Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Employee empowerment – South Africa – Pretoria »

Transnet Engineering is a division of Transnet, which is a key South African state owned enterprise that is responsible for providing railroad, freight and logistics services to South African and international business enterprises. Transnet Engineering is located at Koedoespoort, just outside Pretoria, South Africa. This manuscript is a result of data gathered from 198 employees of Transnet Engineering as part of an attempt made by the company to describe and quantify the perception held by employees of Transnet Engineering on the degree to which the performance of appraisal system used by the company for performance appraisal was suitable enough for its intended purpose. The perception of employees was measured by using a benchmark defined by Pichler (2012) in which similar measurements were made under near-identical circumstances. All measurements were taken based on a standardised, validated and pre-tested instrument. Pearson’s two-by-two chi-squared tests of associations, discriminant analysis and logit regression were used for analyses. The study found that about 63% of participants were happy with the performance appraisal system used by the company, whereas about 37% of participants held a negative perception. The results confirmed that the perception of employees about the performance appraisal system used at Transnet Engineering was affected by the perception of employees on fairness, and the assessment of performance of employees based on key performance indicators. Findings obtained from the study are quite relevant and valuable to all other South African state owned enterprises.

Manpower is a vital possession of any organization and the survival of any organization is dependent on the quality and empowerment of its employees, presence of good ethical climate, organizational support and commitment by top management to the organisation. An enabled manpower results in an efficient and effective organization. There is an urgent need for South Africa's companies to develop cultures that foster positive work environments and increase productivity. Achieving this is not an easy task and one of the ways to developing this culture is in the area of employee empowerment, ethical climate, organizational support and top management commitment which will ultimately lead to employee job satisfaction. Hence this paper is trying to look at the influence of employee empowerment, ethical climate, organisational support and top management commitment on employee job satisfaction, an area that seem to have been neglected by researchers considering companies in the Gauteng province of South Africa. In today’s work environment, employees are needed to make decisions, take initiative, take responsibility and find solutions to problems as well as being motivated and having the best interest of the company at heart. This study used a quantitative research methodology through using Smart PLS software to analyse the data. A sample of 200 registered companies in the Gauteng province was used to collect data from employees in both managerial and non-managerial positions. All the posited 4 hypotheses were supported by the data collected.

The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are important to the South African economy and social development. This paper discusses the case of Ga-Rankuwa Township SMEs, causes of their proven failure and the methods used by the SMEs owned by people who came from foreign countries and operating in this township. These foreign SMEs did not have access to loans for business. On the other hand the local ones could apply for the loans but many did not know how and where. The locals then forfeited the opportunity, but still refused to partner with foreign ones who could assist them. The foreign ones were more successful in using business skills and knowledge to nurture their SMEs. They also contributed to the township’s economy by employing local people. Recommendations include that local SMEs should partner with foreign ones to develop synergies, and that the SME agency, Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) should design policies for foreign SME access to business loan funds by ensuring and enforcing local empowerment as part of their loan access package

South Africa is heralded as a global ambassador for the rights of domestic workers. Empowerment, however, remains an elusive concept within the sector. Fear-based disempowerment still characterises the employment relationship, resulting in an absence of an employee voice. The dire need to survive renders this sector silent. This article explores the role that legislative awareness can play in the everyday lives of domestic workers. By means of a post-positive, forwardlooking positive psychological and phenomenological research design the researchers sought to access the voiced experiences of domestic workers within their employment context. Consequently, purposive, respondent-driven selfsampling knowledgeable participants were recruited. In-depth interviewing generated the data. The distinct voice of each participant was noted during an open inductive approach to data analysis. Findings indicated that empowerment was an unknown construct for all participants. They lacked the confidence to engage their employers on employment issues. Nevertheless, domestic workers should embrace ownership and endeavour to empower themselves. This would sanction their right to assert their expectations of employment standards with confidence and use the judicial system to bring about compliant actions. The article concludes with the notion that legislative awareness could result in empowered actions though informed employee voices.

Mentorship programmes are popular for the development of black managers in South Africa. In the literature, controversy surrounds attempts to institutionalize mentorship. In this article it is argued that the concept of a learning partnership should replace that of mentorship, particularly in what are seen to be learning organizations. Many mentorship programmes are predicated on the belief that a warm and caring relationship is a prerequisite for effective development of protégés. Redefining the desired relationship as a learning partnership removes this demand on the relationship and places it squarely in the confines of a normal business affiliation in which the focus is mutual learning. Essential to the process of black advancement is empowerment. There are a number of dimensions to empowerment. In this article three key dimensions are discussed in relation to the development of black managers, namely objective power, subjective power and empowerment in competence. Based on insights gained in the initial phases of a mentorship programme implemented in a leading information technology company, a number of principles are offered for implementing learning partnerships in a learning organization. These revolve around the need to use a new paradigm to interpret the learning experiences that constitute a developmental relationship between a young and promising employee and a more experienced and knowledgeable manager.

To identify the critical success factors in the adoption of energy efficiency actions in Brazilian hospitals and describe their behaviour are the objectives of this paper. In order to achieve these goals, a literature review was performed on green management and energy efficiency. This was the basis to define the questions of the interview script applied to two hospitals located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The interview script application was complemented by secondary data and direct observation. The results showed that: a) the studied hospitals are embracing environmental management actions more often and, whenever possible, energy efficiency actions are taken as well; and b) in the cases analysed top management support, commitment with the environment, green process design and employee empowerment were some of the most relevant critical success factors to the accomplishment of energy efficiency actions. These findings may be of interest to emerging countries, including BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to investigate the personnel attributes perception on reliable and valid health and safety (H&S) practices within small- and medium-sized construction enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa. It explores whether these valid and reliable H&S practices could be implemented based on the demographic attributes, namely, years of experience in the construction industry, number of years working in the current organisation and educational level. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed method approach was used to conduct this research, namely, Delphi and questionnaire survey. A structured questionnaire consisting of 31 H&S practices categorised into five major H&S practices was developed from extensive literature review and the participation of 20 purposive sampled H&S experts. Sixteen H&S experts completed four iterations. A convenient sample of 1,450 SMEs was obtained. In total, 228 questionnaires were returned, of which 216 responses were useable for analysis. The data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to determine the validity, reliability and acceptability of the H&S practices. Finally, one-way ANOVA and t-test were conducted to determine personnel attributes perception on the implementation of the H&S practices. Findings – The five major H&S practices (constructs), namely, upper management commitment and involvement in H&S, employee involvement and empowerment in H&S, project supervision, project H&S planning and communication in H&S and H&S resources and training, were retained as reliable and valid practices of H&S within construction SMEs at project level. One-way ANOVA established no statistical significant difference on the respondents’ perception of the H&S practices. However, t-test revealed statistically significant difference on the respondents’ perception on, upper management commitment and involvement in H&S and H&S resources and training. The respondents with post-matric qualification strongly agreed that upper management are committed and involved in H&S. Originality/value – The findings may help construction SMEs to use these H&S practices to manage H&S in their projects. The SMEs may also consider the level of education of their personnel when implementing H&S practices of upper management and H&S resources and training.

Since 2004, the Drama Department (University of Pretoria) has engaged in the development and execution of Theatre-for-Development projects in accordance with the mission statement of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), as well as the White Paper on Integrated Pollution and Waste Management for South Africa (1998) – shifting governmental approach to this sensitive socio-economical issue from cure to prevention – to interrogate issues concerning the environment, sustainable use of resources and subsequently: conservation, within developing urban and rural communities. Theatrefor-Development (TFD) utilizes theatre to disseminate developmental messages.This paper should be seen as not so much as a report of an end result, but as research in progress. Continued projects addressing the issues of conservation, the environment, development and sustainability will in future lead to more definite reporting on results. The paper investigates the ability of TFD to affect changes of behaviour and encourage personal agency and empowerment in community members concerning waste management and the sustainable use of resources within a developing rural society.It will not claim to be definitive; results and conclusions can not be generalized.

Orientation: The predominant theme of this research attends to the role of perceived positive leadership behaviour in relation to employee outcomes (psychological empowerment, work engagement, and satisfaction with life).Research purpose: The objective of this study was to investigate whether perceived positive leadership behaviour could predict psychological empowerment, work engagement, and satisfaction with life of employees in a chemical organisation in South Africa and whether positive leadership behaviour has an indirect effect on employees work engagement and satisfaction with life by means of psychological empowerment. Motivation for the study: The motivation for this study arose from the evident gap in academic literature as well as in terms of practical implications for the chemical industry regarding positive leadership behaviour, psychological empowerment, work engagement and satisfaction with life of employees. Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used with a convenience sample (n = 322). Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to examine the structural relationships between the constructs. Main findings: Statistically significant relationships were found between positive leadership behaviour, psychological empowerment, work engagement and satisfaction with life of employees. Positive leadership has an indirect effect on work engagement and satisfaction with life via psychological empowerment.Practical/managerial implications: This study adds to the lack of literature in terms of positive leadership, psychological empowerment, work engagement and satisfaction with life within a chemical industry. It can also assist managers and personnel within the chemical industry to understand and perhaps further investigate relationships that exist between the above mentioned concepts.Contribution/value-add: It is recommended that leadership discussions, short training programs and individual coaching about positive leadership and particularly psychological empowerment take place.

Orientation: Today, knowledge is a commodity and thus skilled knowledge workers, particularly in management positions, are vital for organisations’ success; their increased turnover has an adverse effect on productivity and profitability. High staff turnover is a cause for alarm, not only because of the costs associated with recruitment, selection and training, but also due to the increasing scarcity of experienced talent.Research purpose: This research investigates the reasons for the turnover of middle and senior managers in the pharmaceutical industry in South Africa in order to identify the possible reasons and formulate solutions to address the issue.Motivation for the study: In South Africa, employment, retention and turnover occur against the backdrop of a history of discrimination and inequality and attempts by government and organisations at redress. The significance of this background cannot be underestimated.Research approach, design and method: This study was qualitative and inductive to allow dominant themes to emerge from the raw data. Data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured one-on-one interviews as well as a review of company turnover reports and employment equity reports.Main findings: The study found that in the sampled organisations, employee turnover averaged almost 22% per annum between 2007 and 2010. Reasons for the turnover include a range of industry, company and personal factors.Practical/managerial implications: The overall turnover rate remains high, particularly amongst black knowledge workers, the attraction, recruitment and retention of whom is as important for addressing historical inequities in the local industry as it is for ensuring the diversity that companies need to reach a bigger market and gain a competitive edge. Further, as government is a significant purchaser of pharmaceutical goods and services, companies must ensure that the required Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) rating level is achieved so they can continue to win government business.Contribution: The research found that it is important that the turnover rate of knowledge workers in the South African pharmaceutical industry be reduced through addressing the personal, organisational and industry factors that the workers themselves view as important, rather than giving consideration only to what human resource managers perceive as important. In particular, sufficient significance must be placed on personal factors.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015.
When one refers to tertiary education in general or specific institutions, its academic functions and features are paramount. Often, there is little dialogue around those who constitute most of the workforce, the administrative staff, and more specifically, the frontline administrators. Given that frontline administrators are ‘customer-facing’ and that their behaviour could significantly influence perceptions of the organisation, these staff members are often portrayed as ones who do not have any authority at work but merely serve a support role. Ensuring that these staff members are ‘taken care of’ is an operational way of guaranteeing that the customers (staff and stakeholders) have a pleasant experience that could positively affect the bottom line. The working lives, feelings of efficiency, job satisfaction and overall empowerment of frontline administrative staff, especially in tertiary education, have not been well documented in scholarly literature. This research project attempts to identify areas where universities of technology could take cognisance of the power that frontline administrative staff hold and also to ascertain how to improve their overall work experience.

The South African banking industry is currently facing increasing macro- and micro-environmental pressures which had led banks to move towards customer-oriented strategies. This has influenced the way their systems and processes are developed and innovated to provide a satisfactory service to their clients. It appears that service quality has been the differentiating factor that has set the competitors apart in providing their customers with a unique customer experience through client relationships and interaction. As a consequence, banks have resorted to implementing various training and leadership interventions as a driver, to effectively empower their employees to improve service quality The aim of this research study was to identify the impact that training and leadership programmes implemented by a particular branch of Standard Bank South Africa (SBSA) had on employee empowerment. This was achieved through a comprehensive literature review and an empirical study to measure whether employees had perceived themselves to be empowered. The results from this study will be used by the Human Resource Division of SBSA to evaluate and implement effective training methods for the employees of the selected branch in order to improve employee empowerment. This would serve as a great benefit for the bank as employees that are satisfied with the work are generally more productive, hence producing increased revenue for the organisation. An empirical study was embarked on to measure the respondents’ perception of being empowered and involved a survey of eighty-three employees of the retail branch in the Sandton, Johannesburg area. Forty-three of the employees responded to the anonymous questionnaire and the data obtained was analysed and interpreted into meaningful results. The results of the survey indicated that the majority of the employees at the selected branch perceived themselves to be empowered and it was concluded that the implementation of the training and leadership programmes by SBSA had a positive impact on them. The following recommendations were made: - Firstly, to increase training and development, in the form of leadership courses, inter-departmental learning and on-the-job training sessions to develop the employees to their full potential; - Secondly, management needs to encourage employees to participate in discussion forums and staff meetings and involve them in decision-making thus improving the perceived lack of a free-flow of information and transparency within the workplace; - Thirdly, team leaders and supervisors should encourage support and coaching of the junior employees by giving them constructive on-going feedback, supporting their ideas, delegating tasks, and giving them direction on the way forward; - Fourthly, a review of the reward and recognition system would be advisable where employees are rewarded (financially or non-financially) for a job or task well done, or to promote certain behaviours and attitudes in the workplace; and - Finally, it was recommended that the employees be informed and educated on the benefits, associated for both the employees and the organisation, of the Scheme in order to increase their commitment and performance. The empowerment of employees in the organisation is important as it involves employees who take responsibility for their decisions and actions because they are primarily the ones who solve the problems in their own teams. Empowerment in organisations can thus lead to less absenteeism, lower employee turnover, less employee training costs, increased employee satisfaction and more productive employees.

The purpose of this treatise is to ascertain the impact of economic downturn on Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Banks. This has been sparked by the huge speculations in the market as to what will happen to BEE and how will the banks cope in general with the impact of this scourge. It is imperative to understand the influence of the 2008+ economic downturn on socio-economic reconstruction and development in South Africa and the black economic empowerment and its funding mechanisms. The treatise has two phases the, namely the theoretical phase and a bit of narrative phase. In the theoretical phase the research study interrogates what the literature review reveals about the economic downturn, BEE as well as performances of different banks across the world. This shows the economic impact that the banks have had to endure during the economic downturn. This resulted in stock markets losing their value. The dividend earners were significantly affected including a sizeable number of BEE companies. The BEE companies are perceived to be too reliant on debt on to finance their deals and this treatise will look at various options of financing a BEE deal and what is deem to the most suited financing structure. The narrative phase involves semi-structured interviews that were conducted in order to ascertain the real impact that South African were faced with and how they have managed to steer clear of the turbulent waters. This also looked at how the BEE consultant views the current occurrences in the market.

There has been some concern that the pace of expectations being built up regarding the transfer of ownership of the economy into the hands of the previously disadvantaged was not allowing for the due diligence and analysis of the implications of such transactions. Tax legislation relating to the transfer of assets is also not seen to be consistently conducive to this process. The focus of this thesis is taxation and a critical analysis of how the current tax legislation affects most of the transactions which usually form the basis of black economic empowerment. It is argued that tax policy is one of the fundamental instruments available to government to encourage the process of black economic empowerment. It is therefore important to assess whether or not current tax legislation is supportive of the process of black economic empowerment and to suggest ways in which it can be amended to serve this purpose. By means of a literature review and a case study of a Black Economic Empowerment deal in the financial sector, the thesis examines various sections of the Income Tax Act, 58 of 1962, which may have a bearing on black economic empowerment transactions and structures, including corporate restructuring rules, the taxation of trusts, inter-company loans, the use of hybrid financial instruments, the taxation of small business corporations, employee share incentive schemes, connected persons rules and value-shifting arrangements, the general deduction formula and the deductibility of interest incurred on amounts raised to acquire shares. It appears that although some aspects of the current tax legislation lend themselves to assisting black economic empowerment transactions, there are still areas where much improvement is required.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the empowerment needs of councillors in a municipality. The main focus was to assess the successes or inadequacies of the empowerment programmes previously offered to councillors by the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality. In order to achieve the research objectives an in-depth literature study was undertaken. A survey was also conducted to examine the level of empowerment being offered by the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality to its councillors and the data was collected by means of self-administered questionnaires. The literature study proved the hypothesis to be correct, which stated that empowered councillors could enhance effective public participation, effective communication which could result in effective service delivery. The empirical study revealed that certain councillors require adequate training in areas such as communication skills, council’s rules of procedures and new developmental mandate assigned to local government. The empirical survey also revealed that there is limited mutual trust between councillors and the senior officials, immediate intervention is required to restore trust between councillors and officials. It has been recommended that King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality should not only provide regular “in house” training, but also training conducted by outside agencies is required. In certain instances, one may find that municipalities may not have fully capacitated persons for “in house” training. Thus, outside agencies which possess the relevant expertise such as universities and SALGA should be encouraged to also facilitate capacity training for councillors.

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Magister Technologiae: Marketing in the Faculty of Business at the: CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, 2009
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) aims to enable Black people in South Africa (SA), as legislatively classified, to make a noteworthy contribution to the local economy by irreversibly altering the racial profile of ownership, management echelons and all employment levels of existing and new organisations. This ambitious strategy hopes to encourage economic transformation by eliminating unfair discrimination; applying affirmative action (AA) policies; empowering Black women and facilitating access to land, infrastructure, economic activities, ownership, as well as training and skills development (SA. DTI, 2004a:4-5). The transformation process in SA has been a lengthy and complex one, with the government slowly enacting enabling legislation. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Codes of Good Practice was gazetted on 9 February 2007 and this significant piece of legislation has provided a framework to guide and measure transformation activities. The advertising industry has been criticised for its slow empowerment advancement, which led to two parliamentary hearings in the early 2000s to investigate allegations of racism and poor transformation progress. The Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) gave full cooperation during the parliamentary hearings and has been a main driving force of transformation within the advertising industry. The ACA’s dedication resulted in the Marketing, Advertising and Communication (MAC) sector charter being gazetted on 29 August 2008 (Jones, 2008). There are few studies that have effectively investigated transformation and BEE progress within the South African advertising industry over recent years. Of these, none has yielded rich qualitative BEE data. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to explore progress made by advertising agencies towards transformation in the Cape Peninsula, as well as the challenges and benefits that result from implementing BEE measures in terms of BBBEE ownership and Employment Equity (EE). These elements have been thoroughly examined by utilising a multiple case study approach and by interviewing the top twelve traditional full-service advertising agencies through use of a semi-structured interview guide, which primarily generated in-depth qualitative data. Cape Town based advertising agencies readily provided a wealth of data, which illuminated numerous previously unexplored positive and negative BEE issues. Recent BEE internal advertising agency documents, literature, surveys and other research studies were used to corroborate and verify the findings in order to reach a consensus, compromise or disagreement in the subsequent discussion. The advertising industry has employed a multitude of innovative BEE strategies to facilitate transformation progress and to address a number of inherent problems. This has resulted in several success stories and numerous benefits as Cape Town based advertising agencies have embarked on their varied transformation journeys. The recommendations of this study would be useful to the national advertising industry, other sectors and government to assist in streamlining the transformation process in SA.

Thesis (DTech(Tourism and Hospitality Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011
This study reports on the findings of research that was conducted amongst tour operators in South Africa in an attempt to determine the level of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) in the sub-sector as well as to determine measures that will expedite BEE. The survey method was deployed to generate primary data from this target market and the Chi square method used to determine causality between the size of enterprises and the support for BEE in principle. This method was also used to determine if the size of an enterprise influences the propensity to support and apply BEE in tour operating enterprises as well as the utilization of incentives.The research indicate that the vast majority of tour operating enterprises in South Africa are small businesses with 62,3% indicating a turnover of R2,5million or less per annum and 63,9% indicating that they employ two or less full time employees. In terms of ownership, 14,3% of respondents indicated that they are 100% black owned. The fact that these enterprises are small makes it difficult to attract investment or involvement from Previously Disadvantaged Individuals (PDI’s) although 72% of respondents indicated that they support BEE in principle. However the application of BEE in these enterprises are only supported by 61,8% of respondents and the degree of implementation vary according to the different components of the tourism scorecard. In terms of the seven pillars of the tourism scorecard, the procurement and social investment pillars achieved the best results.In order to grow this sub-sector and create opportunities for BEE expansion, government needs to provide training and education interventions as well as dedicated incentives to assist tour operators in gaining access to markets and capital goods. The suitability of all the pillars in the tourism BEE scorecard is questioned due to the nature of small businesses and further research needs to be done on the other sub-sectors in tourism to determine a scorecard that can be effectively implemented.A model for business growth is proposed to enhance the BEE efforts and to create opportunities for fast growth and new start-up businesses. The model consists of interventions aimed at the following four areas:  Enterprise level (new start-ups and fast growth enterprises)  Sector specific environment  Economic growth in the external environment, and  New target markets A recommendation to the National Minister for Tourism during the course of this study has resulted in the provision for a national tourism database in the Tourism Bill (2011).

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Despite workplace bullying becoming more prevalent today, limited focus has been placed on this phenomenon within the organisational research context. It is important to note that this particular field of study still seems to be fairly new. Preventative measures for workplace bullying have focused on organisations taking responsibility through revisiting organisational leadership and culture, implementing policies and programmes, one of which includes coaching interventions. The present study set out to state that through effective and well-directed coaching interventions, awareness regarding workplace bullying can be created on both an individual and organisational level. The main objective of the study was to explore what coaching interventions and techniques can be used in coaching to address workplace bullying in South Africa. This study, positioned in the interpretivist paradigm, explored the personal experiences of 13 qualified and registered business coaches with COMENSA in South Africa, regarding their understanding, experience and knowledge of coaching related to workplace bullying from the sample group, through qualitative data. The sample group participated in individual semi-structured interviews relaying their experiences by answering specific questions, formulated as guidelines to the study. The questions were grouped into four categories, in order to analyse the qualitative data by using the content analysis method. The study found that coaches are increasingly faced with the responsibility to coach individuals related to workplace bullying, that it is a definite problem in South African organisations, but that organisations are currently not addressing it. The sample group in general had an average understanding of the concept of workplace bullying. However, their experience in workplace bullying contributed to insight on a number of factors, not obtained from literature. This also included the identification of several approaches, techniques and tools, which have been used with great effectiveness, whether coaching bullies or individuals being bullied. The sample group also emphasised a number of critical areas that coaches need to be aware of, including the importance of coaching supervision, proper contracting with clients and the effect that workplace bullying have on the coach himself, to mention just a few. The study focused on discussing the findings of this study by analysing and comparing the specific results, with previous literature, research and studies. The literature mentioned a number of theoretical underpinnings that can be used in workplace bullying coaching, but the study found more value in the processes followed by the coaches regarding effective coaching interventions, combined with approaches, tools and techniques, which are indicated specifically in the study. It was also found that an effective workplace bullying coach should have a good knowledge of organisations, organisational culture and the dynamics in business. In relation to South Africa’s focus on workplace bullying, the study found that this is greatly lacking, and special attempts should be made to create awareness of the topic in South African organisations. Investigations are proposed to incorporate workplace bullying into the South African labour legislation and to establish a Workplace Bullying Body to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate and regulate workplace bullying in South Africa.

An employee wellness programme is a programme that promotes and supports the well-being of its employees and is aimed at increasing productivity. Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are used as a means of ensuring employee wellness. Employee Assistance Programme can be defined as a programme aimed at improving the quality of life of employees and their families by providing support and helping to alleviate the impact of everyday work and personal problems. EAPs are intended to help employees deal with their personal problems that might adversely impact their work performance, health and well-being. The main goal of the EAP is to enhance productivity as well as social functioning of individuals.The main objective of the study as to evaluate the Employee Assistance Programmes and the impact of Workplace Wellness on employee performance in the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature. This was triggered by the fact that Wellness and EAPs are not visible in the ECPL and the Legislature continues to lose employees due to ill-health and resignations. The institution is characterised by a culture of “us” and “them”, us, referring to Labour and them to Management, and therefore resulting in low staff morale. This raised some concern from the researcher as there is an EAP paid for by the Legislature, but awareness, utilisation and effectiveness of the programme remain a challenge. Due to the nature of the institution’s core business, it is perhaps even more vital for the Legislature to create an organisational culture of caring and employees to be nurtured. It is believed that it is more cost effective and beneficial to both the employer and the employee to retain trained employees, than it is to lose troubled employees and hire new ones, in particular because there is no guarantee that the new ones will not, in time also show signs of problems. The researcher used applied research in this study to explore the need for the EAP as well as how best the programme can be implemented. A combination of an explanatory-descriptive design was used for this study because little is known about the phenomenon or programme. For this research, the researcher used a combination of interval/systematic and random sampling to complement each other in reducing any bias that has the potential of occurring when applying interval/systematic sampling. To get representation and precision, the researcher divided 285 employees according to their ranks. The results from this attempt were: Secretariat=25, Management=42, Administrative staff=196, General Workers=33 NEHAWU Shopstewards=10. The researcher then divided employees in each respective category by one tenth or 10% of each category to get the number of respondents from each category to be included in the sample and added up all categories to get the sample size. The sample of this study was thus, Secretariat=1, Management=4, Administrative staff=20, General workers=3 and NEHAWU Shopstewards=1 and made up a sample size of 29. Only one questionnaire was compiled for all the respondents because EAP recognise that employees start from the CEO of a company to the lowest paid employee in that company and, as such considers all employees to be equal. Research results indicated that there are some limitations in the utilisation of EAP and that employees are faced with both personal and work-related problems. Thus it became clear that the whole concept of Employee Wellness and Employee Assistance Programmes needed to be overhauled and restructured to ensure maximum benefit.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2005.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act, Act 53 of 2003, has made it essential that businesses with more than fifty employees become black empowered in the shortest possible time frame (2-3 years) which is both practically possible and economically feasible. The aim with government's introduction of BBBEE is to address inequalities resulting from the systematic exclusion of the majority of South Africans from meaningful participation in the economy. With the introduction of the BBBEE Code of Good Practice, compliance with the requirements as set out by the government was further defined. A balanced scorecard has been introduced by the Department of Trade and Industry that assists companies to measure their level of integration. Compliance to the legislation has become a necessity for businesses in South Africa to be competitive and to grow. The balanced scorecard and the ever mounting pressure to be competitive have resulted in black economic empowerment (BEE) transactions being more focussed on equity deals than on truly empowerment. A hypothesis is that these types of transactions would not be sustainable due to the nature of the relationships and seeming lack of strategic processes. With the current balanced scorecard, there is also no provision made for the measurement of sustainability. To be competitive remains the key to any business' strategic objectives. This would therefore imply that the BEE transactions should hold a competitive advantage for the business and promote the objective of black economic empowerment as a socioeconomic process, ultimately contributing to the economic transformation of South Africa. It is within this context that the study explored the application of growth strategies and the modelling of these strategies to BEE. An exploratory and mainly descriptive research study was conducted to determine whether a model for sustainable empowerment could be developed using the strategic growth strategies as the framework. Each strategy, namely diversification, mergers and acquisition and strategic alliances was evaluated in terms of its contribution to the competitive advantage of a company. Using the principles from a strategic growth perspective it is believed that a number of concerns for small and medium size businesses in South Africa could be addressed. These include amongst others, growing more competitively through diversification into the core business, selecting partnerships/alliances that match the strategy of the company, avoiding fronting through the establishment of strategic alliances based on the improvement of efficiency and effectiveness, transferring skills and knowledge through diversification, strengthening existing business domain through an alliance that enhances the core strengths of a company. The recommendation to apply a more strategic model to BEE also resulted in the recommendation of a more comprehensive tool to measure the effectiveness and the sustainability of the growth strategy. A recommendation is made to apply the balanced scorecard and to integrate the strategic objectives of the company with the BEE objectives defined by government. The result is a model that reflects the sustainable competitive advantage of a business aligned with its vision and mission. Both the competitive advantage and sustainability are therefore addressed through the model application that would, in all likelihood, also prove to have a direct effect on the financial outcome of the business in the future. BEE, in its legislative form, is unique to South Africa and is a strategic tool to contribute to the economic transformation of South Africa. In a country that is in the process of creating a new middle class, this model could have a distinct impact on other developing countries in the world and further research on the application of a sustainable BEE model to create economic prosperity in the developing society could prove to be of significant value.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ingevolge die Algemene Swart Ekonomiese Bemagtigings (BBBEE) Wetgewing, Wet 53 van 2003, is dit vir sake-ondernemings met meer as vyftig werknemers noodsaaklik om swart bemagtiging in die kortste moontlike tydsbestek (2 - 3 jaar) in werking te stel; 'n tydsduur wat beide prakties haalbaar en ekonomies uitvoerbaar is. Die meerderheid Suid- Afrikaners is van enige betekenisvolle deelname in die ekonomie stelselmatig uitgesluit en die regering se oogmerk met die implementering van die BBBEE is om dié ongelykheid uit die weg te ruim. Met die invoering van die gedragskode is die vlak van inskiklikheid meer breedvoerig gedefinieer. Ter wille van mededingendheid en groei het dit vir sake-ondernemings noodsaaklik geword om hierdie betrokke wetgewing te ondersteun. Die ewewigtige meetinstrument en die voortdurende druk om 'n hoër vlak van mededingendheid het tot gevolg dat daar meer gekonsentreer word op gewone aandeletransaksies as op ware bemagtiging. 'n Hipotese is dat hierdie tipe transaksies nie volhoudbaar sal wees nie weens die aard van die verhoudings en skynbare gebrek aan strategiese prosesse. Met die huidige meetinstrument is daar ook geen voorsiening gemaak vir die meting van volhoudbaarheid nie. Van kardinale belang vir enige sake-onderneming is om mededingend handel te dryf. Dit veronderstel dat die BEE-transaksies behoort 'n mededingende voordeel vir die sakewêreld te ondervang en die doelwitte van swart bemagtiging as 'n sosio-ekonomiese proses te bevorder. Hierdie benadering sal mettertyd 'n wesenlike bydrae lewer tot die transformasie van Suid-Afrika. Dit is binne hierdie verband wat hierdie studie die toepassing van groei-strategieë nagevors het en voorts die uitvoering van hierdie strategieë vir BEE toe te pas. 'n Ondersoekende- en hoofsaaklik beskrywende navorsingstudie is onderneem om te bepaal watter model vir standhoudende bemagtiging ontwikkel kan word met gebruik van die strategiese groeistrategieë as raamwerk. Elke strategie, dit wil sê diversifisering, samesmeltings en strategiese alliansies en venootskappe, is in terme van hulle bydrae tot die mededingende voordeel van die maatskappy, beoordeel. Met die toepassing vanuit 'n strategiese groei-perspektief, is die skrywer van mening dat verskeie besorgdhede oor BEE vir klein- en medium sake-ondernemings in Suid-Afrika aangespreek kan word. Dit sluit onder andere in, om mededingendheid te ontwikkel deur diversifikasie in die sake kern, selektering van vennootskappe/ alliansies wat ooreenstem met die strategie van die maatskappy. Ook deur frontering te verhoed deur die vestiging van strategiese samewerking, gegrond op verbeterde doeltreffendheid en doelmatigheid. Voorts deur kennis en vaardigheid oor te dra deur diversifikasie, versterking van die bestaande sakedomein deur samewerking, wat die inherente krag van die maatskappy ondervang. Die aanbeveling om 'n meer betekenisvolle model vir BEE toe te pas het gelei tot 'n aanbeveling vir 'n meer toepaslike instrument om die doelmatigheid en standhoudenheid van die groeistrategie te meet. Ook word aanbeveel dat die ewewigtige meetinstrument toegepas word en die strategiese doelwitte van die maatskappy te integreer met die BEE doelwitte, soos deur die regering gedefinieer. Die uitkoms is 'n model wat die volhoubare mededingende voordeel van 'n sake-onderneming, gerig op sy visie en missie, weerspieël. Beide die mededingende voordeel en volhoubaarheid word dus aangespreek deur die toepassing van die model, wat in alle waarskynlikheid ook sal bewys dat dit 'n direkte invloed op die toekomstige finansiële uitkoms van die sake-onderneming sal uitoefen. BEE, in sy wetgewende formaat, is eie aan Suid-Afrika en is 'n strategiese instrument wat bydra tot die ekonomiese transformasie van Suid-Afrika. In 'n land wat in die proses is van die skepping van 'n nuwe middelklas, kan hierdie model 'n besliste uitwerking hê op ander ontwikkelende lande in die wêreld. Verdere navorsing in die toepassing van 'n volhoudbare BEE-model om ekonomiese vooruitgang in die ontwikkelende samelewing te bewerkstellig kan heel waarskynlik 'n betekenisvolle bydrae lewer.