12 minute read
Celebrating women of excellence
“I want to see more vulnerability in our leaders because it is a source of strength; it humanises and makes leaders accessible.” - Qhawekazi Mdikane, CMO of Momentum “We need to stop glamourising burnout and seeing it as a badge of honour. My biggest achievement is recognising that I matter.” - Avanthi Maharaj, Google South Africa CHRO
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WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE
The annual CFO and CHRO South Africa Women’s Dinner, themed Women of Excellence, saw leading public and private women leaders celebrating an ethos of women who lift as they rise. Welcoming the chance to come together and network after the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, female CHROs – alongside their mentees – reflected on their successes and the road ahead for the next generation of women leaders.
The powerful community of executives had the unique opportunity to learn from pioneering female leaders, who reflected on their firsts, career lessons, self-care and finding purpose. Leadership coach Inge Walters, who rounded off the evening’s events, facilitated a thought-provoking discussion on women celebrating one another. She encouraged attendees to consider their “biological advantages” – innate strengths that they often don’t even know they have.
“On average, women are far less likely to speak about their achievements,” she said. “Yet it’s easier when they do it with a sense of authenticity, speaking rather about their learnings and what they’re excited about exploring. We can help one another to do this.”
The evening was made possible by principal partners ACCA and Momentum Corporate, executive partners Sanlam, ServiceNow and Mercer, and associate partners
GIBS and SoluGrowth.
“We need to embrace our success in all its diversity and make it work for us all.” - Ruwayda Redfearn, recently appointed as the first female CEO of Deloitte Africa “Not everyone wants to be a CEO, they want to be the best they can be, and that’s enough. Your opportunity will come.” - Elanie Kruger, CHRO of the Tsebo Group
“It’s important for women to share their honest stories and real experiences to inspire women who are not in their position.” - Portia Mkhabela, head of ACCA Southern Africa “As we have transformed, we have seen the evolution of what the workplace is, and an environment created for women to thrive. Sadly, this has also led to some ‘icy’ women, who feel compelled to fit in with a male-centric architecture to succeed.” - Andisa Liba, chief people officer at Floatpays
LAY A STRONG FOUNDATION
For Ndima Rawana, HR head at PPC, integrity, ethics and honesty are key to running a successful company.
BY NOMAHLUBI SONJICA
Ndima Rawana, HR head at PPC, says in his travels he has discovered that most organisations around the world are not as diverse as those in South Africa. “HR people in South Africa are consistently challenged and require a broader skills set in comparison to counterparts overseas.The understanding of the role of HR in most countries abroad is not generally proactive, but reactive,” he says.
“Because we are a diverse nation and face complex risks in our lives, that gives us different perspectives on our approach to different problems in the workplace,” he adds.
Meeting other HR professionals around the globe has also helped Ndima discover the importance of being honest and straightforward with employees and this is what has helped him to create lasting trust relationships that go beyond the workplace.
“Honesty and acting with integrity go a long way and as an HR leader who understands the importance of this, the teams I lead tend to respond well in whatever strategies or business directions we undertake. I have seen this in the US, where my counterparts tend to be direct and are quick to get to the point. In most cases employees just want to hear the truth and prepare themselves for whatever situation they may face,” says Ndima.
He also found out that in some countries employees are encouraged and allowed to engage and discuss business matters in their own languages. Ndima says this is a huge, missed opportunity in South African organisations where we think employees can easily express themselves in English.
Seed planted
He points out that business leaders must spend time with employees outside of a workstation and engage informally in whatever appropriate language as much needed work-related ideas can come out of those conversations.
Before getting into HR, Ndima wanted to be a geologist. “I was good at mathematics and geography, but I went to a boarding school in the Eastern Cape that did not have good career guidance,” he says. “I was walking with my mom in a small town called King William’s Town and we saw this new building, labelled ‘Human Resources Department’. It looked very nice among the old looking buildings. That’s how the seed was planted. I went to the then University of Port Elizabeth and I was asked what I wanted to do. I put down geology, human resources, and I can’t remember the third choice, but human resources it was,” he adds.
Choosing to do human resources was an opportunity for Ndima to make a difference in people. “All the processes that are linked to the human resources function actually made sense to me, and are things I naturally navigated towards – such as recruitment and selection, talent management, transformation, organisational development and skills development. All the functions that are related to
human resources made sense to me and I thought I could be a part of this profession,” says Ndima. Getting a promotion to become HR manager for the Spar Group in KwaZulu-Natal is one the highlights of Ndima’s career and was an important milestone as he left his family behind for the first time, to be on his own.
Different perspective
He left Spar to join SA Breweries as an HR specialist for District South (Port Shepstone, Mthatha and Butterworth). He later moved to Johnson Matthey, an automotive company, where he worked as the head of HR.
This move, Ndima says, was interesting and different in that he was working for an international company that exposed him to different management systems.“After two years of joining them, I was made site services director, which was the first time for me to actually sit on a board,” says Ndima. “Johnson Matthey gave me a different perspective. I managed to travel the world. I met HR colleagues from different parts of the world.” In June last year, Ndima joined PPC. He and his wife Kutlwano, the chief of people at Rectron, started new jobs at the same time. “We both went through interviews at the same time. We never applied for the roles. We were headhunted,” Ndima says With both of them working in the same industry, it is difficult to not talk about work. “If not managed properly, it can be exhausting to come home and still talk about work. We do work around it, but our conversations will always go back to HR,” says Ndima. “It’s an interesting dynamic, but it presents an opportunity to share ideas, to collaborate and advise each other.”
One of his main priorities when he joined PPC was to take the company’s HR back to basics for it to grow. “To improve things, it’s important for the foundation to be right,” he notes. He has crafted a people strategy that focuses on putting HR basics in place, building critical skills and competencies, driving talent management processes, ensuring a future fit organisation through digitalisation of HR processes, and improving employee engagement and experience. This strategy is backed by a vision of becoming a trusted HR business partner and focusing on entrenching a purpose-led, performance-driven culture.
His next career goal is to lead an HR function with a big group. “My current role also includes overseeing some group functions and broader HR scope, so I am on track with accomplishing this,” he says. He also has plans to run a livestock farming business in the Eastern Cape. “I’m a part-time farmer. I just want to make sure when I get to the age when I do my own thing, I will be able to do that commercially. If I die doing it, I will die a happy man,” he says. Ndima is currently working on community projects to help the disadvantaged, especially in rural areas, and would like to do more for young people in preparing them for a workplace. “I find a lot of young graduates get into a workplace unprepared and this is a huge gap in our education system,” he says.
INNER STRENGTH &STRONG MIND
Desereé van den Berg, Risk Benefits Solutions’ executive head of human capital, shares her personal journey of completing the Tankwa Camino, a 10-day, 256km hike from Calvinia to Ceres – and the life lessons she’s learnt along the way.
The Tankwa Karoo captured a part of my heart and soul during a short holiday in 2019 and when I heard about the Tankwa Camino in 2020, I was immediately curious. I started nagging my sister to join me for “a modern-day Great Trek which will take participants through one of the most starkly beautiful areas of our country, the Tankwa Karoo. Inner strength and a strong mind will keep you on track, but your emotions need to be as educated as your intellect”.
She finally gave in, and so the story began for this 10-day, 256km endurance hike from 29 April to 8 May 2022. We started training at the end of 2021, which was way too late considering our existing level of fitness. To top it off, I tested positive for Covid-19 on 31 January 2022 and was woman down for more than a month with secondary infections and a heart rate that did not allow me to walk more than 10 steps at a time without resting. We were part of a group of about 40 hikers who started at the red post box in Calvinia – all eager, full of smiles and excited.
Our days started early in freezing cold weather. I vividly remember the cold on the first night and taking down a wet tent in the dark the following morning. The toilet along the route and in the camp is a plastic bucket with a seat and lid. Inside is a black plastic bag. Around it is a steel structure that is covered only on three sides for some privacy. We soon referred to it as the “green house”. After seeing the first one on day one I announced loudly, “this is not going to work for me”. As the days pass you long for the sight of the green house as it marks another 5km done.
Along the journey you meet other hikers, learn who they are and why they chose to do the Camino, and share tears, laughter and words of encouragement - forming friendships for life. The landscape is diverse and initially all you see is gravel, dust and stones. As the days pass you see a flower, a cloud, an animal – there is beauty to be discovered.
At the end of each day, you arrive at camp greeted by whistles and cheers from the staff and fellow hikers already “home”. You immediately start scouting for your gear and a spot to set up for the night. You shuffle your tired body to get warm water in your 5l bucket for a splash shower before gathering your camping chair and utensils as the dinner bell rings. Evenings are spent huddled around a fire listening to stories about the area and its history while enjoying a hearty warm meal. My sister and I finished our adventure walking together side by side into Ceres, greeted by the tourism council, vuvuzelas, banners, smiling faces and loved ones.
As I walked in solitude on most days with only the sound of my feet hitting the gravel, my beating heart and breath, I heard my thoughts and felt my emotions with every step. As my body eventually found its own rhythm, it provided ample time for self-reflection.
Lessons for life
The Tankwa Camino blessed me with so much. I share some reminders for not only leaders but for us as human beings. • Life is a greenhouse: Preparation and planning are important, yet life happens. Build resilience as life will sometimes throw a “greenhouse” at you that you did not expect. Sometimes you just got to suck it up. You choose your reactions and behaviour, focus on what you CAN control.
• Check your bladder: Sucking on a tube as your bladder runs dry and you have many kms to go, is a sinking feeling. You cannot be everything and anything to everyone. Look after your own wellness first. Choose what you spend your time on.
• Camping is enough: Appreciate what you have.
Live with gratitude. Sleeping in a tent in a warm sleeping bag with a tummy full of food surrounded by nature and wonderful people made me rich.
• Too tired to talk: Listen! Really listen. You will be amazed at what you learn. How much do we miss because we listen to respond as we are too caught up with our own biases and in our own thinking? • Whistle and cheer: Celebrate each other, support each other. Some days I needed a fellow hiker to get me through the last 3 kms, other days I did the same for a fellow hiker. Arriving at camp with the cheers and whistles welcoming you “home” is the greatest feeling after a long day. • Guess what – they survived: No connectivity for days and work and home survived just fine without me. Switch off.
• Remove that stone: On the Camino you must stop and remove the tiniest stone from your hiking shoes immediately. Leaving it for just another km can leave you with blisters that will not allow you to achieve your purpose, finish the hike. In life, find your purpose and remove those tiny stones that distract you from your purpose. • More than just “bossies”: There is beauty around you even in the Karoo, there is more than just “bossies”. You eventually see the flower, the animal, look up for the bluest blue sky and the brightest stars. Just open your eyes and your heart. It is there, always.
