Head of human capital for Axiz, Robert Nkuna, says he has been privileged to work with many CEOs through mergers and acquisitions on his HR journey. This, he believes, has given him a solid foundation.
Robert Nkuna, human resources executive at Axiz, always looks at the glass as being half full, which is how he keeps himself motivated at all levels.
“I take any situation as a learning journey,” he says. “I always say to my team, it doesn’t matter what type of training you go for – as long as there are human beings that you interact with, there must be one thing that you learn from it,” he says.
Robert, who grew up on a rural farm on the outskirts of Hazyview, Mpumalanga, cut his teeth at Emperors Palace as a graduate management trainee. “It was a very trendy name to be called back then,” he quips. His experience there was an all-round one, covering everything from the kitchen to front-of-house, including being locked in a vault to count money! “I went through all departments – it was a real journey,” he says.
With a focus on labour relations, Robert worked closely with unions, shop stewards and executives. “I appreciated seeing challenges that your blue collar workers at entry level go through, and working myself to a level of interacting with your C-suite type executives, so I had the benefit of both worlds,” he says. “I had to decide where I wanted to specialise.”
He joined Axiz in 2007 as a senior HR consultant. “And that’s where my real career started. I appreciated being more of a generalist, not just industrial relations. Industrial relations did not excite me much: I thought I could change it into something more positive. But when you get measured by how many cases you attend at the CCMA, that didn’t resonate with me. I wanted to avoid going to the CCMA. I wanted to manage matters upstream, not downstream,” he says.
“So that’s how I became an HR executive. Through that journey I had the privilege to work with many CEOs through mergers and acquisitions.” He adds that at some point he worked with CEOs for about 10 to 11 companies, as the business grew from Pinnacle to Pinnacle Holdings, to Alviva Holdings. He believes this was a good starting point and gave him a solid grounding.
Robert, who has an honours degree in human resources management, a bachelor’s degree in law and an LLB from Unisa; as well as a BCom from Wits, says bringing the cultures of those different organisations together to resonate with the main holding company’s vision has been a career highlight.
As the head of people for the IT infrastructure and software distributor, he is passionate about skills development.
“Every year we take on graduates, make sure they attain IT skills and have mentors. My highest point is when I see them getting poached by our vendors – when the multinationals come and hunt from our pool of young people. For me to see them take that next step and become ambassadors for those multi-brands that we stand for, we support, that we distribute in the industry, that makes me very proud.”
From a community upliftment point of view, skills development is something that the company has to keep on doing, he believes. “And if someone that you have worked with goes and works for Dell, HP or Lenovo – because it is the same industry, those vendors expect us to give back to the community. For me, when someone comes into our space, it’s not for them to get a job or career – we want them to become their own business or an entrepreneur who will come back and actually do business with us.”
He adds that Axiz also focuses on internal employees, those that form the spine of the organisation, by creating mentorship and getting the experienced people to mentor the up and coming talent. “That makes me very proud, and we keep track of everyone that comes through that learning experience. We have seen them grow in different roles, and some are managers now, so that is very very important for me to see, and to be part of.”
As the global, socio-economic, political and environmental demands make resources limited, HR leaders have to improvise, Robert says, when asked on future trends in the human resources landscape.
“Sometimes we talk about strategy, and HR will sometimes expect the CEO to enunciate line by line, and you’re not going to get that. You have to be able to interpret and translate those themes into actionable HR-focused initiatives so that you can harness the energy of your teams – for the team to be relevant to what the business requires of us, and especially in this fast-paced technology evolution that is taking place.”
He is also a firm believer in frank discussions, whether with employees or executives. “Policies alone will not help you as an HR professional to be impactful in the space because you can now go to ChatGPT or AI and they can develop a policy for you in less than five seconds, so for you to survive, you can’t rely just on interpreting what is written on the policy. You’ve got to give more.”
He adds that the digital mindset at Axiz started early on. “We started looking very early on at how we can eliminate things that are mundane, paper-based, to make things that are in demand for employees and executives, things that they can find for themselves digitally and for us to be able to dedicate more of our time to more meaningful activities that otherwise in the past we were not focused on.”
For Robert, the last two years have all been about finalising his LLB – and keeping up with trends in the labour law space in his spare time. “I also do a lot of walking: it’s what keeps my mind clear. And with three boys in the house, a lot of homework,” he says with a chuckle.
He’d like to be remembered as someone that is all for people. ‘If I see others succeed, that’s something that I’d be grateful for. To see people attaining the highest ambitions they’ve got. To say this is the workspace they want to return to always excites me, because it means we are doing something right.”
