ThinkTank Synergy is a Cape Town-based company offering a wide range of specialist consulting services that include HR Management, skills development, and employment equity training. Working with Kareema and her team allows Maven Solutions to offer our cohort members bespoke solutions based on their immediate requirements.
We find that a lot of our cohort members make use of interns and newly graduated staff to build capacity at low cost. Kareema works closely with these companies to ensure that they have the correct policies and procedures in place to guide and direct both the company owner and the inexperienced staff members in their daily interactions in the business. The company needs to clearly define what their obligations to the interns are and what they have committed to. These obligations need to be contained in the contract signed by the interns and new staff members. For example, you provide them workspace and equipment for them to be able to complete their work.
The interns and new staff members also need to know what their obligations are to your business, and these can be outlined in a relatively broad manner, if they are clear and easily understood.
Kareema also highlights to business owners the prescriptiveness required when engaging with the interns to clarify the expectations of them, as they have little or no work experience. This will need repetition to ensure that they fully understand what is required of them. Sharing information once and assuming that it has all been taken on board is not sufficient when communicating important policies with the staff.
The company owners need to actively reach consensus with the interns regarding minimum terms, which include core working hours and salary. The company owner needs to set out the context and reasons why change is required.
Kareema and the ThinkTank Synergy team have also run employment equity workshops for our cohort members and emphasized the advantages to the organisation that having diversity in your staff brings. Investing in skills development to support the growth of your business is another area that Kareema and her team have assisted our cohort members. Many small business owners are very nervous about investing in training and skills development of their staff. Their primary concern always being that the staff will leave once they additional skills and are more in demand in the job market. Kareema helps company owners to understand that the benefits of investing in your staff far outweigh the risk associated with them leaving.
Maven Solutions love working with Kareema and the team at ThinkTank Synergy. They understand the business owners who we deal with and provide situation appropriate advise and expertise.
