HR take up your place – Ekandjo

The Founder and President of The Institute of People Management of Namibia & Chief Human Capital & Corporate Affairs Officer of MTC, Tim Ekandjo has made a stern call on HR Professionals to take up their rightful place in their respective organizations. “By taking up our rightful place I mean making our voices heard and upholding and defending HR best practices and basic corporate governance principles,” he said
Ekandjo made this call in the wake of media reports where various companies are alleged to have controversially appointed senior executives without following basic recruitment procedures that are embedded in recruitment policies. When these things happen we ask ourselves where was the HR experts of the business who we would expect to advise against such malicious practices.
“IPM therefore calls on its members not to shy away from having often difficult conversations with even Board members where there is a clear violation of policies or corporate governance.
“Of course we are not encouraging you to fight your Boards but as the HR expert of the business you have every right to advise them even if they don’t appreciate or agree with your advice,” he said.
“HR professionals who uphold standards of integrity are the champions of this rich profession and we should not be shy or afraid to engage our colleagues and lead such discussions. We should make every effort to stamp out practices of nepotism when it comes to appointments and ensure that for every job every Namibian has a fair chance to compete  so that those who truly deserve the job actually get it. These are basic principles of fairness and transparency and need not even be written in any policy,” he added.
Ekandjo encouraged IPM members to adopt Codes of Good Practices which clearly define the codes of ethics and general business principles which everybody in the organization must adopt as a way of doing business including the Board of Directors.
Ekandjo also encouraged HR professionals to join IPM in its new campaign themed, “Preparing for the Future” which encourages corporates to open their doors to students from tertiary education seeking internships and on-the-job training. In the same spirit we also encourage corporates to intensify the employment of those who are differently-abled so that we create a diversified workforce.”
IPM was established in 2011 with MTC as its main sponsor.