Every second counted at the CHRO Solutions Summit held at The Venue in Melrose Arch, with only four minutes on the clock for partners to pitch their innovative solutions to top HR leaders.
Unlike other events on the CHRO South Africa calendar, this is the only time when the community's partners are handed the mic, challenging them to deliver pitches that address and solve for issues facing HR.
As the hilarious MC for the night Eugene Khoza put it, “If not done in four minutes, go look for a job in Parliament.”
First session
With popcorn in attendee hands, the first round kicked off with Karen Roux, corporate education SA head at Regenesys, opening the show with a rethink of how organisations grow future leaders through the lens of neurolearning.
“With Regenesys, we believe in the concept of neurolearning, and it underpins all the work that we do, not just on the side of the whole holistic person that we are dealing with in any of our programmes, and it's across Regenesys with the multiple intelligences.”
Tackling workplace diversity head-on, Lindiwe Sebesho, managing director of Remchannel at Old Mutual, reminded the audience: “There are five generations in the workplace today. They've got various needs, and if you don’t have flexibility, it becomes difficult to attract, engage and retain the right people.”
Meanwhile, Riyan Silochan, managing director and senior partner of LRMG TalenTek, called on HR leaders to rethink skill mapping entirely, stating, “Let’s connect skills to the actual people that need them and build job profiles that are organic. Imagine we get to a point where every person has the right job, with the right skill set, at the right time in your organisation.”
Luqman Saloojee, senior solutions consultant at Workday, then demonstrated how technology can bring measurable efficiency to HR operations highlighting that their customers typically report up to a 20 to 30 percent reduction in HR costs due to streamlined operations.
Round two
The second pitch session began with Jonty Sierra, investment specialist at Discovery, explaining their consistent retirement solutions. “We set out to build a retirement solution so consistent that members can stay the course and ultimately deliver ultimate retirement outcomes,” he said.
Then, Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder & chief product officer at Jem HR, shared how their innovative platform uses WhatsApp to bridge the communication gap between employers and frontline workers, and deliver essential HR and benefits.
Antoinette Roberts, founder of Bridging & Associates, took a behavioural approach, stressing the importance of mindset change for business growth, explaining how they start with assessing behaviour – including behaviours shaped since childhood and reinforced in the workplace.
Addressing financial wellbeing, Masenyane Molefe, group executive of HR at PPS outlined the wide range of financial services PPS offers. “We even provide special benefits like immediate luggage loss compensation,” she said.
Fun and final
Following networking and a return to comedy, the third session of pitches kicked off with Martijn Vermolen, senior account director at LinkedIn, who painted a global picture of workforce development through LinkedIn’s platform. “LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunities for everyone to build their workforce,” he said. “The people they hire from LinkedIn typically are different and they stay longer with the organisation.”
Addressing a foundational HR challenge, Heinrich Swanepoel, head of business development at Deel Local Payroll powered by PaySpace, laid bare the consequences of broken payroll systems.
“Most HR strategies fail because payroll is broken underneath. You build mobility plans and analytical dashboards, but payroll doesn’t sync with finance, leave doesn’t reflect, compliance sits in dashboards, and systems don’t talk. So we rebuilt it. It’s now real-time, and you can customise it,” shared Heinrich.
Finally, Ayanda Kweyama, business development manager at Sanlam Corporate, wrapped up the presentations by highlighting the importance of retirement planning and member care. We also educate members on prudent financial management, partnering with trusted service providers to ensure their wellbeing,” he concluded.
Together, these tight pitches proved that with the right mix of innovation and laughter, the biggest workplace challenges can be tackled and four minutes is all it takes.
