Pretoria
Pretoria first hire
Pretoria SolarWorks went from a one-woman show to a compliant team of two in under three months.
Client: Pretoria SolarWorks, from one to two
Pretoria SolarWorks is a Boksburg-based rooftop solar installation firm, founded and run by Zanele Ndlovu. Until October 2023, she managed every job from the first WhatsApp enquiry to wiring in combiner boxes, criss-crossing townships on the Mamelodi taxi route. Turnover had reached R62,000 in September, but admin was showing cracks. Invoices sometimes sat unreconciled for weeks. Zanele did the monthly VAT201 herself, often at 10pm on a Sunday. Most importantly, she was turning away small office installs because she just couldn’t be everywhere at once anymore. With her first full-time hire planned, she came to us for structured support.
Starting point and main bottlenecks
Zanele had no employment contracts yet, and just a basic SARS PAYE number. Payroll admin was a stack of cash slips and one flagged FNB business cheque account. She’d never registered for UIF, didn’t have a COIDA letter of good standing, and had no formal induction plan. Installer safety was mostly oral reminders, not written records. July had seen two missed bids due to late supplier credit notes. One time she even had to trek to Graaff-Reinet for a three-day job, leaving Pretoria work on hold. Project capacity was bumping against the absolute limit of a solo operator.
What we did, week by week
Guided by our Hire Charm and 90-day onboarding ritual pack, we broke the admin into bite-sized weekly missions. Here’s exactly how it went down, with full handover notes for every step.
- Week 1 (2 October): Delivered Hire Charm kit, reviewed Zanele’s CIPC docs, and made a list of missing HR items.
- Week 2: Delivered a compliant employment contract template with fixed-term and permanent clauses. Walked through SARS EMP201 setup on eFiling.
- Week 3: Registered Pretoria SolarWorks for UIF and COIDA. Sent Zanele to the Pretoria labour centre for the COIDA cover letter.
- Week 4: Helped pick a cloud payroll supplier from our supplier shortlist. Set up basic leave policies and drafted an onboarding schedule.
- Week 6: Kicked off the “Safe Site” induction (with real gear checks and sign-off sheets). Showed Zanele how to use our monthly ops rituals to check paperwork and gear.
- Week 8: Trained the new hire, Thabang, on invoice basics with a step-by-step cash calendar.
- Week 9: Final review, covering all paperwork. Handover kit delivered, with three months’ worth of launch notes for future hires.
Results: more jobs, less chaos
By end-December, Zanele’s business had installed five new 5kW systems, three of those while she was off-site. Invoicing errors dropped to zero. Payroll ran on time for the first time in years. She gained one full business day a week back, and stopped working past 8pm. The FNB account issues were sorted with proper supplier references (not perfect yet, but alot better than before). Monthly HR filing now took just 90 minutes instead of a whole Sunday. Thabang stayed on, and the business earned one new municipal facilities contract, worth R24,000, directly thanks to safer work processes.
What stuck, three months later
Three months out, Pretoria SolarWorks was still using our starter kits, especially Hire Charm for every new staff member and Cash Spell for month-end routines. Zanele kept her supplier shortlist updated through our monthly supplier notes, and set a standing 9am Friday slot for ops reviews. Payroll and COIDA compliance are now routine, and Thabang’s already acting as team lead on residential jobs. Zanele tells us she’s finally able to plan her next stage of growth with a bit of breathing room.
