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Last week’s Tripartite Negotiating Forum partners’ re-engagement after labour law amendments reflects a progressive school of thought.
Edmore Mudavanhu
It is a springboard to engineering and helicoptering new horizons of strategic vision and leveraging proactive interventions to revamp the economy.
Now that the Labour Amendment Bill is law, operationalisation is in full swing.
The TNF Bill is in the offing, so to speak, to legislate this voluntary forum and guide interactions among Government, Business and Labour. This adds another feather to the tripartite forum’s cap. Of course, the social partners have competing interests and further amendments to the Labour Act have been proposed, but focus should be on socio-economic positives.
Government’s macro-economic interventions are massive and can turn around Zimbabwe’s fortunes. Authorities have adopted an open-door policy for companies that cannot afford compensation as provided for in the Labour Amendment Act. Job creation should exceed job losses; therefore Government’s thrust to boost productive sectors like agriculture, mining, tourism and manufacturing is commendable. SMEs have been offered various funding schemes to formalise their operations and so input revenue to the fiscus. The Industry and Commerce Ministry has introduced special economic zones, public-private partnerships and joint ventures to attract investors.
In addition, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe — in partnership with foreign financiers — has come up with the Zimbabwe Industrial Fund to set up new industries. Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have also been urged to invest back home and so investment forums are lined up. The National Competitiveness Commission, once the National Incomes and Pricing Commission, awaits its legal slot with the mandate to discuss industrial competitiveness and relaxing conditions of doing business. Government’s re-engagement with lateral and multi-lateral financiers will give impetus to industrial revival and general economic growth. Attempts to proffer balance in both capital-centric and labour-centric propositions are in the spirit of tripartite partnership.
Succinctly, businesses are summarised in terms of their strategic and financial health.
Besides work-a-day challenges, emphasis should be on transformational strategies; cost management; leadership dynamism; human capital innovations and creativity.
Besides the technical and financial sides of productivity, the human capital element’s “soft” skills need to be underlined.
There is an executive suit of interventions to bolster corporate performance; productivity; competitiveness and profit margins. The following, though not exhaustive, is a catalogue of “soft” skills interventions that foster company revival and growth:
1. Labour case studies, diversity management, strategy planning, emotional and cultural intelligence;
2. Business intelligence, ICTs, transformational leadership; and
3. Business process re-engineering, sensitivity training and team development.
These contribute to multi-farious business distinctive competencies, quality workmanship and technology wizardry, thereby making the company’s products and services exportable brands and aggressive enough to penetrate the regional and global markets.
In the same vein, labour federations have to embark on a massive campaign to school their union members as the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling left, surprisingly, high termination figures and dismissed workers grindingly poor on three months’ notice.
I posit that trade unions should always be ready to combat such labour challenge eventualities. Some affected workers can get fired up by taking the entrepreneurial route whilst others may seek alternative sources of employment within and without the country. Workers who have been spared the “chop” need to be exposed to diverse opportunities in the sphere of personal development, notably training; upskilling and multi-skilling.
That way, they will measure up to dictates of the day. The workforce can be exposed to a portfolio of competencies like labour coaching clinics; motivation and innovation initiatives; management and supervisory development and business appreciation courses.
These create a unique stamp of tangible value and an appreciable contribution to the company’s productivity; competitiveness; growth and wide profit margins. So, with the above, the TNF partners need to own their deliverables rather than purchase solutions.
Of paramount importance is implementation of these and other pro-active interventions for the general betterment of the economy and the country at large.
Edmore Mudavanhu is a human resources expert based in Harare, and the Convenor of the Bi-Annual Labour and Business Symposium.
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