“He is a great role model to all of us and especially our students”, say his supervisor and co-supervisor Human Resource Management’s Prof Michelle Mey (right in the photo) and Dr Amanda Werner (left).
Munodani (37) was born in a small rural village, Maunze in the Chipinge district of Zimbabwe where his parents were farm workers. He was two years old when his father passed away. His mother, not having had a formal education herself, insisted that Munodani obtain decent school education, and worked long hours and took on various jobs to support him through his basic education.
Munodani worked hard and excelled, obtaining sponsorships and opportunities to eventually graduate with a PhD. Even while doing his PhD, he had to make sacrifices, including being away for long periods of time from his wife and three children who are still in Zimbabwe.
For his PhD, he conducted a study on the digitalisation of human resource management in the South African workplace. He surveyed HR directors, HR managers, HR practitioners and line managers in Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City to determine the extent to which their organisations adopted digitalisation, the perceived value added to their organisations, and the evidence of hard value and challenges.
He findings show that value was found at operational and relational levels, but that much more could be done to draw strategic value from human resource management digitilisation, especially in organisational design, culture, talent, and employment relations management.
Munodani is currently teaching on contract at the University and was awarded the Paul Poisat Engagement Award in 2021 for going the extra mile in supporting teaching activities and students.
Previously, he was a lecturer at Cape Peninsula University of Technology from 2016 to 2018 where he obtained his undergraduate qualifications cum laude as well as his MTech Business Administration. He also has a BCom Hons in Human Resources Management cum laude from the Management College of Southern Africa (Mancosa).