THE international yardstick for measuring the productivity of a telecommunications company is the number of lines per employee.
Telkom increased the number of lines per employee by 8 percent between March 1993 and March this year. It present ratio is 62 lines per employee.
Part of that productivity increase was attained by cutting its staff complement by 3 percent to 60 172 during the same period.
The reduction, says Telkom, was achieved through natural attrition and voluntary early retirement.
Telkom’s target is 74 lines per employee, a productivity increase of around 19 percent.
If Telkom were really serious about productivity its targets should be set much higher. By comparison with the rest of Southern Africa the number of lines per employee is high. By comparison with other countries, none of which is exactly famous for productivity, Telkom’s present figure and its target are both poor.
To get to the telecommunications productivity of Mexico, Telkom would have to do a lot more than natural attrition to bring down the ratio of lines to employees.
A 122 percent improvement in productivity implies not a few retrenchments.