"I basically had to learn on the job."
Ditiro Chesalokile, head of HR at Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH), was pointed towards HR by a career advisor. Having done well in maths and physics at high school, she initially thought she would have to study engineering but she never saw herself doing the hands-on work of engineers.
“I’m a people’s person and I enjoy listening to people and learning about them. And, luckily, I was able to get some exposure to the HR roles while doing a learnership at Transformex and later joined Royal Bafokeng Institute as an HR analyst,” said Ditiro, who met with CHRO executive manager on Thursday.
Since then, she has risen through the ranks, landing in her current role at the Royal Bafokeng Holdings HR division. Ditiro has taught herself everything about the HR role, from payroll and leave to coming up with an HR Strategy and implementing complex HR processes and the long-term incentive philosophy (LTI).
“I didn’t know what an LTI was at a point and I had to teach myself what those things were and basically learn on the job. But I’ve been quite fortunate in that people have always seen value in my approach to whatever project I’m assigned and the support by RBH Management team especially the CEO is out of this world.”
With only 30 employees in RBH, she says she has been fortunate to be able to personally cater for each individual’s HR needs. She has a rapport with everyone from the tea lady to the CEO of the company and is thus able to design an HR solution for each person.
“We are very few and the average age at RBH is 33, which means that most of us are millennials. That dynamic alone requires a different approach to HR than a company with tens of thousands of employees,” says Ditiro.
