Employee confidence declines

research by Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd.
The overall IPC Employee Confidence Index as at April 30 stood at 56,22 percent.
This represents a 4,13 percentage point decline in Employee Confidence when compared to the Employee Confidence Index in April last year of 60,35 percent, marking the first drop in the index since dollarisation.
IPC managing consultant Mr Memory Nguwi said despite the drop six out of 10 employees feel the general economic and employment environment is improving.
“While employees are seeing an improvement in the macro-economic environment, for instance, Zimbabwe’s inflation regressed 0,30 percent for three consecutive months – January (3,30 percent), February (3 percent) and March (2,70 percent).
“What remains of concern is the Government’s apparent inability to court sufficient Foreign Direct Investment to anchor sustainable industrial growth.
“An area of major concern for employees is that the economy is therefore not creating adequate jobs,” he commented.
This was also reflected in the IPC’s Macro-economic Confidence Index is 72,10 percent.
That is, 72,10 percent of the respondents indicated that the economy is stabilising or improving.
However, 27,90 percent say that the economy is neither stabilising nor improving.
“This sentiment is generally the same across all the surveyed groups. This year’s result represents a 4,90 percent decline from the April 2010 result where 77 percent of the respondents expressed confidence in the economy stabilising and improving.
“This may therefore reflect a general drop in employees’ confidence in the macroeconomic stability and growth,” said Mr Nguwi.
Protracted illiquidity in the economic, meagre cash inflows into the fiscus and a huge debt burden continue amongst other factors continue to threaten the gains made to date in macroeconomic recovery.
During the same period, the IPC Job Security Index stood at 38,65 percent. This particular index looks at whether or not employees felt secure in their current job.
According to the survey, most of the respondents (61,34 percent) felt they were not secure in their current job compared to 38,65 percent that felt secure in their current job.
The index, however, shows a 1,65 percent increase in overall job security amongst Zimbabwean employees when compared to a similar survey in the parallel period last year (37 percent).
The continued threat of retrenchment and staff rationalisation measures amongst other factors may have negatively affected the Job Security Index.
The index also revealed that Zimbabwean employees between the ages 31-40 years are more secure about their jobs whereas those less than 25 years are least secure about their jobs.
This was attributed to the notion that employees grounded with years of experience tend to fall into the former category and are therefore difficult and costly for industry to displace.
The IPC Employer Confidence Index for April stood at 51,80 percent. According to experts this figure is very low.
The index looks at whether or not employees consider the future of their current employer as bright.
Results show that 51,80 percent agreed that the future of the current employer looks bright whilst 48,20 percent of the respondents disagreed.
The evidence shows that local employees do not to have much confidence in their current employers.
During the period under review, a few companies have been performing well. However, the majority continues to make losses since dollarisation.
Over the past year Zimbabwe witnessed a surge in bankruptcies and liquidations, which has served to erode employee confidence in their employers.
The IPC contends that employee confidence in the country is unlikely to increase until the economy begins to create new jobs.