Introduction
According to the International Labour Organisation, Africa’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for over 90 percent of businesses and more than 60 percent of employed persons on the continent. These enterprises aid in economic development and growth; however, they face challenges with human resources management practices that are not fully developed. From a consultant’s perspective, the typical challenge SMEs face is how to design HR practices that blend scaling and tailoring to suit their organisation while dealing with a tradeoff between customisation for particular business contexts and standardisation for efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability.
“Customisation of HR practices is about building context-relevant solutions for each client, considering factors such as their industry, company size, cultural differences, and leadership style.”
The Africa SME landscape, much like the society, is incredibly diverse, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of HR practices that can be adopted by all organisations. This article, therefore, focuses on how various human resources management practices, such as onboarding, performance management, and talent management, can be designed in such a way that they follow best practice standards while putting the context of the organisation into consideration to effectively tailor to suit this context. So as to facilitate growth and for business expansion.
Balancing customisation and standardisation in the Design of HR practices
Customisation of HR practices is about building context-relevant solutions for each client, considering factors such as their industry, company size, cultural differences, and leadership style.
Standardisation, on the other hand, speaks to adopting best practice standards and frameworks. So, the question is what processes do we standardise and which ones do we customise, particularly among the core HR functions and practices?
Onboarding: Most African SMEs struggle with getting the onboarding programme right; at best, they conduct informal induction sessions, which don’t help integrate new joiners into the organisation. Onboarding programmes that are standardised by creating templates that cover the key aspects every effective onboarding programme should cover – pre-boarding, orientation, training and integration – while customising content to each company’s mission, values and local culture.
For instance, a fintech startup in Lagos may need a more tech-based orientation process as compared to a manufacturing SME in Nairobi that may focus on safety and regulatory processes.
Performance Management: Performance Management Practices can be standardised by ensuring the four aspects of performance management are captured (planning, monitoring, appraising performance, developing and rewarding/consequence management), while things like key performance indicators (KPIs) can be customised to suit what the organisation desires to measure.
In Ghana, a consulting firm, HRB Labs, successfully implemented the simplified 360-degree feedback system for SMEs in retail and logistics, increasing employee engagement by 23 percent within 12 months. The fundamental form was consistent; however, the frequency and feedback tools were customised to operational rhythms.
Talent Management: Learning and development (L&D) initiatives can be standardised by designing learning interventions that are suitable for different categories of staff: entry-level, mid-level, first-time managers and/or strategic leadership. However, the execution of the various trainings can be tailored to suit each category of staff.
A remote agribusiness customer in the northern part of Nigeria, for example, may prefer mobile learning modules because of the internet restrictions, while a legal consultancy in Cape Town may find it feasible to organise live workshops or coaching sessions. The key lesson here is that HR practices can be standardised but still be relevant enough through the customisation of templates and toolkits that offer consistency and room for context-specific adaptations.
Several African organisations have benefited from being able to effectively balance standardisation and customisation. For example, Jobberman Nigeria designed a standardised recruitment and onboarding solution called “BestMatch” for SMEs. While evaluation criteria and the scoring model remained uniform, job descriptions as well as cultural fit were tailored per business. This reduced time-to-hire by 40 percent for customers as well as increased employee retention rates by 25 percent.
Another example is Rise Human & Organisational Development, a South African consultancy agency that partnered with a network of education start-ups in East Africa. They created a shared performance management toolkit featuring shared core competencies such as teamwork, innovation, and accountability. Yet, country-specific guidelines on performance coaching were adapted to include local work ethics and management needs.
Off-the-shelf applications like BambooHR, SeamlessHR, and Zoho People are increasingly used by African HR consultants to automate routine tasks and enable flexible customisations per customer.
Conclusion
The future of HR in Africa’s SME sector is best served by solutions scalable in design but localised in implementation. Consultants have to resist extremes of either a rigid template or a fully bespoke system. A hybrid model leveraging both best practice standards and contextual intelligence, supported by technology, will ensure that systems for onboarding, performance management, and talent development can be adapted and scaled across industry and geography.
For SMEs in a turbulent market environment and consultants who provide support to them, the aspiration must be to make HR a strategic enabler. This goal can be achieved by balancing the act of customisation and standardisation, which makes it not just a design choice but a pathway to sustainable talent management in Africa’s evolving business landscape.
Opelami Ebunoluwa Olajumoke is a seasoned HR expert who has helped organisations achieve extensive and sustainable growth by formulating effective business strategies, driving performance, identifying and developing talent, and embedding a high-performance culture.
