Nova Human Capital Solutions is a company that offers turnkey HR solutions to companies of all shapes and sizes. From simply providing payroll services to doing a total overhaul of a business's HR function, they do it all.
Last week, CFO Enterprise CEO Melle Eijckelhoff and Didi Sehume of CHRO South Africa met with director Debbie Victor and MD Scott Barrett from NOVA in the build-up to the executive HR round table to be hosted by Vodacom HR director Matimba Mbungela on 9 March.
The two of them indicated that the any new HR event would have to be different from all the other forums that were already available in so far as the content of the discussion and the level of engagement.
Debbie said:
“I’ve been to a number of HR forums over the last few years, but the topics they arrange are quite bland, and there is usually a person who is presenting that is just there to sell you something so you immediately become disengaged.”
Debbie's advice was music to the ears of Melle, a seasoned builder of successful and dynamic communities in finance and HR. He promised that CHRO South Africa will be a unique platform for learning, career and network, and will soon be household name for any HR exec.
Debbie started an HR consulting business, which later became part of NOVA, because of the frustration that business owners had whenever it came to dealing with HR issues. The all-too-common view that HR is a cumbersome function that is more a matter of compliance than an important value-add business issue is a perception she is strongly committed to changing.
She said:
“You cannot create an HR solution without understanding the business impact. It’s not just a service offering for us, it’s also about thought leadership and what is happening in the country. HR people often get limited to a very small part of the whole business function and activities, and, in the bigger organisations there is often a very siloed approach to HR.”
On what he would like to discuss at the upcoming roundtable, Scott said he would like to engage on what future-proofing a company really means from an HR point of view. That is, talking about where disruption is coming from within various industries and looking at what should be the most immediate and people-based adjustments that companies need to make in order to be able to adapt to an environment where automation, among other things, is changing the rules of the game.
