HR professionals have a community to call their own with CHRO South Africa.
CHRO South Africa is a community of leading HR professionals who regularly come to together to discuss ideas and challenges facing the profession. This year, plans for the sister organisation to CFO South Africa are ambitious, and include a full calendar of exclusive events, the first-ever HR Indaba on 3 and 4 October 2018 at the Sandton Convention Centre, and the recently launched CHRO Magazine. Workday, the fast-growing provider of cloud-based finance and HR software, has already been confirmed as mainline sponsor at the HR Indaba.
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Last year, CHRO SA successfully hosted five events, culminating in a November year-end get-together, where the focus was very much on talent. Marge Mantjie, Head of HR at Adams & Adams, sat on a panel alongside Moula Mokhobo-Amegashie, Managing Partner at Drayton Glendower & Mokhobo, and James Ramakau, Senior Human Resources Manager at AngloGold Ashanti, and said there was a war for talent, particularly in the legal space, where international players are coming into the market.
“Retaining talent is not only about the monetary value that you give your employees,” said Marge. “It's also about expanding the value proposition that you offer an individual, so we have to be creative about the offerings that we present to candidates, which will also help the firm in terms of differentiating itself from other players the market.”
People are increasingly looking for freedom, less bureaucracy and real mentorship, agreed Moula, who has tried to build a model where she treats everyone like a shareholder in the business. That means creating a culture where everybody understands the business objectives and is given freedom to pursue those goals in their own way. “From a flexible working environment perspective, we come to the office to meet clients but, at the end of the day, everybody can work from wherever they want,” she said.
James brought the conversation back to a topic that was the subject of a previous CHRO SA roundtable, bringing back the ‘human’ in human resources, which he said was something that the profession was losing. “As we become stronger business people, we become very hard and cold when it comes to the human element. For our executive team, we try to remind them that we are dealing with individuals who still deserve to be treated with respect and dignity,” he said.
To get involved with CHRO South Africa or the HR Indaba, please contact community manager Maud Meijvis at [email protected] or 060 691 8849.
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