Lights, camera, action, and empowerment

‘I believe in mentorship,’ says Hlalethoa. ‘It allows you to identify, nurture, and coach raw talent until those you mentor become senior members of staff.’ Having started his career as an intern at professional and financial services firm Deloitte, Hlalethoa developed an early appreciation of the importance of mentorship after being taken under the wing of his boss.

After six years at Deloitte, in 2004, he joined the Financial Services Board – the predecessor of the FSCA. The mentors Hlalethoa found within the organisation along the way helped chart his rise up the ranks. Starting off as head of human resources (HR), Hlalethoa was later appointed to the role of divisional executive responsible for Corporate Services, which covers HR, communications, facilities, and security. Inspired by the guidance he had received throughout his journey, Hlalethoa started the first mentoring programme at the FSCA, long before it became fashionable in the public sector.

A mind for mentorship

‘For the last 20 years, I’ve been a mentor to many professionals in the HR space, producing leaders who have now become senior managers in HR,’ Hlalethoa explains. ‘We still engage and brainstorm solutions when they face difficult issues. It doesn’t mean that I know it all, but I impart the knowledge I have to my colleagues and senior staff members in the organisation.’

Today, juniors also continue to approach Hlalethoa for mentorship. ‘I gladly do that because I believe that without senior people providing guidance to juniors, we won’t have a proper succession plan,’ he says. ‘We have to impart knowledge to ensure that the organisation, as well as the industry itself is sustainable. Internships also assist in eradicating the high unemployment rate by providing us with opportunities to train unemployed graduates and make them employable.’

According to his mentees, Hlalethoa’s strength lies in bridging the gap between what students have learnt during their studies and the practicality of everyday work life. Research shows that the transition to the working world is one that few are prepared for, often leaving them feeling overwhelmed.

‘As someone who benefitted from his internship, I have held onto the words that Mr Hlalethoa said on the first day of addressing us,’ shares Reneilwe Mthelebofu, a communications specialist at the FSCA. ‘He simply said, “Forget everything you know and take this year as a learning opportunity, ensuring that there are no disturbances.” Immediately, everything switched. One of his greatest strengths lies in being practical and having a practical approach to challenges, which is very necessary as we often like to overcomplicate things.’

Through his own journey, Hlalethoa continues to seek advice from others and currently employs the services of a business coach. ‘You never stop learning, which is something I tell others too,’ he reveals. ‘Whether you’re successful or not, it’s always important to seek guidance and untapped wisdom and to test your knowledge – you need other perspectives to grow and enrich your end product.’

Lifelong learning

Committed to lifelong learning, Hlalethoa says that without education, one cannot move. Aside from his formal academic qualifications, he emphasises the importance of driving one’s own learning and seeking knowledge from senior executives. ‘It assists in ensuring that you acquire practical knowledge that you wouldn’t necessarily learn in an academic programme,’ he asserts. ‘I’ve made sure to increase my social capital by rubbing shoulders with people in the industry who have not only guided me as a person, but have also given me opportunities within various workplaces.’

Hlalethoa was also encouraged to invest in his learning and to grab new opportunities as a result of the interactions he enjoyed with senior engineers and doctors as a business consultant at Deloitte. ‘So, I volunteered and was assigned to very complex projects that took me out of my comfort zone,’ he recalls. ‘Enrolling for my master’s and other degrees assisted in ensuring that I became a balanced professional who can back up most of my presentations or research with reliable content. I encourage anyone who wants to excel in their career to continuously learn from different sources whether they be formal programmes, conferences, the internet, other leaders or professional bodies.’

This belief in ongoing learning ties into the FSCA’s commitment to the growth and employment of its people – its greatest assets. ‘We provide them with bursaries rather than loans,’ says Hlalethoa. ‘Employees enrol for any programme designed to enrich them in terms of management, leadership or in a technical discipline.’

Part of this is done through the FSCA’s alignment with Henley Business School Africa, which began four years ago. ‘Through the Henley Senior Management Development programme, we’ve managed to enrol more than 30 junior managers who are now knocking on the door in terms of our succession planning,’ shares Hlalethoa. ‘We take most of our graduates who have gone through the Henley Africa programme. Even those that have left us for senior roles in the financial sector are advancing the learnings they’ve gained from the FSCA and Henley Africa by applying their academic knowledge and technical specialities to the various industries in which they operate. This allows us to better supervise and regulate entities that are, therefore, equipped to self-regulate.’

Advancing the sustainability cause

Due to his role in corporate services at the FSCA, Hlalethoa has also been charged with advancing the sustainability cause through the creation of a green workplace. This cause is close to the heart of this former boy scout, who nurtured a deep appreciation for Mother Nature from an early age.

‘As scouts, we are required to conserve the environment and from the age of 11 until 18, I spent a lot of my time focusing on nature,’ he explains. ‘In 1991, I was nominated as a boy scout to represent South Africa at the first Global Youth Conference on youth ending hunger in Kyoto, Japan. As youth coming from 63 countries, we signed a declaration where we wanted to eradicate poverty by the year 2000. Since then, I have kept abreast of what was happening within the United Nations [UN] regarding climate change and sustainability. What has been very important is to understand the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and to translate them into “actionables” in the workplace, ensuring employees consistently act in a sustainable manner.’

That seminal conference in Japan also led to Hlalethoa’s decision to pursue a humanities qualification. ‘I wanted to understand the human cause, so that I could change lives,’ he reveals. ‘I started my various academic programmes from a Bachelor of Arts to business management and labour law with the intention to change the narrative, to understand how human beings, as employees, interact with their employment situation.’

Within the workplace, sustainability is not about only the environment, he adds. ‘It also talks about other social elements, for example, ensuring that policies and salaries are fair and promote equity and fairness.’ Similarly, diversity in the workplace is another key focus when it comes to hiring practices. ‘We ensure that in whatever engagement our employees have, they benefit from the richness of being in a diverse environment,’ he proposes.

Driving transformation at this level is not always easy and Hlalethoa admits to countering resistance at times. ‘One has to influence stakeholders to ensure that they buy into this change, so they understand it is better for the organisation.’ To help chart the way forward, Hlalethoa continues to throw himself into his role as a servant leader who leads from the front but always strives to empower others to find their own path.