Executive: Human Capital (PPB South Africa)

Absa is seeking a seasoned human capital executive to spearhead the people and culture strategy for its PPB South Africa business line. This pivotal role is designed to be a strategic partner to executive leadership, translating overarching business objectives into tangible human capital outcomes that foster performance, drive transformation, and ensure sustainable growth. The successful candidate will be instrumental in cultivating an environment where organisational effectiveness, leadership capability, and a positive employee experience are paramount.

Driving Strategic People Initiatives

The core of this position involves the development and execution of an integrated human capital strategy tailored to the specific needs of PPB South Africa. This encompasses a broad spectrum of responsibilities aimed at aligning the workforce with the organisation's growth ambitions and transformation agenda. Key focus areas include:

• **Strategic Workforce Planning:** Proactively identifying critical skills gaps, future capability requirements, and potential leadership risks to ensure the organisation is agile and ready to meet evolving business, customer, and technological demands. This involves building robust succession pipelines and fostering leadership development at all levels.
• **Culture and Employee Experience:** Leading initiatives to embed a strong organisational culture, enhance employee engagement, and champion inclusion. The role will be central to creating a high-performance environment that prioritises both productivity and employee wellbeing, ultimately supporting the attraction, development, and retention of essential talent.
• **Organisational Effectiveness and Transformation:** Driving initiatives focused on organisational design, change management, and overall effectiveness to improve agility, accountability, and execution discipline. This includes playing a significant role in enterprise-wide transformation programmes.
• **Performance, Reward, and Digital Adoption:** Providing executive oversight for performance management systems, reward structures, and recognition programmes to motivate and retain key personnel. Furthermore, the role will champion the adoption of digital human capital solutions and innovative work practices to boost productivity and enhance the employee experience.
• **Governance and Analytics:** Ensuring adherence to Human Capital governance frameworks, risk management practices, and compliance requirements. A crucial aspect will be leveraging workforce data and analytics to provide actionable insights, inform decision-making, and measure the impact of human capital interventions.

Partnership and Advisory Role

As a trusted advisor to the executive leadership team, this individual will bring a strategic human capital perspective to business decisions. This involves not only translating business strategy into people-centric initiatives but also challenging and influencing decisions through a deep understanding of workforce dynamics, organisational design, and cultural imperatives.

The role demands close collaboration with various stakeholders. This includes partnering effectively with Human Capital Centres of Expertise (CoEs), business leaders, governance structures, and external parties. The objective is to drive business value, foster organisational agility, and continuously improve the overall employee experience. Building and maintaining strong relationships with regulators, industry bodies, and strategic partners will also be a key component, potentially involving representation of the organisation in relevant forums.

Essential Qualifications and Experience

To excel in this role, candidates will typically possess a postgraduate degree in Human Resources Management, Organisational Psychology, Business, Commerce, or a related discipline. A comprehensive understanding of core human capital functions is essential, including strategy development, workforce planning, talent management, succession planning, organisational development, culture transformation, performance management, reward and recognition, employee experience, change leadership, and human capital analytics.

Crucially, candidates must demonstrate significant executive-level leadership experience within the financial services sector, a multinational organisation, or a similarly complex operational environment. Proven success in leading human capital strategy, workforce transformation, leadership development, organisational effectiveness, talent management, and culture initiatives is a prerequisite. Experience in partnering with executive leadership teams and navigating highly regulated environments will be highly valued. Strong leadership competencies, including strategic thinking, executive presence, commercial acumen, influence, decision-making, collaboration, communication, innovation, resilience, and a results-oriented approach, are vital for success.

This executive Human Capital position within a large financial institution like Absa offers a significant opportunity to shape organisational culture and strategy. Roles of this calibre in South Africa typically command competitive remuneration packages, reflecting the strategic importance and responsibility involved. Career progression could lead to broader regional or group-level Human Capital leadership roles.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

 

Qualifications:

• Postgraduate Degree in Human Resources Management, Organisational Psychology, Business, Commerce or related field.

 

Technical: Skills:

• Human Capital Strategy
• Workforce Planning
• Talent Management
• Succession Planning
• Organisational Development
• Culture Transformation
• Performance Management
• Reward and Recognition
• Employee Experience
• Change Leadership
• Human Capital Analytics
• Governance and Risk Management
• Stakeholder Engagement.

 

Leadership Skills:

• Strategic Thinking
• Executive Presence
• Commercial Acumen
• Influence
• Decision Making
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Leadership
• Innovation
• Resilience
• Delivering Results.

 

Experience:

• Significant executive-level Human Capital leadership experience within financial services, a multinational organisation or similarly complex environment.
• Proven experience leading Human Capital strategy, workforce transformation, leadership development, organisational effectiveness, talent management and culture initiatives. Experience partnering executive leadership teams and operating within highly regulated environments.

 

Competencies:

• Strategic Thinking
• Business Acumen
• Leadership
• Influence
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Delivering Results
• Creativity and Innovation
• Change Leadership
• Decision Making

Education

Bachelor Honours Degree, Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications, Postgraduate Diploma

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised