Applying the HR Standards -

SARS case study 28th August 2014

Elizabeth Dhlamini - Kumalo@SABPP1

My role as HR Standards midwife

• Chair of SABPP Board1999 – 2013• Mandated new CEO to give meaning to the

Board’s mission “to establish, direct and sustain a high level of professionalism and ethical conduct in Human Resource (HR) practice.”

My dreams for the HR Standards

• This can be a game-changer for HR, and through them, for South Africa

• We can apply the HR standards everywhere, even if you move to another organisation like I did

My dreams for the HR Standards

• We as HR have the opportunity to support real transformation in our new democratic dispensation

• If we play our role, we can change South Africa

Applying the Standards at SARS

• I was asked to look at their HR strategy• We saw this as great opportunity to put our

new Model and Standards into practice

Applying the Standards at SARS

• Used the Standards as framework to extract HR priorities from the business strategy and interview executives

• From there, put together a working paper• HR Standards give a common language to

discuss what needs to be done

Executive interviews

• Per identified business strategic priority:Current state vs what they would like to see– Skills of staff in current position– Engagement and values alignment– Talent pipeline (future skills from current and

future staff)– Performance management– Line management empowerment to manage

their own people with advice and support from HR Business Partners

Validating what was already in place• SARS HR practitioners had a lot of good

material in place• HR Standards provided the framework to

review these and align and integrate where necessary

• But it also challenges us to raise the bar – the national HR standards can not be watered down! Context and culture is no excuse.

Learning

Check top executive alignment and position HR policies in the governance structures• Too much of this good HR material was not

really on radar screen of top executives• Insufficient debate on the people philosophy

and core people strategy

Learning

• Take HR stuff out of the HR department to line managers

• We can not maintain our position as top 10 revenue service without HR standards

People philosophy

Executive team needs to really debate the hard issues about what they really believe, for example:

– Are people good or bad?– Are people our greatest asset or our greatest

liability / threat?– Is it worth our while to develop people or should

we just compete in the market for ready-developed people?

“I would rather own 70% of a business that runs at 100% of its potential than 100% of a business that only runs at 30% of its potential.

People need to feel valued and involved and they need to be rewarded”

Charles Back, wine entrepreneur Fairview Wines, winner of international Lifetime Achievement Award in the wine industry, commenting about

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment

Do the executives in your organisation believe this fundamentally? If not, what do they believe in?

Policies must be aligned and address risk management

• Policies not all aligned and therefore some lack of compliance

• Need to take a risk management perspective

• The SABPP HR Risk Management standard element provides the foundation for sound people risk management

Early days

• HR Standards have helped to pinpoint issues and improve alignment

• HR Strategy is not a piece of paper, it is something everyone has to work with – executives and line managers must do it

• The HR Standards are something to aspire to and to work with, to improve organisations

Real HR Professionalism

• Everyone has an opinion about how HR should be done

• This can lead to nothing being done, or the same thing being done differently in repeated cycles

• Now we have the professional body saying, this is good practice

• We all learn every day. The HR Standards help us to structure our journey. Previously there was no structure, only ideas.