Peter Streng, Founder & Director RUBIQ

I would like to think that, although a product of Apartheid, and by that I mean, born in that era and carving
a career through the June ’76 riots and its aftermath, during the various State of Emergencies in the 1980s, the infamous PW Botha Rubicon speech, the People’s War of the late 80s and early 90s and of course the birth of our new democracy in 1994, I am decidedly not a ‘pale male’ in either the political or business sense. Pale I am, male I am, but my conscious, my world view, my philosophy and take on Business and HR is, well, probably more in tune with Magda Wierzycka than most â€" an unashamedly disruptor I am!

Enough of that! Let’s roll up our sleeve and get down to disruption . . . err ..., I mean, business! The changing of the guard within the ruling party and both the context and content of the SONA presents business in general, and the Human Resource (HR) fraternity in particular, with real golden opportunities to meaningfully impact their worlds in the post-Zuma era.

If Business (and I exclude the SoEs) and foreign direct investors were reluctant to invest in SA, for good reason, during the pre-Ramaphosa period and if the private sector, with its various Chambers, were in general (exceptions excluded) decidedly distant and disengaged (and silent for that matter!!) as regards being part of the solution (… and hence by default (inactivity), perhaps part of the problem!) to what happened in, and, to SA Inc. during the last eight years or so â€" again with good reason â€" now! is the time to awake from that slumber and bullet out of the hibernation of inertia!

Now Business and HR Practitioners need to get their collective rears into gear: if … and that is the big IF, if the new political leadership and government administration is serious about the proposed outcomes addressed in SONA and is hell bent on making the country work again (with all that it implies), then the new realpolitik of doing business in SA, demands that Business and HR fill the stage, take charge, take ownership, take responsibility, take initiative, engage (with all Stakeholders meaningfully) - it is simply the right thing to do!

For too long, have Business, and particularly our HR profession, been silent and obsequious. Rocking the boat is simply and tragically not in the DNA of the HR Practitioner. Compliance to labour laws, statutory requirements and payrolls is ingrained, and rightly so, but regrettably this compliance mindset permeates to strategic HR thinking and the myriad other HR challenges and practices.

Let’s cut to the chase! So, for the sake of this narrative, assuming the Government walks the SONA talk (extremely ambitious as it is) in the months and years to come and if one assumes that President Ramaphosa’s ‘New Dawn’ is not a false dawn, I will deal with how Business and HR can positively and decisively respond to the massive challenges (e.g. the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality) facing SA, mentioned in the SONA, in the next edition.

In the midst of all the above, like a spider in a web, sits (operative word!) the HR Practitioners!, nay! we must lurk like the alert spider, ready to respond to every vibration in both the internal and external environment. HR Practitioners are supposedly the soul and conscience of organisations, the devil’s advocates and the business partners (not silent partners!).

Therefore, us ‘People Engineers’ must become influencers and drive these agendas with our respective management teams. For the sake of our future, and of those that come after us! This is Business’ and HR’s Rubicon! â€" lets cross it courageously and confidently!

Just as former President Nelson Mandela pointedly remarked after the first ever inclusive general elections in 1994; “The party is over, now it is time to work”, we, HR Professionals must now say, “The nightmare and end of an error is over, now it’s time to work!” 

Tel +27 (31)767 0608
Cell: +27 (0)76 413 4575
peter@rubiq.co.za
www.rubiq.co.za