TOPLINE&nbsp;Many employers should adopt a “hybrid” model of office work, with some employees in the office and others working remotely. Clearly communicate phased reopening plans with employees, especially new office protocols, such as testing and wearing masks.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5ed19b7a8be1be0006b4cbbe/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="public-health-experts"/></figure>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Consider a staggered return. “Offices may consider starting slow by opening with fewer people at first,” says Dr. Mark Kortepeter, an epidemiology professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and author of Inside the Hot Zone. He also suggests shifting work schedules and “having liberal stay at home policies if people are ill.”</li><li>Antibody testing can be a helpful tool but not a panacea, Kortepeter says. The accuracy of the tests can vary, especially because there is a lag time between being infected with the virus and developing antibodies. We also don&#8217;t fully understand whether having antibodies translates to protection from infection and for how long. </li><li>Build areas of protection. The virus mostly spreads via large respiratory droplets, so using plexiglass or other types of barriers can block some of the direct spread of these droplets.</li><li>Minimize face-to-face contact by instituting virtual meetings. For in-person meetings, make sure there is enough room to socially distance. </li><li>Establish employee protocols around personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5ed19b61b37b8e000605bc84/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Fc"/></figure>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Adopt a “hybrid” approach to reopening. “Some jobs are better performed remotely and some are better performed in the office,” says Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. “Employers are going through that process literally by job category.”</li><li>There are varied ways to reopen, says Taylor. The society’s most recent survey of employers found 39 percent were planning to implement a phased reopening strategy, with critical teams returning first, while 19 percent plan to implement an alternating schedule strategy, with most employees returning on alternating days or weeks.&nbsp;</li><li>Establish a policy around personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves, because lax or conflicting guidelines will cause confusion. “We are now watching very closely what happens when you get people back into the workplace, particularly where businesses don&#8217;t mandate the wearing of a mask,” says Taylor. “You have a new area of dispute that&#8217;s going to need to be resolved by employers.”</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5ed19b347f63de00066e0b22/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="AFGw"/></figure>



Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/live-from-our-internal-weekly-company-townhall-sharing-an-update-on-our-approach/10111936118050541/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;sweeping changes to its remote work policies, such as allowing employees to request the option of permanently working from home and “aggressively” increasing the hiring of remote employees to diversify its workforce. “For the last 10 or 11 weeks, we&#8217;ve had 95 percent or more of our population working remotely and what we’ve found is that we’re still able to get a lot of work done,” says Lori Goler, Facebook’s Vice President of People. The new emphasis on remote hiring will allow Facebook to expand its talent pool geographically. “It really creates a lot of opportunity across the United States. So now you don&#8217;t have to live in one of the locations [where we have offices] which means that people don&#8217;t have to get up and leave their communities,” Goler says.&nbsp;



When the social media giant starts to reopen offices as permitted by state and local officials, they expect to operate at no more than 25 percent capacity in the near-term while proper safety measures are put in place.&nbsp; “We decided that we would take a more conservative approach, both in terms of leaving the offices and in terms of returning to the offices,” Goler says.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5ed19b0c5e2c7400068b09b6/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="red-flags"/></figure>



Be alert for working conditions (or fellow employees) that are not complying with safety guidelines. Offices are full of high-touch surfaces—door handles, light switches, appliances—so check what the new cleaning and disinfection protocols are in your office. Stay away from crowded conference rooms or other commons areas where people are unable to socially distance.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5ed199438be1be0006b4cba4/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="QWD"/></figure>



While working remotely is a big change for many people, it also allows for much greater geographic diversity in hiring and access to a whole new pipeline of talented recruits. Plus, many companies will likely take a hybrid approach of having some people work remotely and others in a physical office. “Every company will have to do what’s right for their company and situation but what we found is that it’s actually worked out really well for us,” says Goler of Facebook. “And we’re pretty excited and optimistic about the future.” 



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maneetahuja/">Maneet Ahuja</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs">Entrepreneurs</a>

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How To Return To The Office

Google released its seventh consecutive diversity report on Thursday, revealing modest gains in representation for women and people of color, and a disproportionately white, Asian and male workforce.



The percentage of black hires in the U.S. grew from 4.8% in 2018 to 5.5% in 2019, a .7% increase. The percentage of black hires in technical roles also grew by .7%, the largest increase in the share of black technical hires since Google first started publishing diversity data. Latinx employees, on the other hand, saw a dip in hiring, dropping from 6.8% in 2018 to 6.6% in 2019. The percentage of Latinx employees in technical roles increased by a mere .2%.



Female employees didn’t fare much better, dropping from 33.2% of global hires in 2018 to 32.5% in 2019. Over that same time period, the percentage of women hired for technical positions remained at about 25.6%—a far cry from gender parity. But hiring only shows one side of the coin, which is why Google began to include attrition rates in 2018.



As in previous years, women continued to have a lower than average attrition rate in 2019, while Latinx attrition in the U.S. dipped below the Google average. Attrition was highest for Native Americans and increased significantly for black women.



Overall, Google’s workforce representation—defined as hiring minus attrition—saw a slight uptick for most underrepresented groups. Black and Latinx employees represented 9.6% of the U.S. workforce in 2019, up from 9% in 2018, and women represented 32% of Google’s global workforce, up from 31.6%.



The representation of women and Latinx employees in leadership roles also grew, increasing by .6% and .4% respectively. The percentage of black employees in leadership positions didn’t change year-over-year and dropped by .2% for Native American employees.



Although the needle has barely budged for women and people of color in tech over the last year, Google has made it a point to invest in diversity programs. Through its philanthropic arm,&nbsp;Google.org, the company committed $10 million to support low-income students and students of color in Bay Area STEM classrooms in 2019.



Internally, the company has launched smaller initiatives, such as running all job postings through a bias removal tool, which it says has led to an 11% increase in applications from women. And in an effort to retain diverse talent, Google expanded its retention case management program for underrepresented employees who are considering leaving the company.



Looking at its most recent diversity figures, however, Google concedes that there is considerable room for improvement. “The Native American population is one of those areas where we remain flat and so we will continue to invest more focus in 2020 to make sure that we&#8217;re targeting this population as well,” says Melonie Parker, Google’s chief diversity officer.



While she wouldn’t specify what that investment would entail, Parker says that the company is moving forward on its 2020 diversity goals and will continue to focus on representation and creating an inclusive culture companywide. She also notes that&nbsp;even the smallest percentage gains represent&nbsp;thousands of jobs for underrepresented groups.&nbsp;



One area where Google has seen significant progress is in its internship program: Globally, 40% of interns in technical roles were women in 2019 and 24% of U.S. interns were black and Latinx.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthumoh/">Ruth Umoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/diversity-inclusion">Diversity &amp; Inclusion</a>

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Google Diversity Report Shows Little Progress For Women And People Of Color

One day before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Google parent company Alphabet asked all of its North American employees to work from home. The tech titan may have been among the first to issue such a sweeping edict, but it’s far from the only one implementing policies to safeguard employees. According to a survey by global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson, as of mid-February, 46% of employers had started encouraging staff to work remotely, while 55% were holding virtual meetings in an effort to reduce the need for business travel.&nbsp;



Of the 158 U.S. companies surveyed, 38% reported that their human resources departments had been reviewing or revising their procedures to better protect their workforces. For those still in the process of doing so, here are eight ways that employers can protect their employees from the coronavirus.&nbsp;



1. Disinfect the workplace



“The number one thing is keeping people safe when they’re at their worksite, and that really has to be priority No. 1,” says Jeff Levin-Scherz, co-leader of Willis Towers Watson’s North American Health Management Practice. In addition to making hand sanitizer and handwashing facilities readily available, which 44% of businesses have done, organizations should also increase the frequency at which they clean common areas and surfaces. At the time the survey was conducted, 25% of companies said they were disinfecting worksites.



2. Ask sick employees to stay home



Managers should encourage employees who are sick or may have been exposed to the virus to work from home, the latter for a period of 14 days. But Levin-Scherz cautions against making any judgements based on race or ethnicity, as doing so can create social stigma.



3. Encourage employees to work remotely and have virtual meetings



“As this virus is transmitted in more communities, social distancing is important,” Levin-Scherz says. “If you could achieve a business goal by having a telephone call or having a video conference to be face-to-face, that’s a way to decrease transmission and decrease risk.” Some 46% of organizations are offering telecommuting options, and 55% are encouraging employees to have virtual meetings. If in-person meetings are necessary, establish a no-handshake policy. 



4. Communicate contingency plans to employees



“Epidemic preparedness should be part of the business continuity plan and the plan should be periodically reviewed,” Levin-Scherz says. Thankfully, 71% of employers have an emergency response plan in place. But it’s not enough to just develop a plan—leaders must be able to effectively communicate it, too. “Companies should have good ways to communicate with all their workers, whether they&#8217;re on site or remote,” he says. “Be sure to let them know of potential exposures and any changes in company policies.”&nbsp;



5. Prepare for worksite closures



If a worksite needs to be temporarily closed, take care to ensure employees understand corporate policies surrounding pay and benefits. Doing so can make all the difference for workers concerned about their job and financial security, and according to Willis Towers Watson’s survey, just 28% of employers have taken this step.&nbsp;



6. Revise corporate travel policies



Many employers have encouraged employees to suspend non essential business travel, with 63% of organizations have canceled corporate trips to high-risk countries. When revising such policies, Levin-Scherz suggests referring to the advisories on the&nbsp;<a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">State Department</a>&nbsp;websites.&nbsp;



7. Evaluate plans to host conferences



From South by Southwest to Google I/O, conferences around the world are being&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2020/03/10/covid-19-coronavirus-cancellation-tracker/#6fe328dc67ba">rescheduled</a>&nbsp;or canceled, with 47% of respondents reporting having canceled events of their own. Stay in touch with local health departments and have a backup plan in place. If the show does go on as scheduled, provide attendees with hand sanitizer and hand washing facilities, and implement a no-handshake policy.&nbsp;



8. Train supervisors



Above all, ensure supervisors are equipped with the resources they need to not only answer employees’ questions, but escalate concerns up the chain of command. A plan for quickly reporting any potential coronavirus exposures to the local health department, for example, is critical to have in place. To find your local health department, search for “local health department,” followed by the postal code, city or county name.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthatodd/">Samantha Todd</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/leadership-strategy">Leadership Strategy</a>

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8 Steps Employers Can Take To Protect Workers From The Coronavirus

As coronavirus cases have surged, so have the number of companies asking their employees to work from home, with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en-US/News/2020/03/north-american-companies-take-steps-to-protect-employees-from-coronavirus-epidemic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">46% of American businesses</a>&nbsp;having implemented remote-work policies as of mid-February. While telecommuting has become more mainstream in recent years—the remote workforce grew 159% between 2005 and 2017—when just&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/flexjobs-gwa-report-remote-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3.4% of Americans work from home</a>&nbsp;at least half of the time, it’s not unreasonable to think that many of the employees who have been asked to work from home due to the coronavirus may have little to no experience doing so, or at least not for an extended period of time.



Whether you’re a first-time telecommuter struggling to be as productive from your couch as you are from your cube, or a manager looking for ways to keep your newly remote team engaged, here’s everything you need to know about working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll be adding to this guide as the situation develops, so check back for updates.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How To Work From Home</h3>



As the coronavirus has continued to spread, some of the world’s biggest businesses have asked employees to work from home. But if you’re working remotely for an extended period of time, how can you ensure that you’re just as productive from your couch as you are from your cube? <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenmenabney/2020/03/06/what-you-need-to-know-to-start-working-from-home/">These six tips</a> may be key to your success.



Many organizations have encouraged their workers to curb, if not cancel, business trips. If yours hasn’t, you may be wondering whether your boss can <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2020/03/06/can-employees-refuse-to-travel-out-of-fear-of-contracting-the-coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know/#4fc6f4a61eef">make you travel during an outbreak</a>. The short answer: Maybe. 



If you can’t telecommute and have to miss work due to being quarantined, can you lose your job?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2020/02/26/the-coronavirus-keeping-your-job-if-you-get-quarantined/">Here’s what you need to know</a>&nbsp;about your rights.



March is typically a strong hiring month, but as COVID-19 continues to spread, the job market may experience a slowdown. Whatever you do, don’t abandon your search—<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kourtneywhitehead/2020/03/01/3-things-you-need-to-know-about-a-march-job-search/">heed this advice</a> to achieve the best possible outcome.



If you’re a member of the class of 2020, with just weeks to go until graduation, chances are you’ve got more than a few questions about how, if at all, the coronavirus may affect your job hunt.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/03/10/how-recent-college-graduates-can-successfully-interview-in-a-covid-19-world/">Here’s what you need to know</a>.&nbsp;



Hiring may slow down, but it’s not likely to come to a grinding halt. There will always be a demand for top talent, even in a down market, and if you’re responsive to potential employers, open to alternative arrangements and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecenizalevine/2020/03/08/how-to-keep-your-job-search-going-when-hiring-slows-down/">follow these steps</a>, you’ll be better equipped to keep your search alive.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How To Manage A Remote Team</h3>



As COVID-19 forces employers to embrace remote work, leaders have found themselves faced with a unique challenge: engaging employees from afar.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2020/03/02/what-managers-need-to-know-as-coronavirus-expands-our-remote-workforce/">Here’s how to get started</a>.



Despite the widespread adoption of telecommuting, remote-work advocates aren’t necessarily celebrating. Going remote may seem simple, but without the proper processes in place, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2020/03/05/ironically-remote-work-advocates-warn-companies-about-covid-19-work-from-home-strategies/">experts warn that such arrangements can have serious consequences</a> for companies.



In times of uncertainty, people look to their leaders for answers. But you don’t have to know everything about COVID-19 to effectively address your team’s concerns—what you do need is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloedemrovsky/2020/03/03/why-the-business-impact-of-the-coronavirus-will-linger-and-what-to-do-about-it/">crisis communications plan</a>.



Leaders would also do well to stick to the facts and avoid any absolutes, exaggerations or otherwise emotive language. In other words, don’t say <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2020/03/08/ten-words-leaders-should-avoid-when-discussing-coronavirus-with-their-employees/">these 10 things</a>.



The bottom line: Keep calm. Panic is contagious, but so is courage, and by following<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2020/03/08/leading-through-coronavirus-how-those-in-charge-can-navigate-the-uncertainty-with-calm--courage/"> these six steps</a>, you’ll be better equipped to lead through tumultuous times.



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/vickyvalet/">Vicky Valet</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/careers">Careers</a>

Nothing was Achieved  by Being Idle

Working From Home During The Coronavirus Pandemic: What You Need To Know

The aim for one of the world&#8217;s leading in logistics and supply-chain management companies is to develop innovative leaders.
&nbsp;
Bonolo Masilo began her work career at CHEP, a world leader in logistics and supply-chain management. Within six years, she was in a boardroom in London, presenting a proposal to the international leadership of the company.
She’d risen to become an innovation leader, had built a network of contacts that spanned the globe and been identified as one of her organisation’s brightest young talents.
Bonolo has been recognised as a precocious talent from the outset. CHEP started on this journey with her when they awarded her a full bursary for her operations-management studies at the University of Johannesburg, after which she joined the company in 2011 as a graduate trainee.
By 2015, she had risen in the organisation to become an operations supervisor, which kickstarted an interesting journey for her.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-37607 alignleft" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep.jpg" alt="" width="399" height="709" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep.jpg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep-300x533.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep-600x1067.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep-169x300.jpg 169w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chep-576x1024.jpg 576w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 399px) 100vw, 399px" />
“I was probably the first CHEP female supervisor in the country,” says Bonolo. “It’s a male-dominated industry and you need to work a little harder than your peers to be recognised. But it does help you grow, and I emerged from the process stronger as a person and as a professional.”
Enhancing her growing reputation as a future star in her area was Bonolo’s selection for the company’s Bambanani inclusion and diversity project. This groundbreaking program saw the company develop a course that allowed each person to uncover their unconscious biases and address these, in order to make the organisation grow its people and its revenue. She was involved in facilitating 60 workshops across sub-Saharan Africa and develop a great deal from that.
The impact she made on the lives of her colleagues through Bambanani saw Bonolo selected for the CHEP talent development programme (TDP). This was a gilt-edged opportunity to work on a strategic project as part of a global team.
“I was the only staff member from South Africa chosen for the programme,” says Bonolo. “I met so many people, and got to grow my network in the sector, travelling to Spain, France and the UK.”
Bonolo says her involvement in the programme was a highlight of her career. 
“I really appreciate CHEP’s commitment to my development and that of everyone in the business,” she says. “To me it is clear why they’re seen as an employer of choice, and have been recognised by organisations like the Top Employers Institute for their exceptional employee offerings.”
Having blazed trails in her industry as a woman and a young person, Bonolo is now seeing her dedication bear fruit. She sees transformation rapidly gaining momentum in her sector, as more women find operations roles.
Bonolo says one of the keys to transformation is to build support networks with other women in the company and the industry. “We need each other. It’s good to have someone to talk to for advice and solidarity. It’s exciting to be making a real difference.”
She sees her future with CHEP, perhaps one day as an Operations manager. “I’ve had great mentorship from women in senior positions and I’m developing my skills, so I can get to the next level. I completed my BTech last year, and I might go for my masters next year. There are so many opportunities in our company.”
She insists that women can continue to make strides into previously male-dominated areas of business. “It’s not as difficult as it may seem. If you’re passionate about what you do, anything is possible.”
&nbsp;
Article provided by CHEP.

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Developing Future Supply Chain Leaders

Financial services company RCS, a Top Employer for 2019, is driving new ways of working and empowering employees to take ownership of their career development.
&nbsp;
I am inspired in my ambition to run a successful business because it not only creates job opportunities that put individuals in positions where they are able to support themselves and achieve their dreams, but also their families’, says Regan Adams, CEO of RCS. RCS, a financial services company that was bought by BNP Paribas in 2014 is in the midst of an exciting business transformation. Adams believes that this transformation will be achieved by driving a new culture and new ways of working. It is exactly this belief that informs the HR strategy, which places employees at the heart of the business’ transformation, ensuring that they are equipped and empowered for this change. This strategy was created through a strong collaboration between the local HR team, the business, and support from the BNP Paribas Corporate HR team in Paris. With the solid blueprint in place and the wheels set in motion, the HR team embarked on the journey for RCS to become accredited as a Top Employer. Sandi Richardson, Deputy Head of HR explains that this accreditation is not only a prestigious accolade for RCS but will continue to elevate the HR team’s delivery through the benchmark reports and feedback provided by Top Employer. Richardson says that participation in the Top Employer certification process will deliver a sustained and strengthened performance, supporting the team’s mission to make RCS a great place to work.
Richardson says that this is an exciting time for the RCS team. The HR function have accelerated their own transformation with the introduction of a BNP Paribas sponsored, digital employee tool, called ‘About Me’. This tool is intended to empower employees to take ownership for their career development. ‘About Me’ puts the employee in the driving seat of their career by integrating the individual’s data around their career preferences and professional profiles. The use of algorithms then suggests learning and mobility offerings from both the Learning Management System and Recruitment tools. This tool also hosts the employee’s appraisal (including the functionality for continuous feedback) and personal development plan. The digital nature of the tools means that it promotes transparency, flexibility and accessibility in these fundamental topics.
RCS equips its leaders to lead differently by providing Leadership Development programmes that are not only focused on the technical aspects of transformation but the behaviours required of those entrusted to guide its teams. RCS employs many new entrants to the labour market, particular into its call centre. A host of development programmes are put in place to support the growth of these employees. Some of these initiatives include secondments across the business, an internal graduate programme and financial assistance to fund their tertiary education.
RCS further invests in the wellbeing of its employees by providing holistic, world class wellness facilities both onsite and offsite. These include clinics providing primary healthcare, gyms, fitness classes of varying natures to suit the diverse preferences of its employees and a host of initiatives throughout the year. RCS also invests in the education of the children of their qualifying staff, through its annual bursary programme.
This drive to empower extends beyond the borders of RCS as Adams explains that RCS strives to be an organisation that contributes to the building of South Africa’s nation. This is done through various contributions and the efforts of its employees in a number of organisations and projects that are focused on the upliftment of the communities within which RCS operates.

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Transformation Through People

Sanlam&#8217;s approach to its employees is the same as its approach to its clients, to enable them to live their best possible life.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-319527" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/04125012/Africas-Leaders-in-HR_Sanlam_Page2.jpg" alt="" width="872" height="505" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-319531" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/04125737/Infographic_Realise-your-worth.-FINAL.jpg" alt="" width="1448" height="2048" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-319528" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/04125222/Africas-Leaders-in-HR_Sanlam_Page3.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1093" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-319529" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/04125343/Africas-Leaders-in-HR_Sanlam_Page4.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1105" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-319530" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/04125443/Africas-Leaders-in-HR_Sanlam_Page5.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1105" />
 &#8211; Content supplied by Sanlam

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Making Work Rewarding For Generations To Come

Dimension Data turns employee careers into worthwhile experiences with tools, technology and now robotics. 
Seventy two percent of our workforce today is made up of millennials. A generation looking to government, as well as to corporates to solve societal problems. Overwhelmed employees need work that inspires them and enables them to make a difference in society.
To be a Top Employer and to attract and retain our talent and that of the future, means we need to create an environment built on empathy, wellbeing, one that provides coaching and mentoring, where careers are transformed into experiences.
For too long we’ve had robotic expectations of human performance. It’s about time we hand over the mundane tasks to robots, so we can focus on work that inspires us. A successful organisation of the future must become a data-led social enterprise, treating employees fairly, transparently and in an unbiased manner – says Dimension Data Middle East and Africa HR Executive Michaela Voller.
Voller says they need to reimagine how they will operate and transform Dimension Data to be fit for the future, and have begun their journey of transformation. They have adopted a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) methodology to allow them to scale lean and agile work practices, and are moving towards agile workspaces to support this. ‘Our aim is to provide a more efficient service to our clients through this collaborative approach’.
We recently launched a new way of working through our global HRIS platform – Workday, continues Voller. We needed to improve the employee experience with tools that provide real-time transparent information, and enable employees to manage their own careers. Our employees can set performance objectives and get feedback on their progress from various peers at any time. They can in turn ‘give feedback’ and recognise their peers for great work. They can also showcase their careers by sharing their career history, competencies and aspirations, and can map their learning journey through our integrated learning platform, making them more accessible for promotional opportunities.
We also launched a new on-boarding experience – continues Voller. We decided to digitise induction as part of our broader digitisation journey, through a mobile application to ensure a social experience to on boarding. By digitising the knowledge transfer on the platform, we’ve managed to create time and space for human connections through conversations.
Dimension Data is also integrating robotics into their organisation. As one example, our bot ‘Pippa’ screens thousands of CV’s, cutting out the bias nature of candidate selection currently performed by HR departments – explains Voller.
These are massive mind set shifts and we are encouraging and empowering our people to consider these changes and make this a success in our business. Our transformation journey is not nearly over, as we look forward to further exciting challenges ahead.
In our world today, change after all is the only thing we can be sure of.
&nbsp;
&#8211; By Jenni Burgum, Dimension Data.

Michaela-forbes

Transforming For The Future

One spring day in 2015, Julia Lee, a top performer on the engineering team at the payroll-software start-up Gusto, asked Edward Kim, the company’s cofounder and chief technology officer, for a one-on-one meeting.
Sitting together on a gray couch in the middle of their open-plan office in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, Lee, a Stanford grad who had interned at Google and Palantir, told Kim that she loved her work but was struggling with one issue. Of the 18 people on Gusto’s engineering team, Lee, then 26, was the only woman.
Before she got to Gusto, she told Kim, “people often assumed I didn’t know the answer to a problem because I was a female engineer.” Even at Gusto, she was reluctant to share her feelings of self-doubt. Kim, Lee says, was extraordinarily receptive. In fact, he made it a personal project to study the gender breakdown on the engineering teams at other tech firms. The numbers he found were dismal.
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Only 12% of the engineering staffers at 84 tech firms were female, according to statistics gathered in a public Google Doc posted in 2013 by Tracy Chou, then an engineer at Pinterest. Kim read a U.S. census report on racial and gender disparity in STEM employment and was troubled by a National Public Radio report that showed an increase in women graduating with computer science degrees through the early 1980s and then a steep decline from 1984 on.
He also read a 2015 McKinsey study showing that companies with diverse workforces outperform financially. “The fact that no one else in tech was able to really crack the gender diversity nut and solve it represented an opportunity for us,” Kim says. “If we want to reimagine what HR is like for the very diverse workforces of our small-business customers, we ourselves have to build a diverse workforce.”
After a series of meetings with Kim and Lee, Gusto’s human resources team launched a plan to attract women engineers. Initial steps included writing job descriptions that avoided masculine phrases like “Ninja rock star coder.” Gusto’s most important step: For a six-month period starting in September 2015, the company devoted 100% of its engineering recruitment efforts to women.
While it solicited only women, it considered male applicants who approached the firm and treated all candidates equally, which kept Gusto from running afoul of antidiscrimination laws, according to Gusto lawyer Liza Kostinskaya. The pitch to women included emails signed by Lee inviting female candidates to have an initial talk with her and was backed by $60,000 the company spent to be a sponsor for two years at the biggest annual women’s tech conclave, the Grace Hopper conference.
Kim also published a blog post that made Gusto’s diversity numbers public and broadcast its goal of hiring more women engineers. “We believe that diversity is in itself a core strength that will enable us to write better software and build better products,” he wrote.
In line with more than 80% of start-ups, according to a 2017 Crunchbase study, Gusto’s three founders are men. Kim and Gusto’s CEO, Joshua Reeves, both 34, met as undergrads in Stanford’s electrical engineering department.
They launched Gusto in 2012 along with Tomer London, 33, an Israeli immigrant who got to know Reeves while a Ph.D. student at Stanford. Like its boom-and-bust competitor, Zenefits, which launched the following year, Gusto sells cloud-based comprehensive subscription software to small businesses to help them manage employee records like payroll and health benefits.
At the outset Gusto even had a similar name, ZenPayroll, which it changed in 2015 when it started offering a more complete selection of employee-tracking software.
Zenefits attracted $584 million in venture capital and hit a valuation of $4.5 billion in 2015 before running into regulatory problems related to the way it sold health insurance. It sacked its CEO, reworked its business model and saw its valuation slashed to $2 billion. Gusto, meanwhile, grew less feverishly.
By late 2015 it had raised $176 million from firms like CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and General Catalyst, and 75 individual investors handpicked by Reeves, including Ashton Kutcher and PayPal cofounder Max Levchin. That year it broke through to a $1.1 billion valuation. Forbes estimates Gusto’s annual revenue at nearly $100 million.
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At the start, Gusto’s founders acknowledge, diversity was on the backburner, and as it grew, they found that it didn’t happen organically. When it came time to hire a chief operating officer in 2015, they made it a priority to find a woman. Lexi Reese, a veteran of Google and American Express, is one of two women on the six-person executive team, and firmwide, women account for 51% of Gusto’s 525 employees.
Even after Gusto began its diversity initiative, applications from women didn’t flood in. Gusto assigned two in-house recruiters to the job, and it hired TalentDash, a Singapore-based firm that sources talent, to look exclusively for women.
Though hiring women engineers took more time, Kim says, Gusto never dropped its standards. “It bothers me when people say that prioritizing diversity lowers the bar in terms of the calibre of talent you’re able to hire,” he says. “That is simply not true.” Nor, he says, was there any pushback from inside Gusto.
Gusto also addressed its compensation policy. Since 2016 its salaries have been audited by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, which has found no gender pay disparity. Benefits include 16 weeks of paid leave for a primary parent, plus an additional $100 a week for groceries and food deliveries, $100 a month for six months of housecleaning and up to $500 for a baby-sleep coach.
Gusto’s women-only recruiting effort lasted six months. It stopped, Kim says, because “we exceeded our goals.” In 2015 Gusto was trying to hit 18% women engineers, the proportion majoring in computer science as undergraduates, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and it reached 21%.
Since then it has started staffing a Denver office, where it aims to increase the engineer head count by at least 25 this year and where the company is reprising its women-only recruiting strategy. Now that 17 of Gusto’s 70 engineers are female, it’s getting a little easier, says Gusto’s HR head, Maryanne Brown Caughey. “It’s kind of a domino effect,” she says. “Women know they’re joining a welcoming community.”
While Gusto has made progress, its engineering team has no Latinos and no African-Americans. Kim says Gusto has two hiring goals in 2018: senior women and racial diversity in engineering. “The way we make progress is by focusing on one problem,” Kim says, “and then we move on to the next.”
&#8211; By Susan Adams

FO022818_093

Cracking the Code and Bridging The Gender Gap

There is a new buzzword in town. Everywhere you go, businesswomen and top exe-cutives are complaining about their inability to maintain a quality work-life balance.
With the world economy still struggling, many executives, and indeed employees at all rungs, have felt the need to demonstrate their commitment to the company. They often do so at the expense of other priorities in their lives, such as family time and the things they do for fun.
Reports show that women, especially mothers and wives, feel part-icularly hard done by. They feel that their office hours demand a lot from them, and because of this, they are unable to meet the demands of their husbands and children.
It does not help that men – so goes the narrative – are reluctant to do their bit at home. They just sit on the couch and watch sport on television, forgetting that their partners have had a hectic day of their own running businesses.
While I have some sympathy for women who have to navigate this struggle, it really feels to me like the novelty of this problem is a tad exaggerated.
Everyone who works or runs a business necessarily needs to sacrifice something if they are to be successful. If it is a career or a business, then hobbies or time with family might have to suffer.
That is life. It is has been like that for a long time.
If in doubt, maybe these women should ask their domestic workers how they do it. In fact, they could ask their grandmothers, or even their own mothers. They could ask rural women or others on the factory floor how they get it right.
Just because business schools have not dedicated time and scholarships to how the night shift office cleaners, the domestic workers and the farmhands are able to manage working long hours and raising children – often for less money than their bosses spend on a pair of Jimmy Choos – does not mean they do not struggle with balancing work and life.
What some of these women forget while they are networking at business conferences is that there is another woman in their homes. And that this other woman is ensuring that the house is clean and that the children are bathed and fed.
If they were really serious about this work-life balance, they would be paying their domestic worker more because she obviously cannot be helping her own children with their homework when she is busy with the boss’s brats.
If someone is walking your dog, running your household and supervising your children’s feeding habits, chances are that their own children and household are being neglected.
Like the CEO, the poor domestic worker must also go home and be a mother to her children and a partner to her significant other. They too struggle, because invariably they have less of a support system than their bosses.
To use the catchphrase: their work-life balance is out of balance. Yet they carry on instead of making a big song and dance about it. They do not throw tantrums, because despite their low station in life, they understand implicitly that a working life requires certain sacrifices.
It is not because their own husbands and children deserve less love than those of their bosses.
I am sure that the idea of carrying a child on one’s back while getting on with the business of living did not come from a seminar on how to handle the work-life balance. Someone just threw a baby on her back, found something to keep the child from falling off, picked up a hoe and went to work tilling the fields. The trend caught on and has shown itself to be highly effective, even though it has yet to feature in business schools’ research.
Corporate and businesswomen who complain about a poor work-life balance must just snap out of it. Life is tough and it does not get any better as you climb the ladder.
It has nothing to do with being a woman. Instead of looking for symp-athy, they should try to be creative about using their time effectively.
We all have 24 hours in a day and unless you plan better, it does not matter whether you are a man or a woman, the CEO or the tea lady, you will keep ending up at the wrong end of the work-life balance.
So here is a tip for all those women stressing about how to find the right work-life balance. Pretend that you are an avant-garde employer. Take the employee you have forgotten is just as much a woman as you are out for a drink and ask her how she manages.
Who knows, the outing may just make you avant-garde instead of you faking it.

Balancing business and pleasure

Chid Liberty is not your typical businessman, particularly not the kind you would expect to find in Liberia, a nation where big business has always been dominated by a cast of outsiders: middle-aged Lebanese men renting out overpriced apartments and selling American imports in slick grocery stores catering to high-maintenance humanitarian workers, Indians trading in electronics, rice and pharmaceuticals, and multinational companies exploring and exploiting the sea and land for oil and minerals. Nor is Liberty your usual “been to” young Liberian who has returned with a degree from a US university to take up a high-level position within a government ministry. Liberty, born in Liberia and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after his family was forced into exile in the 1980s during the military rule of the then president, Samuel Kanyon Doe, came back to his homeland with a grand ambition: to sow the seeds of an industrial revolution in a nation whose economy has been dependent on natural resource concessions and foreign imports throughout its history.
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In 2009, Liberty and his business partner and best friend from Milwaukee, Adam Butlein, set up Liberty &amp; Justice, the umbrella company that founded the Liberian Women’s Sewing Project (LWSP), the first certified fair trade factory in Africa and the first garment factory in Liberia.
“One of the core reasons we started our company is because we thought that what every developed economy has done so well is started really large industries that employ masses of people with low skills and education,” Liberty says.
Liberty and his partner focused on developing a project for women, as numerous development studies they read pointed to the important role that women’s employment can play in poverty alleviation within communities. In contrast to NGOs that train women to make handicrafts and tie-dye, Liberty combined a commitment to social justice with a shrewd business sense and approached large buyers from the United States.
But starting up a business in a non-existent industry in Liberia wasn’t easy. When Liberty began searching for funding for the project, he was often met with a harsh response.
“You talk to your first two or three people and you say, ‘Hey I am trying to put a couple of hundred thousand dollars or a couple of million dollars to build a factory in Liberia’, and they say, ‘Are you crazy?’ which is a response I got quite often,” says Liberty, a dapper man who punctuates his sentences with expletives.
Liberty and his partner started the business with a paltry amount of personal savings and raised an initial round of $600,000 partially from friends and family, but mostly from angel investors. The business that started with 30 women making T-shirts in a factory in Sinkor, Monrovia now employs 250 women, 100 in Liberia and the rest in a recently-constructed factory in Tema, Ghana. With customers like Godiva chocolate, the US-based apparel companies Haggar and prAna, and the Japanese company Itochu Corporation, Liberty says he expects the business to generate $40 million in revenue over the next year. He says he will need around 2,500 workers to fulfill his current demand and is looking at the possibility of expanding to other countries in West Africa.
Vamoma house is an odd retro geometrical cream and white building off Monrovia’s main thoroughfare, Tubman Boulevard. Like many of Monrovia’s large structures it was a battlefront during the war and was left looted, pierced with bullet holes and used as a mass gravesite. The presence of the factory on the first floor is testament to the progress Liberia has made since the end of the civil war in 2003.
Inside, women are busily cutting red cloth and stitching together a batch of T-shirts for an order. Along the two production lines, the women sit dressed in yellow aprons and black hairnets beneath fluorescent lamps and look intently at the pieces of red cloth they run rhythmically through the machines. A short, middle-aged Filipino woman named Loderena Rojas, who has spent the past 30 years working in the garment manufacturing industry in her homeland, stands at the front quietly watching over the workers. Liberty’s factory looks like one you’d expect to find anywhere in the world, only smaller. They will be moving into larger premises—an old Volkswagen distribution showroom—in the bustling downtown commercial district of Waterside in the coming months.
The women earn $100 a month, a modest wage, but well above the average annual income per capita that rests at $400 a year, in a country with an unemployment level at almost 80%. But the workers also receive $30 a month for transportation and a bag of rice, along with healthcare and an annual savings matching program that rewards them dollar for dollar with what they manage to save in their bank accounts. The women of LWSP hold a 49% stake in the factory, which is all part of Liberty’s business approach. For Liberty, worker ownership plays an important role in creating a productive workforce, particularly in the Liberian context, where it’s mostly outsiders and the elite who have benefited from successful businesses.
“Worker ownership and partnership with the Liberians, having them own a piece of company really changes the conversation. There is a ‘boss man culture’ here because it has been a chief-based society—you won’t get rid of that—but in terms of getting workers to take responsibility, if people feel that they are a partner in the company, it changes the paradigm. We have gotten timeliness and productivity out of workers that are unheard of, and we haven’t gotten it out of fear, which is the tactic they use in Asia.”
Fifty-two-year-old Leona Monger, a petite woman wearing fine gold-rimmed spectacles and a red headscarf who lives in a slum known as Vai Town, is head of the workers’ union and has held her position at the factory since it was established. While Monger says there is room for improvement in the pay, she says her wage has allowed her to keep her three children in school and set up a small provisions store.
“I see a future, not only for me, but for the younger ones who have just started. There are a lot of incentives that will enable us workers to improve our lives,” Monger says.
Unlike economies of developing countries throughout Asia that have been buoyed by investment in the manufacturing sector, Africa is still viewed by many foreign investors as a continent whose only value exists in natural resources. A survey released by Ernst &amp; Young earlier this year focusing on Africa’s perceived “attractiveness” to investors found that despite the fact that foreign direct investment grew by 27% between 2010 and 2011, there “remain lingering negative perceptions about the continent”, namely that Africa is unstable, corrupt and a risky region for investors, but these perceptions were held mostly by those who are yet to do business on the continent. For Liberty, the lack of investment in the manufacturing sector is due to misconceptions about the capabilities of African workers.
“I think the number one thing keeping the multinationals away from labor intensive industries in Africa is a complete mistrust of African human resources and African human capital,” Liberty says, adding this perception is often underpinned by racist stereotyping. “People say African workers’ hands are too big, they are too lazy, or they don’t respect time. I don’t think that can be true—if you can walk six hours to fetch water in the heat, laziness isn’t the issue.”
Under the leadership of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was re-elected for a second term in November, the government claims to have attracted $19 billion worth of investment, mainly in the form of oil, mineral and agricultural concessions. But Sirleaf and many in the government and the business community say more needs to be done to ensure sustainable and equitable economic growth that will create jobs for Liberians.
“No country is going to get growth if you don’t have it [the economy] driven by exports or some kind of manufacturing,” says Monie Captan, president of the Liberia Chamber of Commerce. “We have to identify specific sectors, plan properly, and invest in these sectors. It is not going to happen by saying it.”
For Liberty, Liberia must move beyond its economic concessions for the sake of its future security and survival.
“There are also issues of political instability. As long as you are not employing people and are only giving jobs to a few lucky well-paid people, others will feel like they are getting nothing,” he says.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a recent policy paper expressed concerns about youth unemployment. The death toll of Liberia’s civil war made it one of the youngest nations in the world with 70% of the population below the age of 30. The IMF says that with 50,000 youths joining the labor force every year, the 90,000 jobs that the National Investment Commission estimates will be created from concession agreements over the next 10 years will do little to address the problem.
Liberia also faces major infrastructural challenges that make investment in manufacturing a challenge, among them poor road conditions and expensive and limited access to electricity—a consequence of the destruction of the Mount Coffee Hydropower Plant, for which the government only recently received funding from international donors to restore.
While Liberty acknowledges his factory is a small step towards Liberia’s industrial revolution, he is optimistic the nation can change the fabric of its economy through carefully developed government policy, investment in infrastructure and more open-minded foreign and domestic investment.
“I am positive that it will happen and at the end of the day the economics need to make sense. Currently, it doesn’t make sense, from a purely capitalist perspective… but we have labor at competitive rates, and with the infrastructure we should be able to compete with countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia and we should be able to get there in five to seven years if we are aggressive,” says Liberty.

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