Human capital

The group recognises that its employees are its most important asset. Executive management ensures that the group’s value and belief system is inculcated throughout the group by the adherence to the group’s Code of Conduct including ethics, environment, health and safety. All new employees undergo an induction session during which they receive their staff manual comprising of the group’s visions, mission, values, conditions of employment, standard group practices, procedures and policies, as well as a health and safety booklet. Blue Label Telecoms’ human resource department oversees the group’s skills development and training initiatives. Senior management in each of the subsidiaries are responsible for ensuring that group strategy and culture are implemented consistently.

All permanent employees are automatically included in various group-wide schemes, namely group life as well as group benefits such as miTRAFFIC, Look4help, Look4me, MTN WhereRU and MTN 2MyAid.

Group life is an employer-funded benefit which includes death benefit, disability benefit and a funeral benefit. All employees are given the option of joining Discovery Health. All changes to terms and conditions of employment, inclusive of changes to significant operational matters are dealt with on the basis of consultation with staff and mutual buy-in.

Employment equity

The group is committed to achieving equity in the workplace by promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment in employment. The ultimate objective is to create an environment in which all employees are able to compete for job opportunities on the sole criterion of merit and where the demographics at all levels within the workplace are a fair representation of the demographics of the relevant general and regional population.

Each individual subsidiary company monitors their employment equity statistics in line with the targets set for the specific subsidiary company. It has been a group focus area to ensure that job descriptions and functionalities of top, senior and junior management were accurately reflected in the Employment Equity reports submitted on an annual basis to ensure alignment between the dti Codes of Good Practice (CoGP) and the EE2A reports. Blue Label Telecoms is a non-unionised environment.

The table below depicts the demographics of the employee base in the group:

The increase in the total number of employees compared to the previous reporting period is attributable to the group’s expansion and its consequent support requirement.

Training and Skills Development

Detailed training plans addressing the requirements of each individual subsidiary company have been compiled for the majority of the group. These plans are aligned with business and individual requirements as well as the annual work place skills plan. The execution of the training and skills development plans is managed in consultation with the group human resource and transformation manager.

The group is currently reviewing a number of competency-based performance assessment systems to be implemented as a group-wide initiative, which will enable Blue Label Telecoms to assess the performance of employees and hence identify individual training needs, career development objectives, succession planning, remuneration benchmarking and the like. It is anticipated that this will only be in place in the early part of the next financial year.

The group has planned and implemented new training and development initiatives during the year as follows:

Learnership initiatives

Cigicell (Proprietary) Limited, a subsidiary of Blue Label Telecoms, is participating in the contact centre support learnership programme offered by the Services Sector Education and Training Authorities (SSETA). The initiative is proving to be successful, providing skills training and development as well as the possibility of employment to those who would not ordinarily have the opportunity to obtain a qualification. The qualification aims to enhance the provision of entry-level service within the contact centre industry. Contact centres have become key business tools that form an integral part of the way in which organisations are run. The group runs a few contact centre operations, both inbound and outbound and hopes to implement the programmes on a regular basis in the future, across its subsidiaries.

Leadership development skills

A number of the group’s subsidiaries have run leadership programmes aimed at their junior management staff levels. It is based on creating a leadership model that includes self-awareness, group awareness and behaviour design. The workshop develops the staff at both a team and individual level and facilitates the identification of high-potential members for the succession planning process.

Living Leadership

Velociti (Proprietary) Limited, a subsidiary of Blue Label Telecoms, runs a “Living Leadership” programme aimed at developing their management levels. This workshop has been highly effective and looks at leadership and its relevance in order to transform both the individual and business. It focuses on insights and skills to enable staff to realise their full potential and to use those skills within the work environment.