HUMAN RESOURCES
The fulfillment of GHL’s vision to become the
regional wealth management and protection champion
demands that the Group’s Human Capital is high
performing and equipped to compete in the global
environment. The Group’s Human Resource unit (HR)
role is that of a Strategic Business and Employee
partner, with a bottom line focus, assisting in the
operationalising of the Group’s strategy.
GHL is currently working on a new organisational
model which will allow HR to operate at a strategic
level while simultaneously delivering HR support to
the business units. Within this context, attaining
Operational Excellence continues to be a key human
capital initiative.
Areas of focus:
| • |
Aligning GHL people and their
performance with strategy. This would entail
the development of a Total Reward Strategy
since, “Engagement of our people is key”.
Among the five key elements of this
strategy, the Balanced Scorecard methodology
will continue to be used to manage
individual and organisation performance.
|
| • |
Leadership Development. Strong and
competent leadership is one of the most
important keys to organisational growth,
change and renewal. The timely supply of a
pool of high performance leaders is a
critical component for sustained competitive
advantage. The role of talent management is
becoming increasingly more sophisticated and
far reaching. Effective talent management
must be an essential component in resourcing,
employee engagement and line management.
This can only be realised through a
redefinition of the Group’s commitment to
identifying, investing and building leaders.
|
| • |
Succession Planning. This strategic
initiative is now an urgent matter for the
Group. A strong talent pool is a strategic
asset and a source of sustainable
competitive advantage. GHL must grow talent
for the sake of continuity, embracing it as
a “role” rather than a function. Succession
planning is everyone’s business and Group HR
will implement a succession planning policy
by the end of the first quarter 2008.
|
| • |
Core values are the behavioural bedrock
of a society, organisation or community and
HR will work with senior management to
re-affirm and embed GHL’s core values across
the group and into its genetic code.
|
| • |
Aligning core policies across the Group. |
Managing change and organisational transformation
will continue to be key drivers to our success. In
this era of intense global competition, executives
must lead change driven by a strategy for achieving
operational excellence. GHL’s leadership has
undertaken a number of change initiatives specific
to the business units.
These projects are ongoing so as to leverage the
synergies and associated gains. As with any change,
there is potential impact in terms of how people
think and work, job security and service delivery.
Ongoing people issues will continue to receive HR’s
focussed attention as the
projects move into subsequent phases.
The HR Shared Service function of the Guardian
Management Services (GMS) continues to support
operational excellence efforts in areas of
Recruitment and Selection, Benefits Administration
and Training and Development. This process of
achieving synergies and driving out unnecessary
costs across Business Units will continue in 2008.
HR will continue to work with Business Units to
create an environment where there is a paradoxical
mixture of personal humility and professional will
that permeates throughout all levels within the
organisation.
“When you have a disciplined people, you don’t need
hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you
don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined
action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you
combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of
entrepreneurship,
you get the magical alchemy of great performance”. |
