Employees are the heart and soul of any organisation. In search of a system that could offer a comprehensive HR solution, Olivine Industries, operational in Zimbabwe, recently made the decision to adopt Softline VIP's Premier HR software solution.

Established in 1931, Olivine Industries started as a small family-owned business in Nyazura, Zimbabwe. The company has since found a home in Harare and has grown to become a leading manufacturer of a wide range of consumer and industrial products such as vegetable oils, margarines, bakers' fats, soaps, candles, dried beans and a wide range of canned foods including baked beans, jams, tomato ketchup, etc. Besides serving the consumer market, Olivine also supplies its range of products to the hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, hotels, schools, universities, hospitals and various institutions.

“Currently we have 600 permanent employees in addition to the 400-odd contract employees that are stationed across the major centres in Zimbabwe,” says Victor Nkomo, the Human Resource Director at Olivine Industries. “Essentially, we needed an HR system that is robust enough to grow as Olivine grows, and be able to support future plans of pursuing business opportunities outside of Zimbabwe.”

Munya Mazhande and his team at Omni Africa in Harare facilitated the implementation of Premier HR at Olivine. Omni Africa is a leading wholesaler of branded technological hardware, peripheral equipment and software to business enterprises in the southern African region and is a certified alliance partner to Softline VIP. “We identified 263 different job profiles within Olivine that had to be recorded into the system. It effectively created a blueprint in terms of skills, experience and development that will help Olivine shape its existing and future investment in its human resources and optimising the outcome thereof,” says Mazhande.

Softline VIP's Premier HR offers fully functional HR capabilities that stretch from job management and document management to fully integrated performance management, succession planning, suitability analyses for recruitment and selection, and much more. The functionalities, flexibility and reporting capabilities of the system were of particular interest to Olivine Industries, says Gerhard Hartman, the Head of Department in Softline VIP's Africa Division, part of the Sage Group.

“The implementation at Olivine Industries is well under way and is scheduled to be finalised in three months' time,” says Hartman. “The system will allow the client to access employee records from any location and print HR management reports. There are over 150 standard HR reports to choose from that include various summary, detail, grid analysis and graph reports. Premier HR provides Olivine with a means of keeping a finger on the pulse of the organisation of this size and will optimise their HR efforts.”

Nkomo at Olivine says HR planning, reporting and decision-making can now be done with accurate information that is available at the click of a button. “Management of vacancies will now be so much easier and a great deal more accurate. The qualifications, experience, competencies and skills that each position requires are now clearly crystallised per position. It paves the way for effective HR administration, recruitment, selection and performance management, utilising a system that is fully integrated into our ERP System,” concludes Nkomo.

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Deidre Beylis
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Deidre@wattcommunications.co.za