The role of human resource management

Into Africa
THE ROLE OF THE HR MANAGER 29
A move to shared services has transformed HR in a major South African bank. Could its new
service centre handle back-office work for other countries?
South Africa offers a sophisticated business community, a large labour pool, relatively low
wage costs, and a language and cultural fit with potential key buyers in Europe and North
America. But its fledgling offshoring industry faces tough competition from India, China and
other countries where labour costs are lower, or those such as Ireland, where the technological
infrastructure is more developed. Until recently, as the chief executive of one company told a local
financial magazine, the country had failed to land a ‘big, recognisable brand name’. But the laying
of a fibre-optic cable connecting Europe to South Africa in February 2003 is making a difference.
One company that has started down the offshoring path, by taking over the back-office processing
work of an American insurance company, is Absa. Absa was formed in 1991–92 out of
four existing banks. With around 30,000 employees, it is South Africa’s leading bank and has,
for two years running, been voted the best company to work for in the country. Absa’s decentralised
business model gives strategic business units (SBUs) freedom to operate in a corporate
governance framework, although there are enterprise-wide management processes and standardised
practices. SBUs have access to a number of specialist functions, including HR.
Under a new structure for the function, launched in November 2002, account executives
provide business-aligned, strategic advice to SBU management teams. If they need specialist
help they turn to a ‘design and development group’ that has expertise in OD, employment
equity, learning and development, ‘employee wellness’ and other specialist areas. Staff organised
along similar functional lines in five centres across the country implement strategy – for
example, by delivering development programmes or supporting line managers in difficult disciplinary
cases.
The first port of call for both managers and employees on any people management issue is
the employee self-service and manager desktop application on the bank’s people management
portal. If this does not provide an answer to their query they can make a telephone call or send
an email to the contact centre in Johannesburg. There are currently 20 people working in this
shared service centre, with 14 taking routine first-tier calls and the rest handling more complex
second-tier queries. Between them they deal with 800 calls per day.
Unlike many HR service centres in the UK, which opt for people with good interpersonal
skills rather than HR knowledge, Absa employs HR professionals in its contact centre. It has
found that staff without an understanding of HR issues struggled. This could be because firsttier
calls are more complex than those taken by HR service centres in the UK.
Another contrast with UK practice is that those taking second-tier calls are organised along
functional lines. They specialise in OD, learning and development, employment relations,
recruitment and reward or performance management. This arrangement seems to work well
where there are questions on regulations or standard processes to answer. It works less well
where the question is more philosophical or context-specific.
Employee wellness does not have its own specialist agent, as this activity has been outsourced.
In the past the emphasis was on face-to-face counselling, and there has been criticism
of the switch to a more impersonal telephone service. Similar criticism has been levelled at
telephone helplines in the UK. But at Absa, where employees have to deal with such things as
discovering they have AIDS or the trauma stemming from a bank robbery, this is clearly a
matter of some seriousness.
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