Hub company goes the extra mile to help fellow resident build capacity

	The HSDA interface, showing the area recorded by one of the vehicles.

Qsens.il - a division of Qsens, a resident at The Innovation Hub - has expanded the company's synergistic relationship with fellow resident and neighbour, Jabula Projects, through the development of a top-to-toe Human Resources (HR) Management System for Jabula's novel high-speed digital audit (HSDA) project - all in the space of two weeks!

QSens.il stands for QSens Innovative Leadership, and is the leadership development and HR Management wing of QSens. They aim to develop the body, mind and spirit of individuals or groups, to achieve optimal performance, using a combination of Industrial Psychology, Adventure Activities and Experiential Learning.

QSens.il were tasked with assisting Jabula to develop and implement an entire HR strategy, along with all the related systems and processes - from the organisational structure to governance ordinances, and recruitment and training programmes.

According to QSens.il Managing Director, Kobus Coetzee, the greatest challenges were experienced during the recruitment and training phase. "The HSDA System is such a unique product. We needed to develop a very specific definition for the sets of skills and characteristic required for the team we were recruiting", he said.

HSDA is an innovative platform for auditing assets and asset conditions for both on- and off-road assets. The system operates on a three-tiered basis, namely:

• drivers to operate the vehicles that navigate the areas to be audited and video recorded;
• data operators to handle and monitor the functioning of the actual equipment; and
• data capturers to record, structure and audit the information collected in the field.

Each of these has its own unique challenges, and it was QSens.il's task to characterise, identify, and train the people who would fill these positions. A hefty task under any circumstances but made even more formidable by the tight deadlines.

In developing the profiles of the type of people they needed to recruit, Coetzee's team had to work backwards by first defining the psychological and physical barriers to each job and then they identified the other elements, such as personality types, job qualifications and intelligence ratios. "We had a taskforce of just three people working on this project, so the entire team was very hands-on. I even went out myself to experience what it is like to be in the vehicles for extended periods of time, physically doing the work", says Coetzee.

Due to the HSDA System being so new, training proved to be the greatest hurdle. "Even as the training process was going on, the software programmers were continuously updating and improving the system to get the interface to be more user-friendly. We were literally handing the recruits new operating instructions on a daily basis. At the same time, we were also able to add value to what the programmers were doing because we were physically interacting with the system and could give ongoing feedback about what works and what doesn't".

Despite all the challenges, QSens.il successfully reached their targets. Within two weeks, they had managed to recruit, train and get the Jabula team operational. According to Coetzee, however, this formidable feat was also achieved at great peril to the companies themselves. "We worked under quite stressful conditions, with very stiff deadlines and on a limited budget. We even ended up working at a loss. All these factors put a strain on relationships all around".

The good news is that the relationships held. "Jabula is about building this country", says Coetzee. "We all understood that the goal is bigger than the individual, and once we remembered that we were all working towards the same goal, it wasn't difficult to keep going and see it through to the end".

For more information on QSens.il, contact Kobus Coetzee on +27 12 844 0110