National salary survey launched

remuneration database.
Emcoz president Mr Anthony Mandiwanza said the initiative was a milestone for Zimbabwe, as it has never had such a central database on salaries and wages.
He said the study, to be carried out by 21st Century of South Africa, will cover other Southern African countries for comparison with local trends. Data collection will start in May and the report will be ready by June.
“The rationale for this project is for us to have a central database that gives us an indication of minimum wages that are being paid in the region
“We are extending this survey to get comparative data outside Zimbabwe as you know that the competition is coming from outside Zimbabwe. This is mainly from South Africa, Sadc and China. So we are going to focus on Sadc, which will be useful for decision-makers to arrive at rational decisions on wages and conditions of service for our employees,” he said.
Mr Mandiwanza said the survey was critical as the country has previously had fragmented information from sector specific interest groups. He said a central data system, capturing data from different sections of the economy, will enable companies to come up with productivity-related wages
This is because employees have always had a unanimous position for Poverty Datum Line salaries, but employers did not have a strong position to bargain on.
“If the wages and salaries are not linked to (a firm’s) productivity they become a huge cost to the organisation, (but) if they are linked to productivity they become a source of competitiveness,” said Mr Mandiwanza.
This initiative comes on the back of, often, bruising salary bargaining between workers and employers. While workers demand higher salaries companies argue that is not affordable and out of sync with regional trends.
IMPZ president Mrs Rose Nhamo said that as human resources technocrats they feed information to businesses to make meaningful decisions with well-researched data combined with Emcoz’s own expertise.
“The idea is to make sure that we, as technocrats in human resources, feed information to Emcoz as employers to make meaningful decision with well researched data. So we are taking our technical expertise and combining it with Emcoz’s so that decisions are made,” she said.
Mrs Nhamo said the national salary survey would see Emcoz and IPMZ working together and taking a common approach in educating their members and speaking with a single voice on specific human resource issues.
A representative from 21st Century (South Africa), Ms Thembesile Dladla, said all local firms, would submit the relevant data they will use for the country’s first ever national survey, under the umbrella of IPMZ.
Business lobby groups, namely the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe and the Bankers’ Association of Zimbabwe will be consulted.
“We will be analysing the data on behalf of IMPZ and Emcoz. We will also produce the result (from the national salaries survey) and making recommendations and hopefully it will help Zimbabwe as a whole,” she said.
21st Century specialises and has wide ranging experience on various human resources and remuneration issues and operates across Africa.