Glenda Daniels
Downsizing, rightsizing, cost-cutting, increased productivity, pruning dead wood. All of these terms, which strike terror into the hearts of employees, need not necessarily result in retrenchment. While workers are feeling more and more insecure and depressed by the South African economy, which is shedding thousands of jobs every month, for some change means new opportunities. Some companies are successfully implementing “turnaround strategies” by organising Future Forums, a social plan devised by the National Productivity Institute (NPI). About 50 companies around South Africa have set up such forums, where management and labour representatives get together to discuss increased productivity while saving the company and jobs.
At Randfreight Circle, a transport freight company, jobs were saved, productivity increased, earnings of workers rose, workers took share ownership of 23%, and the possibilities of strikes have decreased since it launched its Future Forum. “Yes, this is a success story, a deal was struck through the social plan. Previous conflicts such as unreliability have gone, goods are now leaving on time, and all this because workers have a slice of the pie,” says Thulani Dhlamini, collective bargaining secretary at the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, who was involved in the change process. Nearly 100 jobs were saved, he says, “and there is an enormous increase in productivity. There is commitment because workers have a role to play. Other companies should view this as an example to try something new. It will lessen the queues of unemployment and criminality in the country.”
Randfreight’s marketing manager Bruce Thoresson says the company was running at loss last year until a service agreement was put in place after joint management and union talks. One of the incentives to workers, he says, was an “owner-driver” scheme. “Over a period of between six and nine months we developed a joint solution, which included worker share schemes. We are happy. Service has improved, and workers have longer-term employment contracts. It’s an empowerment deal that worked.” The first prize of the social plan is to save jobs, rather than what people think we are doing which is managing retrenchments,” says Ndumiso Matlala, an NPI manager. The NPI was set up by the Department of Labour to provide technical and other assistance for companies that are on the brink of ruin. “The country is shedding jobs at an alarming rate, something has to be done. The Future Forum is being used for the purposes of the social plan. We have to engage companies and parastatals on how to save jobs, and to encourage retraining and reskilling,” says NPI marketing manager Iggy Sathekge. The institute has had successes in the clothing industry and there is now a task team for the public service restructuring process. The NPI has set up one social plan centre so far, in Johannesburg, and about 10 more will open across South Africa. “Strategies in the social plan have to be based on consensus, trust, cooperation, not aggressive management and insecure workers, so that there is a win-win situation. Productivity is enhanced, the company is saved and there are no retrenchments. This is what happened at Randfrieght Circle. Now workers are involved in decision making at the company, and productivity has gone through the roof,” Matlala says. “In our experience, where ordinary workers are empowered there is a difference in productivity, it’s not about the old style of black empowerment where only a few individuals benefited, this is different. “At Randfreight Circle workers are assessed on merit, and paid on productivity. The interesting thing is that there is no inventory anymore [a list of goods leaving a warehouse] because everything that is coming in is moving out so fast. “It’s revolutionary in the South African context. The lesson from this company is to link productivity to empowerment, while adding value to the economy.”