The Future of HR - Value Creation (The Institute of People Management, IPM, workshop on the 15th March 2012, Eskom Conference Centre, Midrand)

In a recent global study conducted by the RBL Group and the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan six competency domains that HR Professionals must demonstrate to be per effectively and to impact business performances were identified.

These Competencies are:

• Strategic positioners who understand evolving business contexts, stakeholder’s expectations, and business requirements and translate them into talent, culture, and leadership actions.
• Credible activists who build relationships of trust and have a clear point of view about how to build business performance
• Capability builders who define, audit, and create organization capabilities required for sustainable organization success
• Change champions: who initiate and sustain change at the individual, initiative, and institutional levels
• HR innovators and integrators who look for new ways to do HR practices and integrate those separate practices to deliver business solutions
• Technology proponents who use technology for efficiency, to connect employees, and to leverage new communication channels, e.g., social media

This high-level workshop is aimed at confirming the strategic role that HR plays in all organisations across the board and will further explore the following questions in depth:

• Positioning HR for effective service delivery within changes circumstances
• Creating a relationship of impact in the organisation
• Outcomes of HR work – what targets are in place and what outcomes beneficial to the organisation are you securing
• Domains of HR investment – where are you investing your time?

The following experts will address the issues: Mr Justin Allen, Global HR Guru, RBL Group; Prof Stella Nkomo, Department of Human Resources, University of Pretoria, and Dr Albert Wocke, Professor & Executive Director, Faculty at GIBS.

Date: 15 March 2012; Venue: Eskom Conference Centre, Midrand
Fees: R 2,895.00 (IPM Members); R 3,895.00 (Non-Members)

RSVP: Patricia, tel: 011 329 3760, email: patricia@ipm.co.za

 

Breaking News: Cometsa and SAGTS (a training arm of the SA German Chamber of Commerce & Industry) forms partnership

Cometsa Group, and the training divisions of the Southern African-German Chamber of Commerce & Industry (i.e. Commercial Advancement Training Scheme – CATS, and Builders Training Centre – Soweto) have been working together for over 15 years now.

With the formation of the South African German Training Services (SAGTS) in 2008, as an independent unit responsible for the CATS and BTC , a truly professional South African training institution with both local and international accreditation has arrived in Skills Development arena in South Africa.

At Cometsa Group we are delighted to have taken our relationship with the SAGTS and the SA German Chamber to a more formal setup by entering into a Memorandum of Agreement.

This give us the opportunity to deliver accredited training services and solutions to our private and public sector clients.

We are looking forward to continue working with you as we jointly tackle the problem of skills shortage for our great country.

The Press Release announcing this partnership is attached. You can also click on the link:  Press release- The SAGTS 2012

Feel free to contact us for face to face meeting to discuss what this partnership with the SAGTS will mean for your organization’s relationship with Cometsa Group.

A great start in 2012, indeed.

Culture Vs. Strategy Is A False Choice

BY FC Expert Blogger Bob FrischMon Feb 20, 2012

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

Strategy seems to have fallen on hard times. In his recent Fast Company piece “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch,” author Shawn Parr joins a long list of commentators, psychologists, authors, and consultants who’ve used that dietary line to argue that company culture is a greater determinant of success than competitive strategy. A strong culture is important, and for all the reasons Parr mentions: employee engagement, alignment, motivation, focus, and brand burnishing. But is it the most important element of company success, as the more ferocious of the culture warriors assert? Is long-term success, as Parr writes, “dependent on a culture that is nurtured and alive”? If history is any guide, the answer to both questions is no.

Certainly, Southwest Airlines has a great culture and funny flight attendants. Employees seem genuinely enthusiastic about their employer. But Southwest also has a great strategy: no-frills service, a young fleet with a limited number of planes flying mostly short-hops from formerly secondary airports, and inexpensive and flexible labor agreements relative to other airlines. And if that strategy ever stops paying off, the jokes will likely go sour and the culture south. Pan Am, too, had a great culture, but was strategically unprepared to deal with oil shocks and a decline in demand for air travel. 

Parr attributes the success of Zappos to a culture that is “inclusionary, encouraging, and empowering.” Customer service representatives write zany emails and company leaders have often affirmed their belief that if you get culture right, success follows. But Zappos also has fast delivery, deep inventory, a 365-day return policy, and free shipping both ways. That’s a strategy--not a culture--and if weren’t competitive with catalog sellers and mall shoe stores, all the culture in the world would make little difference. Pets.com and Webvan, two companies that appeared at about the same time as Zappos, didn’t disappear because they had weak cultures. They simply had unworkable economic models.   

Businesses are economic as well as human entities, and need to be built on a solid base of sustainable competitive advantage. Culture can reinforce strategy, as it does Zappos’ strategy of customer convenience. But it can’t prevail if a strategy is poorly conceived or the company faces competitors with superior strategies, resources, and positioning. As Damon Runyon wrote, “the race is not always to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet."

In the business world, it’s easy to take a handful of current winners, give them a backstory about their cultures and conclude, like Parr, that “authenticity and values always win out.” Always? Walmart is the winner in retail. McDonald's serves more meals than anyone else. And yet they're hardly praised as paragons of superior culture. American manufacturing has moved overseas to Asia, and I don't see anyone writing positive articles about the culture at Foxconn.

Parr is correct that the culture of the U.S. Marines has few parallels in terms of its strength, depth, and the commitment to mission it engenders. But ask any Marine commander which he would prefer to go into battle with--superior morale or superior strategic position--and he would tell you he wanted both.
Ultimately, the culture versus strategy question is a false choice. It's like asking whether you would rather back a great poker player with weak cards or an average player with great cards. You’re more likely to win when you have both: a great player and great cards. The same goes for culture and strategy. You don’t have to choose. Culture doesn’t eat strategy, and the company that lets culture do so is likely to starve.

--Author Bob Frisch is the author of Who’s in the Room? How Great Leaders Structure and Manage the Teams Around Them (Jossey-Bass) and managing partner of The Strategic Offsites Group. Previously he was a Managing Partner at Accenture, held leadership roles at Gemini Consulting and The Boston Consulting Group, and headed corporate strategy for Dial and Sears. He earned degrees from Tufts and the Yale School of Management.

Arts and Culture: "My reflections on the theatre play You Fool How Can The Sky Fall?" by Nhlanhla Sibiya (Managing Director: Cometsa Development Enterprises)

In 2008, I was in my second year at the University of the Witwatersrand studying Dramatic Arts. I recall the day of January 2008, when I received a call from the Production Manager, Carol Prestine from the Wits Theatre. She said "You have to come back early from your holidays I need a Stage Manager for the theatre production called You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall? and the director is James Ngcobo" my face lightened up with excitement and that I was to work with one of best theatre and screen actors in South Africa, yet there was little doubts on my decision because my holidays were suddenly shortened .

My task as the Stage Manager was to manage and organise the following areas; building of the stage, design of the costumes, design of the stage lights, sound, props and artists make up. Over and above these duties, I was the master of communications between the Production Manager, Theatre Manager, Stage Designer, Workshop (stage builders), Cast Members, Crew Members and the Director . I must admit that I was inexperinced and thrown in the deep blue sea to swim with the sharks and I had to keep my head above the water until the last day of the play.

On our first rehearsal I was with the cast and the director reading through the script. There was excitement and laughter, the cast found the text loaded with humour yet it addressed serious issues in the South African political sphere.

The play received good media coverage and attendance. It was the most talked about play at the Wits Theatre, and around Wits Main Campus. I'm glad that I walked the walk of characters with the actors as it was moulding and shaping up to be one of the best theatre play I have seen at the Wits Theatre.


Zakes Mda talks about "You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall?" and other works.

First Appeared
Saturday, 08 March 2008
THE WEEKENDER

That congenitally unhappy Irishman, Samuel Becket, is probably top of the list of famous theatrical control freaks. The Nobel prize-winning playwright was insistent that his characters interact onstage in precisely the way that he envisioned when he penned his script; he was the bane of many a director and actor, whose creative licence was undermined by Beckett’s authorial commands. When Waiting for Godot became an international sensation, however, and was performed in different languages by different companies across the globe, Beckett had to resign himself to letting others present his great play to the world.

In a sense, this is the benchmark of a successful playwright: your work is performed so widely that you know longer know what is being put on which stage, where, when and by whom. Certainly, it is true of Zakes Mda, who only learned that his play You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall? was running at the Wits Theatre when I contacted him for an interview. Yet Mda, unlike Beckett, is happy for others to take the responsibility of giving life to his words. “When a play leaves my hands,” he tells me, “it’s in another realm.”
In his Director’s Note for this production, James Ngcobo writes: “Another year, another Zakes Mda play. Why? I love the fact that he goes out of his way to say something ... Characters in this play embark on a journey that is a mirror image of the reality out there.” One would be forgiven, having read this, for thinking that You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall? is a new play. It was actually written about fifteen years ago, in between Mda’s first forays into prose fiction, Ways of Dying and She Plays with the Darkness (both published in 1995). By then, he had already written 30 stage plays; as he puts it, “I discovered novels quite late.” But when Ways of Dying was given the M-Net Book Prize – he won a host of literary awards for subsequent novels – Mda’s reputation as a novelist began to eclipse his status as a playwright.

Even though he became accustomed to collaboration while working with theatre practitioners, Mda a
dmits that he now enjoys the more autonomous (albeit lonelier) activity of novel-writing. Be that as it may, he finds much of his time nowadays is taken up producing film scripts: he is working on an original screenplay, having already written film adaptations of two of his novels, The Whale-Caller and Heart of Redness. Asked about the challenges posed by these different genres, Mda is candid: “Film is not a writers’ medium. It’s writing by committee, there’s no way of escaping that – after the first draft, you’re no longer in charge – whereas a novelist has more control. Writing for the stage is somewhere between the two. But film scripts pay the mortgage!”

Mda is pragmatic about writing as a vocation. Our conversation is peppered with references to agents, royalties and texts being “auctioned off”. “I do what I enjoy most of the time, and I enjoy what I do,” he says. “But one writes because one has to earn a living.”
This financial nous is more common in the literary circles of the USA, where Mda has been based for much of his writing life, than amongst South African writers. Most of his novels have been written in American locales such as Connecticut, Vermont and Ohio (he is currently a professor in the English Department at Ohio University). Two decades ago, he would have been classed as a writer-in-exile; nowadays, he considers himself “a migrant worker” or “a commuter”, given that he shuttles between SA and the States.
In You Fool, there is a character called “Young Man”, an artist bent on vengeance after being maligned and abused by the State. His chequered history includes a stint in the suburbs – an experience that, he complains, was dull and artistically uninspiring because it was not like “real life” as most people experience it, in which poverty, violence and crime are pervasive. I suggest that perhaps, to a writer aware of South African realities, life in America must be something like this. Mda disagrees: “When I’m in SA, I form part of the middle class, so I also live in bourgeois surroundings when I’m at home – probably even more so than in the US, where I have relatively less money!”

Nevertheless, the major themes of You Fool are specific to a post-colonial, non-Western environment. The play is a study of the apparent inevitability of dictatorship in countries that have recently gained independence. If the question is “Why are there so many dictators in Africa?”, the play offers an answer that depends neither on political or historical explanations. Rather, it seems to suggest, the urge to create, worship and then overthrow secular gods is part of human nature. Mda comments: “We create these idols in order to destroy them.”

The playtext may date back to the early 1990s, but Ngcobo and his cast of young actors have given You Fool some contemporary inflections. For instance, the character of the Minister of Health has certain “Manto-esque” attributes – including a hat decorated with cloves of garlic. Of course, this doesn’t work entirely, as the Minister of Health in the play is a dissenting voice, opposed to the yes-men of the cabinet who submit to the every whim of “the wise one” their president; Tshabalala-Msimang and Thabo Mbeki, on the other hand, have been thick as thieves over the past few years.
Still, the links to SA do allow the audience to apply the play’s critiques to local subjects: the corruption and incompetence of high-ranking government officials who are utterly out of touch with the larger populace, or the dangerous effects of a narcissistic and neurotic leader who is prone to “introspection” rather than good governance.

Mda pays careful attention to my description of these shifts, but at the same time he reminds me that when he wrote You Fool, “De Klerk was still in power. I really wasn’t thinking about SA. I was thinking of post-independence African and South American countries. The play was meant to function as an extended metaphor, not a literal, documentary representation of life in a post-colonial country.”
He is also interested by the racial undertones created in this production (quite apart from the symbolic resonances of a black cast whose faces are painted into white masks, there are a handful of textual additions that refer to race): “My characters in the script don’t have any racial markers. When I wrote the play, I didn’t have black and white people in mind; it was first performed in SA by both black and white actors.”
Ultimately, however, Mda defers to Ngcobo (they worked together while both of them were involved with the Market Theatre) and his colleagues in their interpretation of the work. Indeed, he is evasive when pressed to provide further insight into the play. Asked about “the shadows”, the mysterious offstage figures who abduct and torture the members of the cabinet – even though they have wealth and power, the ministers also seem to be imprisoned and live in constant fear – Mda is unhelpful: “How would I know? I would rather hear what you say. Sometimes I hardly remember the details of a play. What is the joy of writing if I interpret it myself? That’s your job.”

I take up his challenge and suggest that there is a strain of imagery in his work affirming that human frailty is shared by rich and poor, powerful and powerless alike – that the decrepitude of the body is a great leveller. Many characters in his novels have physical problems, such as unpleasant body odour or incontinence, and in You Fool the much-praised president suffers from a festering wound on his leg that never heals. “Now that you point it out,” Mda accedes, “yes, I agree with that. I hadn’t thought of it before. There are many things that we writers do that we’re not conscious about.”

I’m about to protest that such a lack of self-awareness is disingenuous, when Mda changes his tone: “While I take each work on its own terms, with each text I’m the same writer, so I guess I bring the same issues, the same life experience.” And, he concludes playfully, his latest novel (he won’t mention the title) is “meta-fictional”: “The book I’m working on at the moment is self-reflexive, it emphasises its own modes of creation and the devices that I use. In that case, I suppose I’m playing both the creator and the critic.”http://www.christhurman.net/art-and-culture/item/mdas-old-play-given-modern-interpretation.html

My opinion: Human Resources’ Role in Economic Transformation & Change Management in South Africa (By: Sam Tsima, Vice-President, Institute of People Management, IPM)

Deafening silence of HR Professionals: The deafening silence of the HR professionals with regard to the Economic Transformation & Change Management in South Africa is a worry to me. In comparison to the Labour Movement, the HR professionals are not an inch close. Perhaps it is because the HR Professionals are also made to believe that they are invited into the board rooms, operations reviews meetings, strategic planning sessions, etc. If the CEO is not pro Economic Transformation & Change Management, HR tends to struggle to assert itself in the organization. My view is that HR Professionals invite this situation to themselves. The professional organizations to which they belong are not vocal about these issues and do not drive the agenda that is pro Economic Transformation & Change Management. Otherwise if this was done, we would not be having people outside HR Profession being appointed into positions like Transformation Directors, Change Management Directors, Diversity Management Directors, BEE Directors, etc., with reporting lines outside the HR Function. This is an indictment on the HR Profession itself. We must correct this situation as a matter of urgency. This has been discussed within the IPM and we will be addressing it during this term of the current board.

Reflections on unavoidable South African reality: South Africa as a country comes a long way; from Black Advancement Schemes of the 80’s to the current era of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment. All these interventions were and still are about achieving equality in employment practices and economic participation, mostly for the black people, women, youth, rural people and people living with disabilities. The Black Advancement Schemes of the 80’s in South Africa came as a result of the work of the late African-American Baptist activist, Reverend Leon Sullivan, who made sure that all the American companies operating in South Africa implemented Black Advancement Schemes. Reverend Leon Sullivan was the first African American to be appointed to the Board of Directors of General Motors in the US. These schemes entailed introduction of training and development programmes for black people in South Africa and the US, bursary schemes for the black employees and their children, building houses for black staff, and appointing black people in management positions. Reverend Leon Sullivan launched The International Foundation for Education & Self-Help (IFESH), which introduced a number of exchange programmes between the US and Africa. Two such programmes was Financial Services Training (FST) for black South African bankers, which were also funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Best & Brightest for African Bankers. Under the Best & Brightest programme black bankers from South Africa were sent on banking development programmes with major US banks, mostly in New York. In 2000 IFESH organized an educational tour of the US for the South African banking mentors to visit banks in New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. I joined in this tour as banking mentor from the Absa Bank. The current South African Government Spokesperson, Mr Jimmy Manyi, joined us in this tour, then as a bank official of the then People’s Bank (a division of Nedbank Group). Other representatives came from MEEG Bank, Future Bank and African Bank.  So, Reverend Leon Sullivan had a vision for this country, and believed in the ability of the black leadership in business, as in politics. It is only we, South Africans (black and white) that tend to doubt ourselves. This self-doubt has to change before we terribly disappoint our future generations.

Economic Transformation Activism along the aggressive Afrikaner Empowerment: So, alongside the Afrikaner Empowerment, which was not openly called as such, there was some economic activism of some sort, albeit very difficult, due to the oppressive laws of the then Apartheid Government. The Reverend Leon Sullivan intervention became famously known as The Sullivan Code. Many of the current black business leaders in South Africa graduated and benefited from the Sullivan Code initiatives. These schemes were copied by some of the European companies in South Africa, to a certain extend. The German companies, through the Southern African – German Chamber of Commerce, introduced the Commercial Advancement Training Scheme (CATS), of which I am a graduate of, and as a result I continued my development in Germany, under another exchange programme coordinated by the then Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG), now absorbed into GEZ. The CATS gave birth to the South Africa – German Training Services (SAGTS), of which I am the founder and board member. The SAGTS is now made of the CATS and Soweto Builders Training Centre (BTC), based in Mofolo, Soweto. Some companies in South Africa introduced in-company training & development programmes, Adult Basic Education, bursary schemes, and study programmes inside the companies. One can refer to these programmes as the early stages of Affirmative Action Programmes. Indeed, organizations like Black Management Forum (BMF) introduced a very controversial concept called the Basotho Hat Quotas – Affirmative Action. The BMF was convinced that the quota system was the way for the South African Government to follow in accelerating the appointment of black people into meaningful and higher positions in the companies. This quota system thinking was feared by companies, like it is the case with BEE today. As it is now the case, Affirmative Action, became a chapter in the Employment Equity Act. Some companies, indeed, took strategic decisions to support these early initiatives to meaningfully integrate black South Africans into the main economic mainstream through a variety of Schemes. My former employer, Siemens South Africa, sent me back on Corporate Management Training Programme, known as Stammhauslehre, funded by Siemens AG, in Germany. I was stationed in Cologne. On my return to South Africa, after one year, Siemens South Africa seconded me on full salary for a year to the Black Management Forum (BMF) as the Branch Manager – Johannesburg Branch. This was a major investment in black advancement by a foreign multinational that believed in the future of this country. All these programmes were run in the prime times of Apartheid in South Africa. Let us now look at what is happening in South Africa. What happened to the appetite by the foreign multinationals to invest in its black South African staff through exchange programmes with their head offices in developed companies? I believe in the slogan of the then Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, i.e. Investment in foreign experience is investment in the future. The young black South Africans of today need these type of overseas exchange programmes more than we needed them in the 80s. What have we done wrong as South Africans to have discouraged these foreign multinationals in investing in our youth? Can we revisit these approaches to talent development? How about introducing foreign exchange programmes with the other countries in Africa?

The growth and role of labour movement in South Africa: One cannot talk about transformation of the work place without touching on the historical role played by the labour unions in South Africa. Of course, HR and the labour unions have never been friends, for obvious reasons. What is interesting though, is that the labour unions appear to be more decisive on issues of work place transformation than the HR professionals are. It is perhaps because the HR professionals are always perceived to be representing management, and in most cases they are. So, HR professionals are caught in between and must be creative in their stakeholder relationship management to create clarity in terms of their strategic contribution to Economic Transformation & Change Management. In South Africa, the labour unions are further advantaged by the fact that the biggest labour movement, COSATU, is a member of the tri-partite alliance in Government, led by the African National Congress (ANC). They have the opportunity to influence the policy direction of the country. That is why most of their initiatives take off, for example the recently launched Corruption Watch, is highly welcome by all sectors of our society, business, labour, Government and citizens. Where are the HR professionals in this case? HR is supposed to be the champion of people issues in the work place, including being custodians of moral values, ethics, governance, and compliance. Another example, the HR bodies and practitioners have not been vocal on the labour broker’s issue, and yet this is one of the key roles of HR. This matter has been left to COSATU to handle. One must not be surprised when the future form of labour broking is not what the HR Professionals would have liked to have. The HR Professionals must create dialogue with the labour unions on this matter. It will not disappear on its own or take a new acceptable form on its own.

South Africa as a constitutional state with strong Human Rights component: the South African constitution is regarded as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. The Human Rights component of the constitution makes every wrong people practice illegal and yet we require special laws like Employment Equity, Skills Development Act, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, etc. to correct the bad practices like discrimination in employment practices, unfair hurdles put in front of people who want to access entrepreneurship opportunities, racism at work places, lack of employment opportunities for people with disabilities, etc. Laws that are not implemented by people who believe in them are of no use to the society. So, this suggests that transformation and change management start with the individual citizens of the country before they can become national programmes and change the society as a whole. So, companies that want to experience progress in Economic Transformation & Change Management must invest time and resources in addressing transformation and change management of their individual staff.

Affirmative Action that only became a chapter in Employment Equity: While one welcomes this progressive Employment Equity Act, one wonders why such important implementation component of it, Affirmative Action, is not prominent in its articulation. Employment Equity itself became one of the seven elements of the B-BBEE Scorecard, making B-BBEE a very complex programme to understand and implement. It is the grand plan that only well trained and oriented practitioners can articulate. But what is interesting is that HR can use B-BBEE to strategically position itself within the organizations and the economy, namely by making sure that it masters the three elements of the B-BBEE scorecard, namely: Employment Equity, Skills Development, and Management & Control. The three elements are the competences of the HR function in employing organizations.

The new Department of Higher Education & Training pushes people related Economic Transformation & Change Management: When one looks closely at the strategy and the agenda of the new Department of Higher Education & Training, one realizes the unlimited opportunities that the HR practitioners can use to reposition the profession and lead people related transformation strategies in the companies. The Human Resources Development South Africa 2010 – 2030 strategy is driven from the highest office (the South African Presidency, under the chairmanship of the Deputy President, Hon Kgalema Motlanthe) and yet it does not seem to be uppermost in the minds of the HR professionals. It is too soon to judge the impact of the National Skills Development Strategy III on the country’s Economic Transformation & Change Management. However, it seems to be correcting the wrongs committed post 1994 and repositioning South Africa on the path to produce the technical skills required so badly by our economy. We now have the National Skills Accord. It is a matter of time, and we hope to see social partners uniting around this programme. Our national skills development strategies must converge. The main aim is to create jobs and solve unemployment problem.

The role of the HR Practitioners and HR Professional Bodies: I am disturbed by the many HR bodies, most of which are not transformed, not representative of the South Africa demographics in their leadership, and shy away from tackling the lack of economic transformation and change management in the employing organizations in South Africa. It is for this reason why the IPM invited the Minister of Higher Education & Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, to address its Annual Convention at Sun City last year, 2011. We listened to him carefully, and have since committed IPM to put the HR profession in the front seat of Economic Transformation & Change Management. The IPM, the oldest HR Professional Body in Africa, must contribute to the achievement of the objectives that the Government of South Africa has set itself to achieve in 2030, under the Human Resources Development – South Africa 2010 – 2030 strategy. IPM cannot achieve this on its own. We are calling on all other HR Bodies to do self-introspection, make themselves relevant to the times we are living in, and commit to assist the country in its Economic Transform and Change Management. We cannot pretend as if things are well in the economic sectors in which we find ourselves. The continued under-representation of blacks, women and people with disabilities in the higher levels of employment and all other critical categories, perpetuate the tension at the work place. This is a ticking bomb. No country will become productive with such unresolved issues. It is also about diversity management, equal access to opportunities, giving previously disadvantaged individuals meaningful jobs with powers to make contribution to the economic growth that will liberate the work places. Under-utilization of the previously disadvantaged in the employing organizations is as bad as not enabling them to access the opportunities.

Economic sacrifices for greater prosperity: For the HR professionals to make major impact in their organizations, they need to be prepared to make economic sacrifices and push the people related grand plans that are pro Economic Transformation & Change Management. Of course, one is mindful of the fact that the business of business is business. But this cannot happen in a continued abnormal economic environment which is marked by underrepresentation and under-utilization of the skills in certain sections of our society. We still have to strive for our HR to be among the best in the global business practice, and be a competitive leverage for business in South Africa, and the continent at large. However, ours is to first resolve these historical anomalies before we can even start competing out there. Otherwise, these issues will keep on haunting us for many decades to come. Lastly, the challenges are compounded by the fact that HR profession in South Africa cannot fold arms and be overtaken by the unfolding events in global, especially emerging markets. We must strike a balance. Therefore, IPM’s Call is: follow the emerging leaders in Economic Transformation & Change Management, and make your mark. Do not stand on the sideline and watch. Be part of the process of transforming this great country. Your children and grand children will be proud of your contribution. Do not fail them before they even start.

Sam Tsima

Sam Tsima is the President & Chairperson: Cometsa Group, www.cometsa.co.za , Programme Manager: Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria, www.gibs.co.za; and Vice-President: Stakeholder Relations, Institute of People Management (IPM), South Africa, www.ipm.co.za .

Before Sam went full time on Cometsa Group in July 2009, he was Regional Human Resources Director: Sub-Sahara Africa at Motorola SA (Pty) Ltd, reporting into the Middle East Africa Region in Dubai.

He is the former Manager: Centre of Expertise-Group Diversity Management at Sasol Group, responsible for Employment Equity, Global Diversity & Inclusion, Black Economic Empowerment (from HR perspective), Accelerated Leadership Development Programme (ALDP), and Sasol HIV/Aids Response Programme (SHARP).

Before joining Sasol, on the 1^st December 2002, Sam was with ABSA Group for seven years (10/1995-11/2002) as the Group Consultant: Employment Equity.

He worked for Siemens AG (Cologne, Germany) as Corporate Trainee for two years, and Siemens Ltd (Johannesburg, South Africa) as Commercial Administrator, and later Head of Commercial Training for three years.

Sam has a strong Commercial Administration background after training and working in Germany over four years (1988 – 1992). He did his training at Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (Cologne), Kuehne & Nagel Luftfracht GmbH (Frankfurt International Airport), Lufthansa German Airlines Aircargo Centre (Frankfurt International Airport) and Siemens AG (Cologne) in Germany.

Sam is fluent in German Language and has the following German Language qualifications: Diplom Deutsch (Studiengemeintschaft Darmstadt) and Zertifikat Deutsch Stufe 5 (Carl Duisberg Centre Cologne)

He is also qualified in Industriekaufmann (IHK, Germany), Certificate in Commercial Administration (CATS – South Africa German Training Services), Bachelor of Commerce - Transport Economics & Business Management (UNISA), Certificate in Sport Management (Allenby), Certificate in Sport Psychology (Intec), and Level 1 Soccer Coaching Certificate (South African Football Association)

Professional Membership: Institute of People Management (IPM), Southern African Society for Cooperative Education (SASCE), Arterial Network, SA-German Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Cometsa Friends & Supporters Club, and Institute of Directors (IOD)

Board Membership: Institute of People Management (IPM); Central Johannesburg College (CJC), South Africa German Training Service - SAGTS (training arm of SA-German Chamber of Commerce & Industry), Southern African Society for Cooperative Education (SASCE)

Committees Membership: Chairperson Audit Committee Central Johannesburg College, Human Resources Advisory Committee Durban University of Technology, Annual Convention Organizing Committee Institute of People Management., and Europe Middle East Africa Advisory Committee Worldwide Employee Relocation Council

Cometsa - HR Options Career Centre

Allow us to share with you exciting developments at COMETSA Group.

We have partnered with HR Options to address one of the serious challenges facing our  scholars, students, youth and first time entrants into the world of work, namely choice of correct education qualification and career stream.

The scholars who are faced with the challenge of choosing studies direction will need to determine their capabilities before committing to many years of studying. Wrong choice of degree can be very costly to the parents and the state.

The unemployed who want to enter the world of work will maximize their chances of employment if they undergo career centre assessments to determine the careers suitable to their personalities and characters, including their interests.

Companies can use the Cometsa – HR Options Career Centre in their recruitment process to assess the suitability of the candidates.

Even those who are already employed and wanting to make further career decisions, need career centre interventions to guide their decisions.

Every staff member has the responsibility to manage their own careers. Once an employee has taken a decision on the career direction, he or she will need to own this decision and live with the consequences of the decision.

The company’s duty is to provide tools to assist the staff. The rest is left to the staff and their coaches.

Cometsa – HR Options Career Centre is one such a tool that your organization can make use of to assist the staff, including the company’s bursars, graduates, trainees, and interns.

For further information and arranging a meeting with our consultants, contact Cometsa Shared Services, tel 011 974 9308, email: callcentre@cometsa.co.za ; www.cometsa.co.za

LinkedIn Announces Fourth Quarter and 2011 Fiscal Year Financial Results (NYSE:LNKD)

LinkedIn Announces Fourth Quarter and 2011 Fiscal Year Financial Results (NYSE:LNKD)