Cynthia Ramulifho, the newly appointed Group Executive Director for Corporate and Shared Services at the City of Joburg has big plans of turning the municipality into a high-performing organisation.
A Chartered Professional in Human Resources, Ramulifho also plans to guard against irregular, wasteful, and unauthorised expenditure, to preserve municipal resources. “My department should not have matters that worry the auditor-general,” she says.
She is responsible for empowering City officials with the skills and knowledge to drive performance, inspire change and unlock potential all in a bid to improve service delivery.
Ramulifho will also be steering the City from a paper-based environment by pioneering the e-leave system, e-recruitment and other performance management systems.
By the end of her four-year tenure, Ramulifho wants to have successfully implemented effective performance management and improved staff conditions. She also wants to align service delivery improvements with quality management and to review the organisational structure and implement salary parity.
Ramulifho’s background is in corporate management services with a slant towards performance management, remuneration adjustments, change management and diversity, occupational health and safety, employment equity, corporate fleet management and project management within given timeframes.
She describes herself as a well-organised, reliable, dynamic and strategic leader who is highly motivated, hardworking and a professional of high calibre. She has successfully led organisational design and development, employment equity and individual performance management and remuneration and compensation amongst other projects at several government departments.
A graduate of the University of the Western Cape, Ramulifho holds a BA in Social Sciences and an Honours Degree in Development Planning and Management, among a plethora of qualifications in the field of human resources.
She has worked for the Department of Labour, Police, Defence, and the City of Tshwane before setting her sights in the City of Joburg. “My vast wealth of experience in human resources has motivated me to join the City of Joburg to enhance service delivery and assist the municipality to reach its full potential. However, my priority is to professionalise the City’s corporate and shared services and enhance corporate policies to address employee remuneration,” Ramulifho explains.
She will be prioritising the roll-out of a performance management system. “We are favoured to have a Mayor that puts the interests of employees first; he’s looking at the review of salaries and making sure that everyone is remunerated accordingly,” she explains.
Ramulifho has undertaken benchmarking exercises in Egypt, Israel, France, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US, the UK, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and other neighbouring countries.
“I am not afraid to make changes, no matter how unpopular, so as to create a high-performance team,” she says, adding that her personal motto is “service excellence in everything I do”.
She has been serving as a Commissioner of Oath since 2015 and is one of the founding members of the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust.
Ramulifho has also set her sights at improving the City’s organisational culture in the next two years. “Staff recognition and rewards must complement the City’s performance management policy,” she says.
Ramulifho urges all City employees to collaborate with the current administration in order to improve service delivery. “Everybody needs to come on the bus; we will resolve all challenges as we implement solutions and programmes, but for now we need their support to improve service delivery,” she adds.
