adminMatthias Ruziwa HR Issues
Human resource practitioners are facing a litmus test under the current circumstances as they are mainly responsible for managing the exchange relationship between the organisation and its employees and must produce a state of equilibrium through effective human resource policies.
The Zimbabwean labour market is currently in the grip of the most serious Labour Act amendments in its modern history which is having profound effects on the labour market and on the management of human resources. The Supreme Court judgment No. SC43/15 regarding job termination on notice handed down on July 17 2015 resulted in many companies taking advantage of the ruling to terminate workers upon issuing three months’ notice. According to The Herald edition of Monday August 10, 2015, labour bodies have reported that several companies, including parastatals, maximised on the Supreme Court ruling to dismiss more than 20 000 workers in the past two weeks.
According to media reports, Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) president Jack Murehwa has attributed the ongoing massive job cuts triggered by a recent Supreme Court to the poor state of the economy, saying employers were not to blame.
In The Sunday Mail edition of August 2 2015, CZI president Mr Busisa Moyo was quoted as saying: “Businesses have been waiting for labour reforms for a long time now. There has been a platform for negotiating between Government, labour and businesses that have not been fully utilised to come up with one decent position that benefits all parties. The situation could have been avoided. The question is who is to blame for this? I think we are all to blame”.
He further remarked that the job dismissals have been necessitated by the problems businesses were facing which include liquidity constraints, high utility charges and other costs which then impact on an organisation’s ability to carry on a large workforce. However, the CZI president strongly urged companies to exercise restraint.
Trade unions charged with defending their members and employment security have faced challenges without precedent in living memory. Labour bodies have been urging His Excellency, President R. G. Mugabe, to invoke Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) to stop the firing of workers on the basis of the Supreme Court ruling.
According to this week’s Sunday Mail, the President stated that “the wave of job losses triggered by a Supreme Court ruling validating termination of contracts via three months notices is the result of ‘bad’ colonial era laws that are unfair, unjust and unacceptable. The President said while the court interpreted the letter of the law, Government was working on a raft of labour regulation amendments to create a win-win situation for employers and employees”.
The process of amending the current labour laws has already been in place before the birth of the Supreme Court ruling and the Cabinet has resolved to expedite amendments to the Labour Act. A draft Bill with inputs from social partners to the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) is already in place and awaits parliamentary processes.
While some companies have dismissed workers on notice following the Supreme Court ruling, the Government along with the Confederation for Zimbabwe Industries has encouraged employers to exercise restraint. In this article I am particularly interested in sharing possible approaches which HR practitioners may use to contain job losses and help firms to adjust to the actors and forces taking place in the labour market.
The policies and practices used by HR practitioners to help firms adjust to difficult environments are diffuse, but can be categorised under a series of headings, including wage/salary adjustments; employment adjustment; re-organisation of working time; workforce stabilisation; employability; voice and engagement; and process or product innovation.
Efforts to freeze or adjust wage/salary rates downwards are often dominated by the theme of concession bargaining. The term involves union “give backs” to employers in the form of freezes or even cuts in pay and benefits. Concession bargaining is likely to be more successful if based on openness and transparency as well as equality of sacrifice.
In reality both parties should strike a win-win situation where employee gains can include some form of financial participation such as profit sharing or some type of employment security programme based on an approach of having to first growing the cake.
Employment adjustment can be secured by reducing employee numbers or by increasing working time flexibility or a combination of the two. An option open to an organisation seeking to avoid job losses is to develop a workforce stabilisation programme.
A number of specific policies fall within this category, such as a temporary lay-off scheme for employees; in-sourcing production that had previously been outsourced to suppliers or other companies; employee redeployment and staff sabbaticals or similar initiatives. Firms can also re-organise working time to avoid making redundancies, curb overtime, or introduce short-time working.
Keeping employees regularly and fully informed of the organisation’s commercial position as well as management’s plans is considered indispensible to maintaining employee commitment and engagement when adjusting to adverse times. Intensive communications create a strong signal that management are seeking to develop policies which address the interests of employees.
Allowing employees or their representatives to be actively involved in the formulation and implementation of organisational restructuring plans, is likely to result not only in shared understandings being created between employees and managers, but also in effective joint action to restore profitability.
Shrewd business thinking suggests that in difficult times organisations should maintain, if not increase, innovation activities designed to improve organisational products or processes. Such thinking has seeped into HR approaches towards the difficult times.
In terms of how unions have responded to the pressures presented to them by the current labour market trends, the predominant view by any HR specialist is to accept that labour bodies are conversant with the “realities of the situation”, and as HR practitioners, we need to continue engaging the trade unions constructively to ensure that there is sound industrial relations in our organisations. Early and full information disclosure is a critical aspect of good practice in engaging unions.
In conclusion, I would like to say that human resource practitioners are facing a litmus test under the current circumstances as they are mainly responsible for managing the exchange relationship between the organisation and its employees and must produce a state of equilibrium through effective human resource policies.
The current situation is such that besides the workers who have been dismissed, the loyalty and commitment of employees who are still at work is in a compromised state. Let’s rise to the occasion by demonstrating policies that do balance both organisational needs and employee needs while we wait for finalisation of the amendments to the Labour Act through parliamentary processes. Remember you are entrusted to manage the most vital asset in your organisation.
Matthias Ruziwa is an experienced and growing Strategic Human Resources Practitioner. He is also an independent arbitrator practising in the Midlands Province, City of Kwekwe. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. You can contact Matthias at the following email address:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> /WhatsApp 0773 470 368
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