Our culture and our people

4 YEAR JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMING SANBS THROUGH A DELIBERATE AND THOUGHTFUL CULTURE CHANGE

A reflection of our journey to date to empower our people to deliver outstanding results

With a relatively young workforce, it was important for SANBS to embark on a transformation journey and in 2018, the organisation started the process of co-creating an aspirational culture, called our DNA, the SANBS Formula – involving all employees to discover what was required for SANBS to be ‘Trusted to save lives’, and make it come to life in the hearts and minds of all our people. Discovering the SANBS Formula represents our future world – what our culture could be like if we did everything right!

2018/2019

CHANGE INITIATIVES
  • Embarked on a number of change initiatives to improve our leadership traits.
OUR SANBS DNA
  • Discovery of our “SANBS DNA” – all our staff voted on the things we should do more and less of – enablers vs. disablers. More than 85% of staff voted and challenged their creativity through developing icons or “emojis” to describe these enablers and disablers.
    • Conducted a baseline assessment, 1.10
Enablers

Action orientated + Attraction and reatain the best talent + Celebrate success + Empowering and including our people + Honest, ethical and transparent + Innovation/breaking new group + Keeping our donors motivated + Positive energy and Passion + Quality driven + Relationship building with key stakeholders + Respect and dignity + Training and Knowledge sharing

Disablers

9-5 mentally/disengaged people + Backstabing and politics + Bad planning/ineffective change intiatives + Blaming/lack of accountability + Communication breakdwon + Favouritism and discrimination + Negativity + Poinntless meetings + Sense of entitlement + US and them + Wastage + Wrong people in wrong jobs

MEASURE CULTURE
  • Programme launched nationwide to measure culture.
LEADERSHIP

154 leaders undertook the first 360 degree review process, helping leaders manage more effectively through constructive feedback resulting in:

  • formalised Personal Development Plans, growing the leaders of the future.
  • placing leaders in functions and areas that speak to their strengths
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
  • Renewed focus on performance management with the development of weekly and monthly scorecards across divisions and functions which roll up into an overall balanced scorecard for the business. These scorecards cascade directly into measurable KPA’s and KPI’s for managers and staff which are measured at least twice a year.
HR policies
  • HR policies were reviewed and updated in line with best practice.
ETHICS SURVEY

Completion of an ethics survey.

  • Reviewed code of ethics and developed a leadership charter aligned to the SANBS T.H.R.E.A.D values
iHEALTh
  • Formalised iHEALTh strategic objectives.
EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE
  • Employee Assistance Programme, ICAS – uptake of 40.4%.

2019/2020

    • The transformation of the SANBS culture gained further traction.
    • Partnered with an organisation that develops young people with disabilities, with a potential to be absorbed into SANBS.
    • The Human Resources team embarked on its own game changer journey of reflection to ensure that the team remains agile and responsive to business needs.
    • The SANBS culture of collaboration proved beneficial in responding to Covid-19, engaging the hearts (inspiring) and minds (influencing) of our people prioritising their safety and well-being by introducing flexible work practices, while maintaining business continuity and listening to their views through our Covid-19 response hotline.
    • Our baseline metric for staff engagement against this formula was 1,10 and by March 2020, we had made a remarkable improvement to 1,19 i.e. a 9% increase in our baseline. Positive shifts:
      • Honest, ethical & transparent.
      • Training & knowledge sharing
      • Communication breakdown
      • Wrong people in wrong jobs
    • Leadership - 446 leaders underwent the 360 degree assessment and feedback was provided to each leader in order to be future-fit and relevant. Development opportunities that arose from the #360 feedback processes started in 2018 were embraced.
      • 3 Executives and 31 Senior/Middle Managers started their coaching journey
    • Continued focus on performance management with refinement of weekly and monthly scorecards across divisions and functions.
    • Rolled out the “my disclosure” system to identify and manage conflicts of interest to deepen our ethical culture.
    • Change management: workshops were held with staff in preparation of the KZN Campus move to Mount Edgecombe.
    • Employee Assistance Programme, ICAS – uptake of 45.9%.
    • Creation of the SANBS formal learning academy to develop a digital learning roadmap – 100 employees registered on the platform with a 99% pass rate illustrating our commitment to a learning culture under difficult circumstances.

2020/2021

  • SANBS continues to transform during the pandemic through deliberate and dedicated efforts by leadership and staff; all interventions have yielded the results we desire.
  • We have 10 persons with disabilities from our cohort who have been given an opportunity to work as fixed term contractors in our blood banks
  • Remote working and rapid redeployment of employees ensured business continuity through COVID peaks.
  • Cultural change at SANBS showcases our direct efforts on social change at the workplace and the communities within which we operate.
    • SANBS culture provides important improvements in learning and health, increased tolerance for our diverse workforce, and opportunities to come together
  • Our SANBS DNA index continues to make great strides in an upward trajectory, tackling disablers and enhancing our enablers:
    • 1972 employees participate in the process (1805 in 2020) and we achieved our target of a 10% increase to 1.31 from previous score of 1.19.
  • Leadership - 542 leaders and specialists participated in the #360 feedback process.
  • Performance on leadership competencies, as measured by 360-degree feedback, has increased at all levels.
  • 54 people completed their coaching journey
  • Co-created a Values-Centred Leadership brand (manifesto) and a change toolkit has been shared with all our leaders to use in their engagements with staff:
    • 39 change champions have been trained to support BECS as a major system implementations and the values refresh
  • Diversity and inclusion webinars are available to all employees for candid conversations about feeling part of the SANBS family.
  • Change management processes supported 2 projects in SANBS:
    • The BECS project commenced - change management is a key enabler in ensuring success
    • Smooth transition to the Mount Edgecombe campus
  • Learning and talent development has been a key focus for the SANBS Academy; talent programmes have been integrated to allow for a broader range of skills development efforts:
    • 3 intakes for our Wits Digital Campus programme
    • 297 registrations – 98% retention, 92 % pass rate
  • Bookboon Digital Learning Platform launched - over 5000 eBooks, audios and programmes, to aid building a learning environment owned by staff.
    • NPS 9.23 achieved out of 10 points.
  • Moodle Learning Management system deployed and Learning Experience Platform development in progress to enhance the overall learning experience for our staff.
  • Senior Leadership Immersive Leadership programme launched to help build leadership bandwidth and strengthen core capabilities of Senior Leadership teams.
    • Consists of a series of world class simulations, designed to stretch and enable our leaders to respond differently to help us to achieve our strategic objectives.

2021/2022

Looking ahead, we will use #360 data for all internal promotional opportunities and continue to develop our ability to adapt to the changing world of work.

Having completed our review of the operating model as part of the realignment phase, we now look to implementing the improved executive structure to ensure we continue to deliver on our mandate to ‘save lives’.

Expand the coaching journey to a larger cohort.

Next step of remote working entails converting the entire staff application and response handling process to an online workflow, aligning to our digitalisation strategy and the Enterprise Information Management Project.

Embedding our Statement of Commitment to Ethical and Effective Leadership.

The SANBS Ethics Management Strategy and Plan will be enhanced to ensure Ethics is brought into the organisational domain, with the view to create a seamless integration of Ethics into the purpose, vision, strategic goals of SANBS (values to be made real and unambiguous).

Ethics Ambassadors will be appointed and trained to facilitate the effectiveness of the Ethics Management Framework, reinforcing the THREAD values.

Continuous monitoring and reporting on the ethics performance of the organisation, as well as on identified trends and incorporated into the organisational culture programme.

Training employees to mitigate any ethics-related risks