2019, Dieter moved into the CHRO role, where he continued to work closely with decision-makers to drive a business strategy that worked in tandem with human resources.
“Momentum Metropolitan is an important part of the South African insurance sector; it employs 17,000 people and contributes to the livelihoods of many more. As CHRO, I needed to anticipate issues and offer solutions for the group. At the same time, I had to consider both the human experience of employees and help the organisation to optimise their human capital,” he says.
Reset and grow
When Covid-19 hit in 2020, that challenge became even greater. To deal with the crisis, Dieter and the team implemented a phased-approach framework called the 5 Rs: • Response, balancing business continuity with employee safety; • Reassurance, work from home support that included guidance on adapting to change and managing boundaries; • Recovery, a post-pandemic mindset emphasising productivity;
• Realignment, ensuring employees know they are pivotal to the Group’s success; and • Reinvention, a continuous process of crafting the business’s long-term goals. Forming a core part of Momentum Metropolitan’s Reset and Grow strategy, Dieter and the team also conceptualised ThinkHumanFirst, a culture philosophy that focused on putting employees front and centre in everything the organisation does. “At the end of every policy, process, and solution, there's a human being,” says Dieter. “Our mandate was to consider what Momentum Metropolitan wanted their people to think, feel, and do, and how we could bring that into the way that HR supports the organisation.” The Reset and Grow strategy, combined with implementing the ThinkHumanFirst philosophy and Momentum Metropolitan’s response to Covid-19, proved highly successful. According to Dieter, Momentum Metropolitan still has a human-centric approach because of the strides made during the pandemic and the time preceding it. In 2021, the Top Employers Institute named the company as one of the top global employers – largely due to Momentum Metropolitan’s innovative people practices, and its ability to deliver on the promise that it makes to its people.
The science of HR
Dieter initially studied a BCom in Industrial Psychology in 2008 at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and later concluded his formal studies at UNISA. He holds subsequent certifications from Harvard, INSEAD, and the Wharton Business School.
“I've always been fascinated by human behaviour,” he says. “I was also interested in how humans behave in an organisational setting, and industrial psychology was a way to bring those two interests together.” His HR career began as a change analyst with Standard Bank, where he enjoyed learning about how big business operates and how people, processes, and technology must align to deliver business value. He soon realised he wanted to dig deeper into the science of HR, so he joined a small consulting firm as an OD specialist. Here, he had varied clients, and he could gain experience from different environments and start exploring other HR domains, such as organisational design and people analytics. During his HR career, Dieter has developed an “absolute passion” for the science of HR. He completed his doctorate in 2017, which focused on employee engagement and its connection to a business’s financial performance. His PhD led him to entrepreneurship, where he used his thesis findings to join Mindset Management, a software-as-a-service business that builds employee engagement platforms and technologies. At the time he took on the role of head of research and product development; he is still a board member, and the company recently opened offices in the United States.
Dieter Veldsman
Dieter Veldsman has experience across the HR value chain and lifecycle. An organisational psychologist and HR thought leader, he is a regular speaker on HR trends, the future of work, strategic HRM, and organisational architecture. Before relocating to the Netherlands to join the Academy to Innovate HR, he held the position of CHRO of Momentum Metropolitan Holdings. Education: He holds a BCom Honours, MCom and a DCom.
Time to change the value of HR
For Dieter, the future workplace will depend on how technology will augment the human experience. “I've always been interested in how technology can be intentionally designed with a human being in mind, not just to optimise a process,” says Dieter. “I also think that HR will change in the future, as employees will become consumers of HR products and not just HR services.” Dieter explains that we are all digital consumers now. In an analogue world, an organisation viewed people as employees, and an employee participated in HR services. That's changing because HR is going
digital, and it’s imperative that HR professionals both understand and drive digital adoption. He says, “Think of it as HR being a product that an employee can choose to use; many aspects of the HR function are now self-service, and that's where the human-work experience is shifting to.” Dieter emphasises that HR professionals need to future-proof their careers, no matter their industry. “Digital allows us to scale HR solutions, and suddenly these solutions are available to all employees. Previously, HR could only reach a limited few people due to capacity – that's where you'd only see HR when you were in trouble,” he says. “Now, we have a wonderful opportunity to change the value and role that HR plays because we have the channels and the methods to do it.”
The future of work
Dieter predicts that the employer-employee relationship will look vastly different soon, and that the notion of just working for one organisation will change. “People will make holistic decisions about where work fits into their life, and not the other way round – it’s already happening. The optimist in me believes we will make decisions about aligning ourselves with employers through the business’s purpose and story, and if that fits with where we want to contribute to society.” Currently, Dieter is based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, at a digital start-up that aims to continuously educate 100,000 HR professionals by the year 2025. It’s a small company that is growing extremely quickly, and it comprises more than 20 nationalities. “The diversity has been rewarding and insightful for me,” says Dieter. “It's a wonderful opportunity to see how people from around the world think, and how their worldviews influence their perspective on HR.” The experience has again confirmed to Dieter that South Africa has so much potential, and that the South African HR community is doing fantastic work.
“South Africa is doing remarkable things in the HR domain,” says Dieter. “But I do believe that context is everything: we must stop trying to copy-paste solutions that won't work in an African context. We have a strong enough voice to stand on our own feet and develop solutions that are relevant to our realities.”
“As South African HR professionals, we have the opportunity to make an incredibly meaningful impact, and leave our mark on the future of HR,” he adds.
The T-shaped HR professional
Dieter says there are four core competencies that every HR professional needs to master to be future-ready: these form the top of the letter T.
The first competency is business acumen, and the ability to understand how the external environment influences your business and HR realities. The second is to be datadriven and evidence-based to determine the right course of action. The third is digital integration, where the HR professional understands how the world is transforming and what role they play to leverage technology. The fourth is people advocacy through building culture, employee experience, and using HR for the good of society.
“In addition, every HR professional should be strong in at least one functional area, which is the stem of the T,” explains Dieter. “This is their specialist expertise where they thrive, for example, organisational development, remuneration, operations, or learning and development.”
WHO WILL HELP HR LEADERS LEAD IN THE NEW WORLD OF WORK?
Cognitive flexibility is a necessity for leaders who are constantly required to adapt and adjust immediately and quickly as new situations emerge.
BY RONDA NAIDU
Much has been written about the new normal and how HR leaders are expected to guide their organisations and employees through the transition that the pandemic has suddenly thrust upon the world.
However, little has been said about who will help leaders lead their organisations and teams through this period of unprecedented change and uncertainty. Dr Gloria Mbokota, a lecturer at Gibs who specialises in organisational behaviour, leadership and change has been reflecting on the coaching sessions she has had with executives and management groups over the past two years since the start of the pandemic. “I coach people in executive positions in both the public and private sectors and also provide group level coaching, mainly middle to senior managers. One of the things that has consistency come up among these groups during this pandemic period – albeit in different contexts – is managing the engagement with employees,” she says. For senior managers, it’s about working remotely while still retaining the level of confidence that people are still engaged while not physically in an office. Tied closely to that are questions around acceptable work requests when working from home, and timing of these.
“Employees are on virtual platforms now. So, one of the things I have suggested to executives is to review employee policies taking remote working into account,” says Gloria. This includes a new definition of flexitime, different to the definition in place prior to Covid-19 and potentially redefining that in a post-pandemic space as well, in addition to policies that need to be put in place to accommodate a new way of managing and leading people. She adds, “We can’t continue as if things are normal. Tied to this, executives and senior managers need to have cognitive flexibility.” There have been many changes with the different levels of lockdown and the impact it has had on the office environment and this requires leaders and managers to have the thinking ability to adapt and adjust immediately and quickly as new situations emerge. A simple example of cognitive flexibility is driving on a highway, spotting danger in the lane you are on and changing lanes to avoid the danger. In essence, you are running away from danger. That, according to Gloria, is cognitive flexibility and automatic thinking. Leaders who have cognitive flexibility are adaptable and quick to adjust while those who don’t are resistant to change and want things to happen the way it has always happened. “It therefore requires an element of transformative learning – which is a shift in a frame of mind. We have now had three or four variants of the coronavirus and are we still saying to our employees that
Dr Gloria’s top tips for HR executives
1. Review HR policies: Consider what is still relevant in a mid- and post-pandemic world and make adjustments. Think about the new normal for flexi-time and don’t forget your recruitment policy.
If people can work from home all the time or some of the time, do they have the infrastructure and workspace to do so? 2. Focus on wellness: Consider the company’s employee wellness offerings and ensure that it includes support for employees in a way that they require at the times that they require it. 3. Employee development and practices: Think about the new skills that employees need to adapt and adjust to the new way of work. This may require HR to review and look at the way it operates within the company. Is traditional training still relevant or is there a need for individualised learning programmes?
they should return to the office as if nothing has happened?” she asks. Gloria believes that leaders should recognise that the employee who is returning to the office environment is not the same person who left the office to work from home in March 2020.
“We need to consider what we mean when we say employees should return to work. These employees were not away from work when they were working remotely. They are returning to a physical workspace,” she says. With this return to a physical workspace, HR leaders need to consider the new skills needed to manage people who are returning to the office – not in a way that sees it as returning to work, though. Gloria explains that people returning to the office environment have gone through huge changes throughout the pandemic, experiencing trauma related to illness and death, among others. “Late last year, three members of one of the groups that I coach experienced loss. One lost her mother and was preparing for the funeral and she still turned up for the session. When I asked her why she was attending the session under the circumstances, she says that she was expected to. It didn’t make sense as she needed time to make the funeral arrangements and grieve. The second member was a man who lost his mother. He was hospitalised for depression three months later. In another group, when we returned after the year-end break, a member of the group had died,” she says. She adds, “So, we are also coming back to teams that have lost colleagues and because we have been working remotely, no-one is picking up on these things.” These are additional aspects that leaders need to deal with, engaging with people to check in and see where they are at, as many are still going through trauma and grieving. It is therefore important that employee wellness programmes are proactive enough to check in with every employee or equip line managers and leaders to understand what is going on in their teams and how to deal with it.
Gloria also notes that the pandemic period has become a period of reflection for many people – highlighting what is important in their lives. “What’s coming up in terms of engaging with people is that they are re-evaluating themselves, their purpose and the work they do. That’s tied in with the mass resignation topic currently underway globally. We have also noticed that a large number of people are going back to study and upskill themselves,” she says. For HR leaders, this could mean reviewing employee development plans and aligning with employees’ new sense of purpose and the new skills required beyond the pandemic, according to Gloria.
WORKING ENVIRONMENTS IT’S A DELICATE BLEND
Employers and employees have been grappling to find the right balance between remote and in-office working, with vaccination policies for office environments adding to the complexity of finding a solution that is suitable for all.
BY JANE STEINACKER
Building on the learnings of Covid-19 -related lockdowns and restriction on movement over the past year and a half, CHROs are now tasked with customising a sustainable physical working environment solution that is in the best interests of both the business and the employee.
According to Nadia Naidu, human resources director for Merchants, the business was mindful about how it would implement its work-from-home offering from the onset of the pandemic. She says, “As remote working evolved from an option to a necessity for most businesses during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, we understood that we needed to begin tackling some of the local challenges to the trend – such as load shedding, poor network infrastructure (especially in rural and outlying areas) and a lack of resources.” Instead of simply sending employees home with laptops, they took the initiative to design a workfrom-home solution during this time for identified employees. Aptly named Ekhaya, it was essentially an office in a box.
The Ekhaya solution contains all the necessary tools and technology to transform any home into a full-functioning contact centre and includes an uninterruptable power supply (UPS), fibre connectivity, home office furniture as well as security and real time collaboration tools, such as a smartphone and visual display unit. Despite initiatives like this, Nadia notes that “not everyone is suited to working remotely”. This was revealed during a study carried out by Merchants on top and bottom performers, both in-office and working remotely, to identify the prevalent traits of successful remote workers in order to better inform the company’s WFH strategy. The study showed that there are certain personality traits that create top-performing work-from-home employees and others that are better suited to going to the office.
Nadia says that the traits that make an employee most likely to become a high-performing remote worker include them being detail-oriented, disciplined, committed, empathetic and caring, as well as having a sense of prioritised personal integrity, and being respectful and well mannered. The company’s top in-office performers are adaptable, articulate, disciplined and committed, have a desire to make a difference and have a positive attitude.
While this does form the basis for adopting a hybrid policy of in-office and remote working, it is also worth noting that there are other reasons why working from home is not possible for some employees.
These include no fibre connections in the area in which an employee lives, concerns about mental health or other environmental challenges at home that does not make it a conducive place from which to work, according to Nadia. Emma Durkin, the head of human capital at Altron Karabina, also believes that a hybrid model is a wise choice for the company. “One thing that Covid-19 has taught us is that we’re versatile and resilient. If you’re forced into a situation, you make it work. We didn’t want productivity to be impacted and focused our attention on creating an output-centric as opposed to a timekeeping management approach,” she says. Emma adds that as a technology company, remote working is easier to implement and there are a variety of benefits for staff to be able to work from anywhere. However, there are also drawbacks to such an approach, so the business decided to keep its offices open. The largest concern is employee mental health. “It’s really lonely and isolating you know. Last month we asked the brave question in one of our employee surveys, ‘How has your mental and physical health deteriorated since the onset of Covid-19?'. Because we've got quite a close, people-centric culture, people felt comfortable enough to share this with us,” she says. The survey showed that 80 percent of the company’s employees reported a decline in mental health in terms of feelings of isolation, loneliness, increased anxiety and increased low moods. Emma says that the company is welcoming employees back as soon as it is safe to do so, to counter the feeling of isolation but also to make sure that there is a sense of belonging. “We've seen that it's easier to leave a company that you don't have a personal connection to. So we don't want to lose that culture. Virtual connections are great but especially for engagements that require innovation and team building collaboration, we want to do that in person,” she says. Deb Fuller, group executive: human resources at Nedbank, says the bank will also be adopting a hybrid working model from January 2022. “The hybrid workforce model means that we have a portion of our workforce who will work from a Nedbank office or branch-based site, a portion of our staff who will work remotely and another portion of our staff who will follow a blended approach, working between home and an office-based workplace on different days of the week or month,” she says. To aid Nedbank’s ability to attract and retain critical talent, they also have implemented a ‘semi-gration’ policy that enables some staff to work remotely for the majority of their time, where the operational requirements of their role can accommodate such. The bank’s property portfolio is designed to accommodate a split between onsite/offsite workers, with approximately 60 percent of staff based at a Nedbank campus site on any given day. “Nedbank’s new ways of working promote an office environment of innovation and collaboration that consists of activity-based environments that are digitally enabled. Employees will book office space, meeting rooms or seats, according to the nature of work to be done,” says Deb. Discovery Vitality’s head of people management Sundrie Naidoo has adopted a three-pronged approach. Depending on a person’s role, they may either be able to work exclusively from home, enjoy the best of both worlds with a hybrid model or be required to return. In January 2022, the flexible working model will be in full swing, allowing employees to come into the office.
“This is important to support our company culture and to have more meaningful interactions with team members,” she says. What Sundrie has noticed is that many employees are ready to return to the office. “Our staff are quite excited. They want to rebuild their networks and be social,” she says.
Deborah Fuller NIcol Myburgh
Jobs and jabs
As the country’s vaccination programme gains traction, companies are relooking employee working arrangements, leaving many CHROs in the unenviable position of balancing rights and responsibilities when it comes to mandatory vaccination in the workplace.
Discovery was one of the first companies in South Africa that implemented a mandatory vaccine policy.
Sundrie Naidoo, head of people at Discovery Vitality says, “It’s about balancing individual rights and keeping everyone safe.”
She adds, “We consulted experts in the field and consulted with our staff.”
Of Discovery’s almost 11,000 employees, almost 94.9 percent have been vaccinated. Employees who have requested to not be vaccinated for medical or religious reasons are currently in consultation with a review committee to discuss options and potential solutions.
Nicol Myburgh, head of the human resource business unit at CRS HR and Payroll Solutions, says companies needed to follow specific legal guidelines before initiating a vaccination policy.
“There are a lot of big risks and big requirements,” he says.
Nicol adds, “The first step that companies need to take is to complete a comprehensive risk assessment.”
This is to determine the risk profile of each employee in potentially contracting or spreading the virus. The factors that need to be taken into account include whether options such as an employee working from home can be accommodated or if they are client facing and cannot do so.
“You can’t make it mandatory or across the board,” he says, “the policy needs to be tailored to suit the employee's role.”
There are also several costs that the company, if it is enforcing a policy, is required to cover.
“They need to give the employee time off to get the vaccination and this can’t come off their sick or annual leave, and if they have side effects then additional sick leave may be required,” he says.
He adds that as long as the time for the side effects to abate is reasonable.
An additional risk factor to consider is that if an employee contracts Covid-19 at work, the company is then required to follow the Occupational Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act.
“If a company is found to not have taken the necessary precautions, it will then be held liable,” says Nicol.
TOP TALENT IS FLEEING VIRTUALLY SPEAKING
With virtual emigration being on the uptick, more and more South African professionals are finding fresh work opportunities that were not feasible two years ago. Here’s how HR leaders can respond.
BY PUSELETSO MOMPEI
Workers with the right skills have been able to take on international job opportunities without having to uproot themselves and their families, signalling a new era of virtual emigration.
The concept of “virtual emigration” refers to a cross-border relationship between where an employee performs employment services and the jurisdiction where the employer is located. Xpatweb’s managing director Marisa Jacobs says this should be distinguished from a home office arrangement, where an employee is allowed to work from home and not come into the office.
She explains, “Examples of virtual emigration arrangements would be where a South African employee of a UK company moves back to South Africa and retains the employment relationship with the UK employer, remote working from Cape Town; or where a South African employee emigrates to Canada but still works for the South African employer, just based in Canada.” She says a distinction is possible to a simple remote office or home office arrangement where an employee works for a Gauteng-based employer, and is allowed to move down to the Garden Route with their family and perform employment services remotely. The critical distinguishing factor of virtual emigration is the cross-border component, which means that the laws and regulations of more than one country apply to the working arrangement.
Covid-19 side effect
Head of human capital at Altron Karabina Emma Durkin says virtual emigration is a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the massive move to working remotely. She says that in the technology space it became very apparent that teams can deliver on projects from wherever they are in the world. “What we have seen is that the trend is international, mostly European based companies, taking advantage of the gig economy. They recognise that South Africa has world-class skills especially in the technology industry and are relatively affordable due to the exchange rate. In addition, we have English-speaking professionals who are able to communicate easily, and there is the time zone compatibility of South Africa in relation to Europe and the UK. For those reasons, South Africa is an attractive fishing pool for technology skills,” she explains. She says that down the line, virtual emigration offers an easy exit out of South Africa with the promise of a relocation visa and costs by employers abroad.
Emma explains that during the Covid-19 lockdowns emigration halted, but now with borders open again, people are considering their options and international recruitment is firing up again. “This is cause for concern because we are heading towards a skills crisis in South Africa. If our top skills are being deployed on international projects and not contributing to local initiatives, it’s going to hurt the economy,” she says. Marisa adds that in the past decade we have already seen a year-on-year increase in demand for skills and employers expanding their search for talent internationally. The latest Xpatweb critical skills survey shows that 76 percent of employers confirmed that an international search will assist the organisation in meeting its business needs. She adds, “The growing trend of virtual emigration will as such also see South African employers making use of international based employees without necessarily physically relocating them to South Africa. It can be summarised that virtual emigration will further stimulate international workforces and the global search for talent to bolster local supply across the world.” Marisa says earning in hard currency is an attractive pull for South African employees to enter into virtual emigration employment relationships, but cautions that “ensuring you know the dos and don’ts of compliance is essential to ensure you do not get into hot water while maximising your earnings”. She notes that there is a 30-day period to convert your earnings to rand, which means that by planning your conversion optimally, you can receive maximum rand every month. So, with it becoming seemingly easier to work for an international employer with no need to physically relocate and uproot your family, more and more skilled South Africans may enter the international job market, leaving local employers with a smaller pool of local talent available.
Implications
Marisa explains that the principle of labour law is generally that the employee is entitled to the dispensation of the country where the employee is physically performing the employment services. “This creates unplanned risk for any international employer hiring a South African employee, as non-compliance with South African law comes with a disgruntled employee having strong recourse through the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and labour court,” she explains. South African labour laws are heavily employee centric and far from the flexibility of a completely free market arrangement like the United States, where hiring and terminating employment relationships are far easier. Any South African employment arrangement with a remote employee based in South Africa, whether the person in a South African or under work visa, requires specific attention by the employer to ensure compliance with South African labour law. This does not only apply to the terms and conditions of employment and policies, but also how the employee is treated, especially where the employee does not operate within the rules. The same principles apply to hires by South African companies of employees everywhere else in the world, and the labour laws of each jurisdiction must be considered.
Marisa further explains that when an employee is located in a specific country, this creates an economic and tax presence for the employer in the country where the employee is based. For example, where a German firm hires a South African-based employee, the German company should consider the registration requirement as an “external company” in South Africa under the Companies’ Act as well as Income Tax registration requirement for the company, as the employee in South Africa creates a “permanent establishment” for the employer in South Africa. The same rules apply to South African companies hiring employees in India for example, the rules are generally very closely aligned, as international corporate tax
is governed by Double Tax Treaties, which contains similar provisions across jurisdictions.
Demand for HR leaders
Aside from all the technical challenges, this phenomenon requires a shift in how leaders lead.
Emma says HR leaders need to reinvent the way they manage people. She says, “It is a new world of work, to try and continue in the old way is fruitless, we will be left behind.” She says retention and talent doesn’t sit in HR only, “It can be driven by HR but it takes an entire leadership team to create an engaged workforce. This is true whether you are sitting in IT, or Finance or HR.”
Emma advises HR leaders to invest in leadership training, because the remote way of work entails a different leadership style. “Leaders have to change their style to manage virtual teams, it’s a lot more complex. One of the disadvantages of remote is loss of connection, so we have to find ways around that, because that connectedness leads to more loyalty.” She says flexibility in such an environment is key and expanding options is another consideration. “In the South African context for example, it is about casting our net across South Africa and recruiting talent outside of major centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. So, if talent lies in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, we are willing to tap into it and employ remote or hybrid work models,” she adds.
Companies are also changing their mindset when it comes to resignations. “We don’t see them as the end of a relationship. Instead, we aim to make the exit of top talent a good one. We expect an increase in boomerang hires, where old employees return. We want them to be able to come back, especially since they may have new experiences, skills, clients and exposure that they can bring back to the company.” she adds.
Mindset switch
Emma insists that we have to pay attention and that appetite for remote work is huge and there has also been an uptick in freelancing and contract positions.
She says, “Previously professionals needed a certain mindset to embrace the risk that goes with not having a permanent position. Covid-19 taught people that there is uncertainty everywhere, so permanent positions don’t guarantee security due to pandemics, with retrenchments etc.”
She says that the appetite to consider more flexible options, such as freelancing or contracting is strong. “In the ICT space, flexibility has always been more desired. Covid-19 confirmed that we can go remote and proved how versatile and resilient people can be.”
She says the impact of the virtual emigration trend goes beyond one company, and industries have to come together to think of programmes to fill the gaps we have, so that the economy thrives.
“If an industry can come together, with competitors, partners, stakeholders talking, they can invest in solutions. For instance, we have a high unemployment rate, and we need to get unemployed graduates to the pipeline. However, we need people to get relevant, sought-after skills. We need the right people upskilled in the right areas to keep us globally competitive,” she adds.
Emma Durkin
