Human Resources, Security Services, Information Technology Services and Facilities Management make up the portfolio of UP’s Chief Operating Officer. Read on for a breakdown of this year’s operational highlights, challenges and plans.

The portfolio of the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Chief Operating Officer, Sandile Mthiyane, covers four departments: Human Resources, Security Services, Information Technology Services and Facilities Management. There have been significant achievements during the first six months of the year, despite both internal and external challenges faced by the University.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES (HR) DEPARTMENT

The 2022 academic year began with several challenges related to collective bargaining; this required urgent attention and response from the HR Department.

The successful conclusion of salary negotiations and the implementation of annual increases were welcomed by the University. This followed a period in which UP was unable to conclude salary negotiations in time for implementation in January 2022, which led to prolonged engagements with organised labour and was further complicated by cases of mutual interest being lodged with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) against the University. Through further bilateral meetings and engagements with union regional leadership, the CCMA case did not progress and the University in partnership with labour successfully concluded this process.

In February 2022, UP was confronted with strike action by the Academic and Professional Staff Association (APSA), which demanded the resolution of matters related to in-sourced staff. This was prompted by legacy matters from the initial in-sourcing process that had pending harmonisation issues which were being addressed through the University of Pretoria Bargaining Forum’s (UPBF) mandated structures. The unions rejected the mandated harmonised conditions of service, with the result that APSA pursued strike action as the union had not been represented at the UPBF. After a facilitated engagement between University management and APSA leadership, an agreement was reached to conclude the strike action.

The HR Department initiated bilateral meetings with the respective trade unions (APSA/NEHAWU/University of Pretoria Workers’ Organisation and Solidarity) through its Employee Relations division as part of initiatives to capacitate organised labour and to encourage the constructive resolution of matters, adhering to the University’s Escalation Policy in a collaborative manner. These meetings occur bimonthly with respective union leadership representatives and have proven to be effective in that UP has seen a reduction in the number of emails sent by unions citing dissatisfaction with regard to various matters.

The HR Department held a three-day retreat with the UPBF in May 2022, focusing on policies that are under review as well as the socialisation of the draft Recognition Agreement and Coalition Agreement. The HR Department progressed policy consultation matters that had stalled at the UPBF, thus increasing the HR policy non-compliance risk for the University.

The conclusion of the harmonisation of conditions of service for Food Service staff after a process that has been ongoing for over five years is a huge milestone for the HR Department. The process was riddled with several delays, which caused significant tension between organised labour and the University. Through the persistent efforts of the HR Department, UP finalised the implementation of harmonised conditions of service for Food Service in July 2022; this will go a long way to restore labour-related peace and employee satisfaction in the workplace.

Within the learning and development space, several staff development programmes took place.

Programme	Description	Update
LinkedIn learning	LinkedIn is an online educational platform that offers a variety of self-learning topics. UP has been using this platform to bolster its staff development initiatives in a cost-effective manner while encouraging self-learning among employees.	About two years ago, HR negotiated the increase of LinkedIn learning licences from 2 000 to 3 000 at the same cost. UP employees have embraced online learning and all 3 000 of the LinkedIn Learning licences procured are being fully utilised. The demand for licences is overwhelming; as such, UP has deactivated the licences of users who have not been active on the LinkedIn Learning platform over the past 11–12 months to ensure optimal utilisation. Plans are underway to make the opportunity available to students.
Supervisory programme	The three-day Supervisory Management Skills Programme, which aims to capacitate new managers and act as a refresher for longer-tenured managers, has been implemented.	There have been three intakes with a total of 140 delegates since the beginning of 2022 as follows: 4–6 March: 30 delegates 2–4 May: 38 delegates 20–22 June: 36 delegates
Adult education and training	UP has implemented the Adult Education and Training (AET) Programme, which responds to the national imperatives covered in the National Development Strategy and the Human Resource Development Strategy. The goal is to reduce illiteracy and empower individuals through education. Adult education and training contributes to an integrated and holistic approach to education and training, which UP strives for. Furthermore, it is one of the enablers of transformation in response to dynamic economic and social forces.	48 learners enrolled in the AET programme. Onderstepoort campus hosted 30 employees and the other two centres, Hatfield and Hillcrest campuses, hosted 18 employees respectively.
Programme for Academic Leadership	The Programme for Academic Leadership (PAL) is offered through UP’s Gordon Institute of Business Science and was introduced in 2013 as an academic leadership and development strategy. PAL provides a foundation for developing an academic leadership career suited to the South African, African and global contexts in the 21st century. It aims to enhance the knowledge and skills of programme participants to enable them to be effective in their career progression and to advance the ambitions of UP and the academy more broadly.	20 senior academics attended the 2022 PAL, which concluded in April.

 

As part of efforts to achieve substantive transformation, UP launched its first learnership for people living with disabilities. Twenty learners have been enrolled in the Business Administration Service Learnership. The learnership commenced on 1 June 2022 with the aim of achieving a targeted 2% of staff establishment among persons with disabilities by December 2025. This programme is registered with the South African Qualifications Authority as a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Level 4 qualification and is a partnership between UP, Innovative Knowledge Worx and the Education, Training and Development Practices Sector Education and Training Authority (ETDP SETA). The theoretical phase of the programme will be completed in December 2022. This will be followed by the workplace experience at UP campuses from January 2023 to May 2023. Human Resources is working with UP’s Student Centre, the Transformation Office and the centre for students with disabilities to ensure the effective implementation of this learnership.

UP is one of many universities that heeds the call from Universities South Africa (USAF) to participate in the Presidential Youth Employment Stimulus, a government programme coordinated by the Presidency to provide temporary employment opportunities (six months) to unemployed youth. It aims to curb the high unemployment rate among South African youth by offering formal work-integrated learning opportunities to participating graduates. Working with various faculties and professional services departments, the HR Department identified an opportunity for 130 interns. Recruiting the interns was a two-phase process, with the first intake in May and the second in July 2022.

In terms of operational effectiveness and efficiencies, a new HR Delegation of Authority framework was approved. The review was initiated by the HR director through several workshops with HR management. In turn, the deputy directors held workshops with their divisional teams to unpack the detailed processes, identify bottlenecks and apply the selected methodology to ensure agility in decision-making as expressed in the R-A-P-I-D Framework. The management team conducted a final review of the comprehensive framework, ensuring that divisional interdependencies are analysed and find expression in the Delegation of Authority framework. The final delegation of authority was widely consulted across University management structures and approved by the Executive committee in March 2022. This project has alleviated client frustrations that had emanated from inconsistent application of HR processes and long lead times for decision-making. It has ensured accountability and responsibility at the correct levels of management, while improving governance and risk mitigation.

The HR Department continues to leverage the capability of its information management system by identifying key automation projects that will improve efficiencies in the department, empower managers and employees with regard to self-service offerings, and improve reporting capability for risk management and decision-making, among others

Automated employment equity (EE) reports and EE plan (January 2021 to December 2025)

In collaboration with the Office of Employment Equity and B-BBEE and Institutional Transformation Committee, the Human Resource Information System (HRIS) Department embarked on a project to automate all mandatory legislative reporting with regards to employment equity reports and the EE plan for January 2021 to December 2025. This will ensure that all stakeholders are able to extract accurate, up-to-date reports in order to comply with the University’s B-BBEE targets.

Harmonisation project for Food Services

Once sign-off was obtained, the HRIS system was updated accordingly to accommodate all changes agreed upon during negotiations. The system will now reflect all changes with regard to conditions of service for all food services staff.

Conflict of Interest declaration on employee self-service

The HRIS Department successfully automated the Conflict of Interest declaration on the employee self-service system. This feature is available during the on-boarding phase of new employees, as are notifications for all current staff for mandatory annual declarations.

 

 

 

Sabbatical leave plan

Qualifying employees may now submit their sabbatical plans online for automated approval. This was achieved in collaboration with the Remunerations and Benefits Department.

Gender-based violence system

The GBV (Anti-discrimination) System was developed on the Peoplesoft HR platform and rolled out to all staff. This system will be handed over to the PeopleSoft Campus system, and supported and maintained by the HRIS system. Staff and students will also be able to access it.

The following policies were approved in the first semester of 2022:

New Sabbatical Leave for Academic Staff

Performance Enhancement and Engagement Policy

Challenges and their resolutions

The HR Department experienced several challenges with organised labour in the form of strike action, referrals to the CCMA about salary disputes and variances with the coalition of unions in the bargaining forum; this resulted in a significant amount of time being invested in resolving labour challenges. The department has stayed true to its commitment to capacitate and support trade unions in the workplace to ensure a conducive labour environment.

The introduction of retreats with organised labour is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between organised labour and management, while providing a platform to facilitate the resolution of staff-related matters.

The department also faced staffing issues, with the resignation of the Deputy Director: ER and Wellness and the passing of the Deputy Director: Human Capital Specialist Services. These vacancies caused a delay to some projects that had been initiated in 2021. The positions have subsequently been filled, with the Deputy Directors for the respective divisions being appointed in July 2022.

Short-term focus areas

The main focus for the department in the next six months includes:

• The advancement of the HR Policy Review Programme as per the commitments made in the project plan
• Continuation of digitisation initiatives
• Stabilisation of the collective labour landscape through the standardisation of recognition agreements and endorsement of the coalition between trade unions that are parties to the coalition
• Relationship by Objectives workshop between management and organised labour in July 2022
• UP Leadership Programme, which will be presented to 20 senior management members in August 2022

DEPARTMENT OF SECURITY SERVICES

The Department Security Services achieved some of its goals as set out in the 2022–2026 framework, which is aligned to the University’s strategic goals.

The department aims to preserve and enhance the quality of experience for staff, students and guests by striving to provide a safe and secure environment for them. In line with this vision, it identified, analysed and mitigated an increasing number of incidents and associated risks in the areas surrounding the various campuses. The department funded additional security interventions (mentioned below) by disestablishing vacant posts. Since these additional measures were implemented, several successful arrests were made in conjunction with external service providers and law enforcement partners, and crime incidents substantially declined.

Risk area	Security measurements implemented since January 2022
Hatfield ladies’ residences	Hatfield CID services were extended to two armed response services from 6am to 10pm daily
Area surrounding the Faculty Health Sciences	Two armed response officers on motorbikes deployed on the streets surrounding the campus on a flexi-shift basis, 6am to 10pm daily
Engineering 4.0 fence	Two security officers with dogs patrolling the fence during night shifts
Persequor Park	Two armed response services with dogs as well as an access control officer, 24 hours, seven days a week
Onderstepoort fence	Two security officers with dogs patrolling the campus fence and residences at night
Risk area	Security measurements implemented since March 2022
Groenkloof fence	Security service on patrol with a dog, 24 hours, seven days a week
Hatfield CID East of Jan Shoba	Armed response service covering the streets surrounding TuksSport campus, hpc, Hillcrest residences and other UP accommodation, 24 hours, seven days a week
Hatfield CID Prospect gate	Armed response service at Prospect Street gate, including Festival Street to Park Street, 24 hours, seven days a week

 

The Department Security Services engaged with the Department of Institutional Advancement (DIA) to draft and implement a comprehensive communication plan to create awareness of its security services and activities. Videos were produced for students that enrolled in 2022, as well as for international students and community service students. Various media platforms such as electronic billboards, posters, pamphlets and the intranet were used to highlight the department’s functions.

There is also a focus on enhancing loyalty towards colleagues and the department, and motivating staff members to work as a team. In this regard, the first two departmental newsletters were distributed to staff to communicate messages from the executive and management, acknowledge academic and other achievements of staff members, and provide operational and other information. The newsletters will be distributed quarterly via email.

The department aligned its Crime Prevention Strategy, which guides operations, to adapt to UP’s strategies and goals, changes in relevant legislation, technology, and best practices.

The CCTV camera replacement project progressed well and should be completed before the end of the year.

The department concluded interviews for the five vacant posts for operational management centre operators; the successful candidates will commence their duties on 1 August 2022.

It has also reviewed existing policies for approval and publication on the website, including the following:

Security policies

Traffic and Parking Management Policy and related documents

Gathering Policy for staff

Gathering Policy for students

Medical Emergency Policy

CCTV Policy and related documents

Access Control Policy – amended to provide for the Visitor Management System to be implemented in July 2022.

Challenges

Since in-sourcing in 2016, the non-finalisation of the harmonising process has been a major challenge for the management of the department and optimal service delivery; this is the result of disparities in the conditions of service between in-sourced employees and other staff members. As such, representatives in the department formed a working committee, which presented a proposal to the Executive for consideration in order to finalise this process.

Focus areas for the next six months

With the return of students to campuses in the second semester, there will be renewed focus on crime prevention initiatives.

The management team will engage with deans and directors to promote positive work relationships and determine any shortcomings in service delivery or offerings, and implement strategies to further support the academic fraternity.

Once the outcome and implementation of the decisions have been finalised, the department will hopefully be able to steer away from the “us and them” culture, and the foundation will be laid to move forward as a unified team of professional security practitioners whose primary focus is to support academic excellence by creating a conducive environment within which staff and students can flourish and reach their full potential.

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES (ITS)

Enterprise systems

To address the complexity of sabbatical leave, a new functionality for managing sabbatical leave for academics was released. The process for appointing and managing emeritus professors in the HR system was also streamlined and improved.

As part of the national agenda on gender-based violence and discrimination, upgrades were made to make this available to students as well.

The process for study applicants was redesigned so that applications could be made via mobile devices. A new functionality that automates the placement of first-years or seniors in residences/rooms was also developed.

A new evaluation, workflow and documentation system to facilitate the automated and improved processing of postgraduate applications was piloted.

A system is being developed to track and streamline the process of offering Achiever Awards to incoming applicants.

IT operations

The Wi-Fi renewal/replacement project is underway to replace UP’s original Wi-Fi infrastructure. In conjunction with Residence Services, ITS plans to provide Wi-Fi access to as many areas as possible.

A second internet breakout was commissioned to enable full redundancy and increase internet bandwidth.

The ageing telephonic infrastructure was replaced as part of the unified communications/telephony project, which was completed at the end of June 2022.

Technology support was given to Innovation Africa, TuksNovation and LoRa Alliance® for Engineering 4.0.

The Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) Project has been initiated to secure UP’s information assets and strengthen our cybersecurity capabilities.

IT digital technologies

Digital technologies were employed to conduct University-wide online events hosted by the DIA; this includes Welcome Day and #Choose UP Open Day.

An exciting new development is the LeadUP Podcast series, an Alumni Relations Office initiative, in which alumni and friends of the University share leadership lessons.

Other enhancements and additions include Research Matters, education partnership agreements, tender system enhancements, postgraduate recruitment and access to information, the ORCID system for staff profiling, UP online, brand and image repository (Extensis) and a conferences module.

On the staff intranet, a user interface refresh was completed and improvements are being made to intranet accessibility in order to move closer to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard; this is an ongoing initiative.

The UP mobile app is undergoing a user interface upgrade for easy usability. MODO 4 implementation will ensure that the end-user experience is in line with the latest app designs.

Integrating Unibuddy into the public web was completed; this is an international online chat platform that enables prospective undergraduate and postgraduate students around the world to connect with UP by chatting to Unibuddy ambassadors who are all registered/alumni recipients of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Merit Award.

Unit for academic IT and capability development

Planning is underway for the High-Performance Computing (HPC) centralised cluster.

Student computing – on-site facilities (computer labs)

Formal bookings as well as general usage: used by 234 599 clients for a total of 499 251 hours.

Classes and assessments were booked for a total of 38 754 hours.

The following projects were initiated in 2021 and completed in 2021/2022:

• Health Skills Lab automation
• Cardiology patient database
• Executive conference facility (Council Chambers)
• Future Africa Institute hotel management system
• NAS Faculty student administration automation
• SCU-B, Student Counselling Unit chatbot
• Migration of the computer-based testing suite to a new product (CIRRUS)
• Decommissioning of the legacy QuestionMark tool

IT strategic support and client services

The technical phase of the desktop encryption project to secure information on workstations offers a solution to encrypt data.

The Windows 7 replacement project is making good progress; it aims to bring workstations up to date and in line with supported versions of Windows.

The ITS Training Unit is working to update all manuals and expand its training footprint by taking over Qualtrics, Zoom, MS Teams and Adobe training and planning, and adding more courses in 2022. The unit also provides support to projects, such as the telephony project, as well as SMAX training.

ITS is enabling enterprise service management by provisioning service management capabilities to other professional services such as the Department of Enrolment and Student Administration, the NAS Faculty and Library Services.

UP’s cybersecurity awareness campaign offers concise articles, tips and resources to practise safe online behaviour. Visit https://www.up.ac.za/itsecurity for more information.

The Central Printing Unit will soon go live with the secure exam printing module; this will see a new era in securing the printing of exam papers.

 

DEPARTMENT OF FACILITIES MANAGEMENT  

Several construction projects are underway:

• Refurbishment of Tirisano residence at Groenkloof (due for completion at the end of 2022)
• Refurbishment of Groenkloof’s dining hall (due for completion by August 2022)
• Refurbishment of the Tegnika Building on Groenkloof campus (due for completion by August 2022)
• A project to accommodate the Centre for Visual Impairment Studies on Groenkloof campus (due for completion by the end of July 2022)
• One Health/PACRI refurbishment and extension on Prinshof campus (due for completion by the end of 2022)
• HW Snyman Library upgrade project on Prinshof campus (due for completion by the end of 2022).

Various other funded projects to improve the availability of bulk services (water and electricity) are in progress. These include standby generators for the ladies’ residences on Hatfield and residences on Prinshof campus. The Hatfield ladies’ residences now also have back-up water to cover interruptions for 48 hours – this project was completed earlier this year. These are just a few of the projects that are underway; about 300 projects are in progress across all campuses.

Major projects will commence in the second semester and include the refurbishment of the Mineral Sciences Building on Hatfield campus, upgrading the Hillcrest pool pavilion and refurbishing Anchor House at Duxbury 90 (the home of TuksRes).

Projects being planned for 2022 include the refurbishment of House Erica in Hatfield, upgrading the Merensky Library’s fire detection and protection system, the AFMA/UP feed mill laboratory project on Miertjie le Roux farm, and upgrading the chemistry laboratories in the Natural Sciences 1 Building.

Bulk services projects that are being planned include upgrading the fire and domestic water supply as well as the 11kV electricity networks on Hatfield and Prinshof campuses.

The University was severely affected by loadshedding in the first semester; total loadshedding sessions totalled 2 942. The cost of running the 75 installed generators across the campuses during loadshedding amounts to R260 000 per hour. There were only a few cases where a generator did not automatically start up; 98% of all generator start-ups were successful. During stage 6 loadshedding, there were only one or two instances where machines and generators ran out of fuel.

During the first semester, 20 361 job cards were registered for repairs. The percentage of completions within the stipulated repair time over the period was 94.4%. A total of 20 024 job cards were created for planned maintenance intervention; completion within the stipulated time was 97.9%

The University’s feral cat programme was successfully relaunched during the first semester with new feeders being deployed. Small cages were also deployed to provide shelter to the cats when required. Staff are requested not to feed the cats – the aim of the programme is to provide only enough food to still have the cats hunt for rodents. Feeding is done according to a fixed schedule and additional feeding will jeopardise the programme. The programme is based on the Trap-Neuter Return approach.

With lockdown gradually being lifted and more staff and students returning to campus, a gradual increase in waste recycling has been noted. It is hoped that this will increase significantly during the second semester.

Most commercial service providers have returned to campus and have reopened. Unfortunately, a few did not survive lockdown. It is hoped that with the return to campus, these service providers will return to normal business operations.