A PASSION FOR CHANGING LIVES

Sinqobile Khuluse (BA) (LLB) is the Head of Human Resources at Sandock Austral Shipyards. He comes from a humble background in the Mlazi township, in Durban. Khuluse is an Admitted Attorney who specialises in Employment Law.

Tell us about your background and career journey. What motivated you to choose this career path? After high school, I went on to pursue legal studies at the University of KwaZulu Natal. In addition to completing a BA and LLB degree, I also wrote articles and passed board exams. After practising for a few years, I discovered my love for employment law and began studying for my Master’s. While studying, I worked for a labour law firm.

Then, I was offered the position of Senior Manager of Industrial Relations in the Manufacturing sector. My breakthrough came when I was fortunate to be recognised by my then Group HR Director as one of the high-performing talent within the Group and appointed as the Human Resources Director of our sister manufacturing plant with approximately 3000 employees. It was an amazing experience to work for a company whose workforce was predominately composed of hard-working women who encouraged me to develop my leadership skills.

At Sandock Austral Shipyards, I oversee the Human Resources department. Working for the largest shipyard in southern Africa, I am passionate about job creation and making a difference in people’s lives. I also serve as the Chairperson of the Manufacturing Forum under the auspices of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

What does your job entail? In my role, I am responsible for the Human Resources business unit and driving human resource strategy, employee relations, organisational development, and effectiveness. I deliver processes related to developing and maintaining our human capital strategy, integrated talent management, performance development, succession planning, transformation, learning and development, including training and managing all workplace experiential learning programs for unemployed graduates and overseeing apprenticeship training. In addition, I am the Transformation Manager.

What are some ways you promote diversity in the workplace- and how do you think we can accelerate the transformation process in South Africa?

I strongly believe that Transformation makes business sense, enough evidence has been gathered over the years that support this statement, diverse teams can make more inclusive decisions that drive the business forward, and teams can leverage the differentiated lived experiences of others and in turn, the difference of opinion and views were more agile and nimble when it came to critical moments and times of crisis. COVID-19 is just one of the unexpected situations that businesses had to deal with and more often than not it was the teams that had forged ahead on their transformation journeys that were able to better navigate through the unknowns.

Transformation needs to become more than just a compliance tick box, it needs to be a rite of passage for any business to conduct business in our country. For any entity to call itself a good corporate citizen, it needs to be able to demonstrate, that it has transformed sufficiently in the critical areas, which are its top leadership composition and supply chain.