5 key drivers of organizational change in South Africa

Winds of change are blowing. The pandemic, the uncertainty, the angst against failed systems turns to the positivity of change. The vibrancy of young demographics, the lure of a better life, a more global collaborative set of priorities emerge from failures in focusing on rifts that separate us.  

As organizations retool for the future with a focus on top HR priorities in the short term, driven by a healthy dose of technological evolution, its time to talk about the long term. What are the key drivers of organizational change in South Africa. How organizations need to change and towards which goals. Goals that are truly becoming evolutionary that establish a direction to change, learning from the pulse and vibrancy of youth and the mistakes of the past.

What really are the trends that are leading organizational change in South Africa that are deeply connected to a set of people that define an organization? The underpinnings of key drivers towards change in an organizational setup. Driven by the angst and popular culture.  

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5 drivers of organizational change in South Africa

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1. Profits driven agendas to value driven agendas that treat profit as a consequence

One of the efficient drivers of organizational change management is getting the basics right - employee centricity and customer centricity, which will yield profits. The culture of the organization, the single largest differentiator between success and failure in the future.  

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2. Process driven policy elements to socially driven agendas  

The social organization, that is compassionate and socially aware rather than purely driven by profit maximization. Trust by society driving success in business rather than an exclusivity approach. Since the customer and marketplace looks for brands that they can trust, not necessarily formulated to gouge for every transaction.

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3. Employees to people, jobs to skills and behavior

One of the key drivers of change in an organization is employee experience is front line and center driven by remote work imperatives due to lockdowns. Survival of the fittest taught us to focus on our employees. Remote work, talent shortages, accessibility using Digital technologies (if people work remotely then does distance really matter) will force the narrative towards people centricity rather than employees bound by contracts and policies to an organization.  

As work becomes more virtual and automation technologies seep into the workplace, project based work which involves teams getting together to meet a particular objective (cross-functional team)and then disbanding to form other teams will gain prevalence. Focus on jobs with a defined structure, work times will move to flexible work with skills and collaboration / team work as need to work together.  

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4. Workforce as an asset from workforce as an expense  

Gone are the industrial days of organizing labor as an input into the manufacturing process and it appearing as an expense line item in the management of work. Investments in platforms and systems for people centricity to build a self-motivated accountable cultures will gain precedence and become one of the key drivers of change in an organization.  Research tells us that this can be one of the drivers of organizational change in South Africa is already set and in place. Its time to retool from command and control hierarchies to objective based purpose-driven organizations awaits us in the future.

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5. Focus shifting from financial metrics to value driven metrics

Another type of drivers of organizational change in South Africa is that the customer is at the center of organizational purpose, which is a proven approach to long-term success. Inward looking profitability and financial metrics shift to value based metrics for the organization. Value that is added for the customer and financial metrics become a consequence of the value that the customer is willing to pay for. Value oriented organizations climb the success ladder faster than financial metrics-oriented brands.  

We will explore each of these topics and their imperatives that are driving organizational change in South Africa in detail in subsequent sections to formulate the organizational resets that are needed and how Human Resource departments and CEOs need to change their focus.  

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About peopleHum

peopleHum is a one view integrated platform for the complete employee experience and journey from hiring to offboarding.

Enable your employees to communicate, collaborate, and focus on resilience and productivity through a unique approach focused on experience design. All for a value equation for the South African market priced in Rands that is hard to beat.  

No wonder a plethora of companies of all sizes and partners, integrators and consultants are flocking to peopleHum to drive the future of cloud based human capital platforms in markets like South Africa.

Reach out to us to hear our story and how we can help your organization align and transform into the organization of the future.