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| Human Resource Talk with Miyanda Maimbo Kahari |
| HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ENTREPRENEURS PART 1 |
 I was privileged this past week to be invited on the Muvi TV program, The Art of Business hosted by Chibamba Kanyama. The topic of discussion was one very close to my heart and this week I felt that it was important for me to share the discussion with many people since a large number of people do not access MUVI TV in the areas they live. I will go through each question and try and respond in more details as the program had limited time.
Tell us about your business and other related experiences?
Prosoft Human Resources Solutions is a young and highly innovative consultancy firm whose focus is providing up to date and well researched human resources solutions. I say young because traditionally consultants were older and normally those that have retired from formal employment. Therefore against all odds, Prosoft was born just over three years ago and now has presence in Zambia, Zimbabwe and has associated partners in Malawi and Tanzania respectively. Our services included offering recruitment and placement services to both the business community and job seekers. On one hand employers approach us to assist them identify qualified and experienced personnel, whilst job seekers approach us to assist them find jobs.
We also offer training and development to companies. We firmly believe that it is the responsibility of organization to develop the people they employ in order to get maximum performance or output or a good return on their investments. We therefore have tailor designed training programs that are delivered by very experienced facilitators we bring from various countries including those from Zambia. We introduced an exciting service called interview coaching and CV design. We decided to introduce this service because from experience we realized that people were not being called for interviews because of the quality and presentation of their CV, which we consider as the tool that can either get or loose you a job opportunity. To complete this service we introduced interview coaching, this assist job seekers who have managed to get as close to the door of an organization to complete the race by presenting their experience and abilities in such a manner that they will be able to convince an employer that they are the right person. We also carry out salary surveys, develop performance management systems, and carry out job evaluation and organization development for organization. At the end of the day we offer a complete human resource solution to the business community and the general community at large.
You have been exposed to a number of entrepreneurs in this country, in your opinion what are their major challenges?
From a human resource perspective I feel that entrepreneurs face a challenge when in comes to finding the right people for their organization. The thrust is normally to employ cheap labor because the excuse is that they are not making profit, therefore can not afford to employ expensive staff. While this could be considered as the easy way out, it is not the recommended way. In most cases because they are paying mediocre salaries, they in turn end up with mediocre employees, those that give them such a headache that the entrepreneur ends up spending more time shouting than working. The quality of work produced by cheap labor is always questionable and what normally happens is that as the small business owner you end up doing all the work yourself and come payday whatever income you would have brought in into the business must be split between you the performer and the your non performing employees.
My experience has shown me that there those job seekers that may not necessary have experience, but have the right attitude and has excellent credentials like certificates and diplomas. These are some of the best people to employ, because they are energetic, still have fresh knowledge from college or university and will be ready to learn. Usually they are fast learners and will do a better job that someone who is cheap to employ and yet will give you problems. Entrepreneurs fail at the recruitment stage to sell themselves to potential employees. Learn to tell the new employees the history of the business and the vision of the business, take time to ensure that these employees understand fully were you want to go as a business. This helps give the new employee something to work towards, if it is a young Accounts Assistant they must begin to focus on becoming the Finance Manager when the business grows.
Many entrepreneurs do not take the recruitment process serious and do not look at their staff as key players who can either make or break the business. Plan your human resource needs even if you are a three man business, plan what you are going to do to train and develop your staff once employed. Learn to explain and preferably in writing what the duties and responsibilities that you expect the employee to perform, that way you will not be at loggerheads all the time asking why certain instructions have not been followed. Learn to measure performance in an objective manner and always reward your employees when they perform. I agree that things can be very tough for the small to medium business person were targets are not met and income is low.
The problem is when times are good and the same entrepreneurs begin to make super profits they are quick to forget those hardworking employees who worked long hours on menial salaries to get them the same profits. Instead the immediate focus when money starts flowing is to change cars from a Toyota to a Mercedes and focus to showing the outside world that they are making a lot of money. They forget that there is an urgent need to motivate and regenerate the energies of their workers so that the profits can even triple.
People skills are lacking amongst entrepreneurs and workers are abused, many people often say that they are not a qualified Human Resource Practitioner therefore it is very difficult to manage people. My response is that the direction in which the business environment is moving requires that any Manager or business owner must have a human resource incline in them. Remember that even as a Finance Manager you have people under you, the Human Resource function is slowly moving into an advisory role, this allows the Human Resource Manager to focus on Strategic Human Resource Management as opposed to employing and firing or administration work. Some companies have already embraced this and have changed the Human resource manager title to either Human Resource consultant or advisor or business partner. Therefore entrepreneurs do not have a choice but to improve the way they handle employees from the recruitment stage to issues of training and issues of compensation.
Do Zambian have the business acumen?
In my opinion Zambians do have the business acumen and I will expand on this in the article next weeks.
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| The Author is a consultant for Prosoft Human Resources Solutions. For any suggestions and comments please email miyandak@prosofthumanresource.com 0979472850 / 0955408731 / 01 293406 |
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