Nthabiseng Dube takes the human resource management to a higher level

Nthabiseng Dube, not only beauty, but lots of brains

NTHABISENG DUBE spoke to Thembi Masser about her passion for human relations and of her dream of becoming a diplomat. Although she has found her spot in the world, she is still looking for a mentor. At present she works for Polish Management but it is a forgone conclusion that the 26 year-old would soon be establishing her own practice. In the interview with Masser she was practical, jolly but forthright. And this is how the interview panned out...  

What is your career?

Anything related to human resource which includes Payroll as well as recruitment.

What subjects did/do you study for this type of a career at school and at tertiary institution?

Well, In High school my subjects included Math’s, History, business management and biology. Earlier, at high school, all I ever dreamt of becoming was to be a diplomat. To be a diplomat you require only a certain average in high school in order to study international relations at university.

But, instead, I ended up studying under the collage of management sciences at UNISA. My modules included labour law, labourr relations, financial management, business management, management of training, industrial management. Currently under my B.Com honours some of my modules include research, human resource management, strategic human resource development and so forth.

I did a lot of human resource studies at tertiary level. It was also necessary to do management so that it was possible to be certified around my computer literacy.  I did a 3 week course at SAGE for payroll administration.

Learning is definitely my first love. To this end I plan on studying further after I completing my B. Com honors.

What is your job description?

Please note that some answers are from my personal CV as well as the company CV

Currently I have a lot of caps on my head regarding my job description(s)…where do I start? .OK here goes…

Regarding the success of Polish Management

I am responsible for running the day to day business activities of the company. I do this with an emphasis on sales and business development.  I ensure growth by developing new clients while, on the other hand, I maintain the present customer base. I am a creative, result driven managing director with a proven ability to develop and maintain the company’s mission along strong written and verbal communication skills that assist in forecasting good project management and analytical skills.  

 Duties that I focus on are:

         ·         Identifying, developing and directing the implementation of the business strategy.

·         Cultivating the company’s reputation in the market place with suppliers and customers.

·         Planning and organising activities to achieve targets.

·         Looking closely at the profit and loss in the company.

·         Leading, motivating and developing management team.

·         Developing business plans and preparing comprehensive reports.

·         Improving Margins and maintaining high quality service to clients

·         Building client relationship that result in revenue and profitability growth

·         Assisting with collection, compilation and entering of payroll on the pastel payroll system, Knowledge of pastel partner.

·         Issuing of statement of earnings and deductions.

·         Investigating and correct discrepancies

·         Updating payroll reports

·         Preparing and printing out payroll reports

·         Solving problems where they may arise

·         Addressing employee pay slips concerns

·         Liaising / communicating with all levels in the organization

·         Invoicing clients after processing payroll.

·         Calculating leave and bonuses.

·         Issuing of UI-19, EMP201, UIF, UI-2.7,

·         Recruiting and terminating employee contracts

·         I also do recruitment which is another department in the company, it involves looking for specialized candidates that can fill positions that are advertised and keeping them happy enough to succeed in employment retention within these tough economic times we are currently facing in their newly appointed jobs.

 To be able to do the above I need some of the following skills:

·         Tax Knowledge and understanding

·         Knowledge about benefits( medical aid/ provident fund unions)

·         Accurate and fast capturing skills, strong numerical skills.

·         Knowledge of payroll regulations

·         Adherence to all administrative duties( filing, emailing, faxing ,etc.)                      

What skills, subjects and courses are required in this career?

Possess strong leadership skills in new business development competencies.

You must have a comprehensive understanding of financial management principles.

You will also need entrepreneurial foresight with an acute commercial acumen and excellent management skills

When you are a good motivated team player who is results driven you are a valuable member who does not only add numbers.

Result oriented with a positive outlook and clear focus on high quality and business profit.

Be in tune with policies that are aligned with good practice within the current South African legal acts.

Are there hidden ‘nuances’ here we need to know about regarding the occupation?

Hahaha!  Well, just like any job, if you don’t have the passion for it you will “work” for the rest of your life…You see, I deal with all levels of management and peoples’ salaries so sometimes it requires you to work long hours and you are expected to be on top of your game at all times. Be as it may be, you can’t make a mistake as it reflects badly on the business. Therefore it can affect your relationship with clients.

One thing that stands out is there are no rooms for errors, ever.

Where do you work, your work station?

I mostly work online everywhere usually more in my office at home.

What do they do there?

Research, research, research! Doing my payroll as it’s an online based software, emails, marketing and promoting Polish Management. I do these digitally as that is my communication channel. I do everything literally online.

How where your teachers involved with your aspirations?

Hmm (ponders deeply)…. No. As mentioned before I have always felt like there wasn’t any person that I could pin point… who really saw anything valuable in me to pay attention to it, except my family of course. I have a really great supportive family and I thank God for them. UNISA is mostly self-study so everything that I am is self-taught.

What about your family?  Did they know about your chosen career?

My Family is 100% behind me! Even when I had my first entrepreneurial blunders I was still got support from them. My mom and aunt used to hand out my magazines at their work to help market Successful Women Magazine.

What did you do at school level to contact role-models and other experts regarding your chosen career?

Hmmm…all I ever wanted was a mentor…Still Looking for one though. I listened to a lot of audio after I learned that I can access anything I want on the internet.

What seemed to work best was listening to a lot of motivation audio’s and  YouTube HR related videos. That’s been my strategy ever since.

Are you a member of an organisation in the area of your occupation?

Currently no, because of the different stages in my life…but I will get there.

What are future prospects of this career?

Polish management becoming one of the most outsourced agencies in human resource, payroll and recruitment in the country.

What is the industry like?
Cut throat. No room for mistakes and it is the pressure is always sky high. I love it because you learn every day. It’s definitely not boring.

What are related fields?

Yes, financial management and labour relations to name a few.One thing I love about human resource is that it’s the heartbeat of most organisations as it starts and ends there in terms of hiring and firing. So it relates with a lots of fields as you are required to learn about IT if you are to recruit the best IT talent

 Where did you attend schools and tertiary?

My first primary school was all the way in the Vaal, the Park Ridge Primary School.

Then after moving to Pretoria I finished grades 6 and 7 at the Glenstantia Primary School.

Afterwards I enrolled at The Glen High School till grade 12.

Tertiary it has always been UNISA till today.

What subjects did you do at school? What were your favourite subjects?

Life Sciences is the only one that stands out as at one point I wanted to be doctor and all I thought I had to do is get a high mark in life science. That way I would cut people brains…

How are they aligned to your career?

Well maybe business management, as I did it through out tertiary level and now….but what I learned in theory is different compared to the practical world. Business management served as a tool of direction in my life.

Who were your favourite teachers?

Mrs. Olibakinde she was quiet motivational. She was science teacher but she unfortunately passed on in 2009.

What community organisations are you involved with?

Online communities, mostly business forums but nothing in particular.

What sport do you play?

I was great at hockey in high school, first team and all… but since then I just been working out at the gym when I get time.

How old are you?

I am 26 years of age born in 1990 the second of March.

Do you have any children and are you married? 

Currently no to both questions

  

Nthabiseng with business mogul, Richard Maponya

What services does Polish Management Offer?

Polish management has three separate departments of which we currently focusing on increasing clients under Payroll services which include but not limited to offering small to medium companies that currently done have a functional HR department in the companies

Processing of payroll and issuing of comprehensive pay slips

ü Payment of staff via bank transfers

ü Deduction of all statutory levies, as required by current law. These include UIF, SDL, and PAYE. Where applicable, Pension / Provident Fund, Medical Aid, Security related Industry related levies, Union fees

ü Submission of statutory levies PAYE; SDL; UIF; directly to S.A.R.S, on e-filing

ü Monthly submission of U.I.7 on u-filing

ü Monthly amending & submission of U.I.19 declaration on u-filing

ü Deduction of Third Party deductions, including Medical Aid, Pension / Provident funds, Garnishee orders, Union fees

ü Reconciliation and Submission of Third Party payments, including Medical Aid, Pension / Provident fund, Garnishee orders, Union fees etc to the relevant institutions

ü Submission of EMP501 bi-annual reports

ü Generating I.R.P.5 Certificates

ü Registering and deregistering of staff members at the relevant institutions

ü Detailed monthly reports for submission to auditors and accountants

ü Administrating all leave in the company

Recruitment Services-

As recruitment and selection plays a central role in ensuring the best skills are present in the employment industry by understanding where our services rank in the marketplace has helped us improve our standing among consumers.

However, it will serve clients with needs for select, specialized professionals rather the light industrial workers. Polish Recruiters has 10 divisions, targeting the following areas of expertise:

 General administration

 Sales and Marketing

 IT

 Banking and Finance

 Construction.

 Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical

 Supply Chain

 HR

 Fashion retail

 Engineering

Objectives

 POLISH recruitment will manage the professional, staying in close contact with the client and communicating with the worker regarding any personnel issues that may arise through spending time with potential candidates by doing research on the business growth trends that project the requirement of the specific general set of competencies at leadership levels.

We will first seek to create customer awareness regarding services offered, then develop the customer base and finally work toward building customer loyalty and referrals.

Polish recruitment policy is to ensure recruitment and selection is done fair, efficient, effective, transparent and equitable manner. We aim to promote workplace diversity and attract scarce skills and enhance service excellence in all aspects of the company by generating a sufficient pool of applicants and ensuring availability of necessary skills and requirements to fill up positions.

It’s not what we do but how we do it, patient centred, working together, enhancing values delivering success.

We aim to achieve and maintain satisfaction while we run and grow our business, by value creation in our services and being transparent within our business ventures with our clients and candidates. To provide all resources our employees need to remain as productive as possible.

Here are some of her colleagues

I am not here because of a passion, but to make my mark-Mahlangu

Thelma Mahlangu

A moment with THELMA MAHLANGU is quite a bit of bliss, a serenity of a time, a joyous encounter and, somewhat unexpectedly, a time to be philosophical with life. Thelma is a fashion designer, but she prefers to be addressed as a fashion activist and a designer. She is a business woman, an entrepreneur and is ambitious about life. She is also kind of a maverick and a rebel. When she was called upon to introduce herself to her school mates and teachers at a fashion school she attended, she told them she was not there out of a passion for fashion, but there to make her mark. Now, she tells Thembi Masser, it is time to make that prediction come true.

Thelma lives in Etwatwa, Daveyton in Benoni on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She was born in Witbank but grew up in Etwatwa before she embarked on the journey north to do her fashion studies in Pretoria. She is disappointed, however. This stint up north brought a different dimension and philosophy to her life and now that she is back in Etwatwa. Her home town is still a dilapidated mass of iron and steel and zinc and God-forsaken. She observes: “The people are ashen and crest-fallen. There are no luminaries, no role models, and no business acumen to revitalize Etwatwa.”

She is a fashion activist, she says. This was not the desired outcome - to be in the fashion industry. She wanted to be a medical practitioner. To her sewing was a natural occurrence that everybody inherited through traditions and thus, not a career as such. Not a gift, not a talent. Anybody could grab a rag, a needle and a thread and continue to create a work of art. So it was a bit of a shock when she found herself in the reception of the F Wilson Fashion Institute School in Pretoria North ready to be accepted for learnership and tuition. That was in 2011.

Now she a stakeholder in the Gauteng Fashion Council (GFC), a government provincial body that is tasked with bringing all fashion practitioners together for the common good, which includes sharing entrepreneurship information and attending fashion workshops.

She co-owns Beautiful Image Solutions which advices and dresses pastors and businessmen and whoever want to look elegant. She gets a mighty kick out of what she is doing. She intends to register her own company now that she is with the GFC, a task they do for all unregistered fashion people.  The name of her company can therefore not be revealed now, lest “it is stolen,” she chuckles. “It is going to be one of the trendiest fashion boutiques ever seen this side of the equator,” she promises.  At the fashion school, when they asked her what she wanted out of her course, she told them: “I am not here because of a passion for fashion, but I want to leave a mark.”

So she wants to hit fashion houses in Paris and New York and even take a step over the one person she looks up to, business woman Anna Wintor, the editor –in-chief of Voque USA.

Thelma says she will bring change to the South African fashion and entrepreneurial landscapes, where standards in patterns and spontaneity have reached a stalemate.  “The South African size measurement differs with those of the international industry standards so I want to bring a discernible difference in this regard,” she explains. It is for this reason she will also specialize in lace. “Oh, I love lace. It is the most exotic fabric to with.” So is her desire to fashion woman lingerie and wedding gowns. Wedding gowns because the traditional Seshweshwe has not been adequately fashioned to create a beautiful wedding gown. “I have some beautiful designs lined up for bridal couples, want and see.” When it comes to lingerie, she feels most of it is not the merchandise the black woman is looking for, or feels comfortable in. “Most of the time the lingerie is not their optimum size and this is because shop assistants are clueless and shy to help clients when it comes to helping them buy the right lingerie. They regard that activity as private."

Thelma also intends to mentor up and coming business owners and established entrepreneurs under an umbrella company. In this way she feels they will be able to beat many of the challenges that bedevil the growth of SMMEs in South Africa. Although the GFC was established to create business mini hubs to structure small business, more needs to be done. There is too much red tape and at the moment laziness on the part of the officials and thinking like business people deprive many business people of growth. “Think of a business plan that failed because the plan had a grammatical flaw but the product a world-changing innovation.”

Other obstacles include the lack of financial education where financial institutions should be playing a huge role to bring knowledge to their future clients.  She is of the opinion that people at the top in the fashion industry are paying little attention to grass roots entrepreneurs. “These people at the top are unwilling to mentor struggling but vibrant merchants.

“ Unclear and directionless Government policies are also hell-bent on destroying SMMEs,” she remarks.  “The registering activity is cumbersome and this compliance thing is killing us.”

In 2015 Thelma returned from Pretoria and immediately worked for a reputable fashion house where she worked for six months. Her stay there at was not cozy, but it is an experience she wishes to forget in a hurry. “As I said, the cream at the top is not interested in people like us. They only use us for their benefits without considering our growth prospects. You are only good when you make money for them otherwise they regard you as their slave.”

While she always wanted to do her thing when school was over, she was, however, forced into working. Their house in Etwatwa was deserted; her brother was working in Pretoria and her HR administrator sister, Ntombi, was now in Witbank after their mother died in 2012. So Thelma headed back to the miserable surroundings of Etwatwa. Back in Pretoria she was already earmarked by a wealthy Nigerian business man with whom she wanted to share a business with. But she stopped dreaming. “Now I want to work hard and the goal is to make money. In the beginning I wanted to work for someone and find my voice. It was all a lie.”

You can never find your voice when you are working for someone, she stresses. “Instead, you end up sounding like them. But you have to work wisely and with patience to make real money, and then establish yourself to make a mark.”

Right now she is doing a good job of it freelancing. “It is tough but it is rewarding and I think it is a good springboard to what will come later.”

It is tough, Thelma admits, but she keeps learning a lot, and making and leaving an indelible mark in her wake.

But she points out that she is where she is because of the two women she adores, her mother and her grandma. Both were astute in sewing and her shack was always full of colourful rags, “satin, silk, chiffon, cotton and lace of course. I am very lucky to be raised by them.” It is at that time when she was still at primary school when she started to make clothes for her dolls. And, soon she designed for her friends and later she was doing it for the neighbourhood as well, for free. Her neighbour, with whom she was at school together, encouraged her to sell her designs. She agreed and they set out to sell the clothes and then hosted a party celebrate her feat.

When she was at high school Thelma wanted to be a medical doctor and set out to apply for a seat to study at the University of Zululand.  But for four years after her matric pass, her efforts to study hit a brick wall. She mentions that this is strange because she was part of the Budding Medical programme in Witbank General Hospital. First she had to upgrade her marks. Then when that was fixed another obstacle crept out and another. In the end she satisfied all these requirements from the university until when everything was sorted and she was ready to enroll.

But that did not happen as things went ‘askew’ for her and took a different turn. In the interim, while waiting for the university to admit her, she became deeply immersed in sewing with her sister, Ntombi. In 2011 Ntombi came across information that a school in Pretoria was offering learnerships to fashion conscious students. Ntombi did the unthinkable, she applied on behalf of her sister and did not tell her until Thelma was called for an interview. In that way Thelma forgo her medical studies and chose fashion designing instead. “Although you could say I entered fashion designing by default, I made a pledge with God. The pledge was because I was tired of fighting the medical school  for admission, God must bring His own plan to me.”  

Thelma has a pleasing presence and it was no surprise to her when she was literally offered a place at the school during the first meet-and-greet handshakes. “The interview immediately turned in to an induction,” she recalls. Although they were worried that her designs bordered on the dark edges, they soon warmed up to her. On her first day at the school she told everyone during the introductions that she was not there “because of a passion for designing, but because I am here to leave a mark as a yardstick.”

She remembers that it was intimidating in the beginning. Many of the imminent students had their own fashion businesses and many had immense experience. “So that bravo speech put me in the limelight as I was the only one wet behind the ears.”

However, in 2012 the learnership stopped as the government suddenly stopped funding the course and students had to scatter around looking for finance to continue their studies. Many failed to continue while still many left because of the shift in approach to the curriculum. But these mishaps did not put the skids on her ramp way. Her family stood by her even if they were living on the edges of starvation back home. Her new lessons became computers, fashion drawing, entrepreneurship, patterns construction and clothing production. Expectedly, she passed her final year in 2014.

Now, the future her mother and grandma envisaged for her beckons like a luminary star in the distant. With the GFC promising to back her, and the Beautiful Image Solutions doing some beautiful job of it and  her pending company trending on the horizon, her footprints and her trail of genius are still to be fashioned in the blue skies…   
Some of her creations and the white dress that caused a stir at the F Wilson Fashion Institute 



Thelma is quite of a sensation herself