2020: the year we regained our humanity

THE YEAR WE REGAINED OUR HUMANITY 2020

During this year’s CFO Community Conversations, finance executives agreed that leaders need to take care of their employees’ wellbeing above all else.

“People need to understand that the lockdown set-up is not a normal working environment and, as leaders, CFOs need to be tolerant of their employees being disrupted at home.”

Aarti Takoordeen

When the Covid-19 hard lockdown was announced in March 2020, CFO South Africa rethought the way they bring finance professionals together, especially during such difficult times. As a result, the CFO Community Conversations were born and took place every Wednesday evening via Zoom. During these conversations, which proved to be a necessary collaboration and relaxation tool for CFOs, those in attendance discussed the challenges they were facing as Covid-19 impacted businesses across South Africa and the world.

In one conversation, headline speaker Ralph Mupita, MTN Group CEO and 2019 CFO of the Year, said: “Covid19 has profound implications not only for health and humanitarian impacts, but long-term economic and structural changes for businesses and societies.” The impacts and changes were not all negative, however, and the CFOs also highlighted some of the positive things they learnt from the pandemic.

Ensuring the wellbeing of your people

While maintaining business sustainability and liquidity was a pressing concern on CFOs’ minds during Covid19, they all agreed that leaders need to take care of their stakeholders and ensure the safety and well-being of their workforce by keeping in touch during the crisis. “As we go through change, growth is inevitable,” Barloworld group FD Nopasika Lila said. “As leaders, we are trained and experienced to manage people and situations in tested environments.”

During one of the Community Conversations, CFOs agreed that one of the most important lessons they had learnt during lockdown was that it is important to be conscious of and safeguard the mental state of employees. “People need to understand that the lockdown set-up is not a normal working environment and, as leaders, CFOs need to be tolerant of their employees being disrupted at home,” said one CFO, who preferred not to be named.

“The lockdown has also encouraged people to take initiative and be more creative. People showed that they were willing to step up and take action to help their companies.”

Ralph Mupita

JSE CFO Aarti Takoordeen said that she has been reading a lot about mental illness and how lockdown has influenced that. “We have to be a lot more understanding of our colleagues' living circumstances, which allows for our own growth as managers.” The lockdown has also forced CFOs to step into cheerleading roles, having to motivate their teams during these sombre times.

Douglasdale Dairy CFO Bradley Wentzel said a big part of his job during hard lockdown involved giving his team pep talks in the mornings after driving to work on quiet roads. Hatch Africa CFO Craig Sumption added that “no one has a definite answer about what’s going to happen next, and it makes people nervous, so you have to motivate them. You also have to be sensitive towards people. Not everyone is working from home comfortably and we need to be aware of that and not put undue pressure on them.”

The lockdown has also encouraged people to take initiative and be more creative. People showed that they were willing to step up and take action to help their companies. Verimark CFO Bryan Groome agreed, saying that he has seen the increased enthusiasm for innovation coming from his team. “Everyone is trying to think of new initiatives, trying to say what we can do differently and thinking about what we can do next,” he said. “I think after lockdown we are going to see a lot of new great ideas being implemented in companies.”

People-friendly politics

In another CFO Community Conversation, Aarti talked about people-friendly policies being introduced at the JSE. She explained that because people have been forced to recognise and become more empathetic of their colleagues’ personal circumstances as they dial into their homes, the JSE has had to come up with new policies and practices to support these learnings. The exchange has implemented initiatives like “No-Meeting Wednesdays”, where colleagues are allowed to block their diaries out every second Wednesday and not accept any meetings. The JSE also has HR entries in their diaries for online yoga, virtual meditation, fitness sessions and various other initiatives that help employees tackle some of the challenges that have arisen out of the pandemic. “These have really allowed our employees to equip themselves with the right tools during these challenging times. It really challenges traditional thinkers, because the results of those types of initiatives have been that we have a much happier and more productive workforce,” Aarti said.

Ashley Francis Walter Leonhardt

“At Standard Bank we have quite a number of people-friendly policies,” said Standard Bank head of finance, retail and business banking Tendani Sikhwivhilu. “One of these was that the organisation introduced special leave to help employees set up their kids’ schooling arrangements and to help them adjust to the new circumstances we were in because of Covid19 and lockdown.”

Benefits for the business

Walter Leonhardt, the financial director of Coca-Cola Beverages SA, said that his management team believes that by caring for their people to the best of their ability, the profitability will follow. Competition Tribunal head of finance, Devrani Moonsamy said that proceeding with daily outputs through online meeting platforms, digital signatures and other technology available has allowed the company to completely digitalise. “A good thing is that we will continue to work digitally.” Noloyiso Mhlubulwana, the financial director of Tsebo Facilities Solutions, outlined the importance of different areas of the business working together towards a common goal. "We had to adjust and work closely with HR, in order to support our employees. We've been working with employees, working with clients to keep them motivated during these tough times. We’re trying different things to be supportive to clients and employees and staying on top of that cash flow." Niniza Sithole, head of finance shared services division at Rand Water, said that the loss of travel time opens up new opportunities. “People who haven’t been stuck in traffic are less tired. They can be more creative in their productivity, and devote more hours to the work that they are doing. Covid-19 is forcing us to think outside the box. And not just about your company, but South Africa as a whole.”

Two months into lockdown, former University of Cape Town CFO Ashley Francis believes that after Covid-19, there’s no going back. “I’ve come to realise that I don’t want to go back to how things were,” he said. “Ten weeks have changed my lens in terms of how I see the future. I’m excited about the new normal and the business aspect of it, with new thinking and innovative ideas.” It will be fascinating to look back on this time from the future, and to assess whether the changes, understanding and humanity that were unlocked when global business leaders were under enormous pressure to deliver results and support their teams, truly did change the world for the better. To hear the reflections these CFOs share, it certainly seems that this will be the case. l