9 minute read
Aadil Patel
LET’S NOT LOSE THE TRUST WE’VE GAINED
The employment relationship is currently marred by a trust deficit because, over the last few months, employers and employees have moved from becoming selfless to being selfish. A s Covid-19 drags on and a new normal becomes our reality, there has been a regression in many workplaces from a period of selflessness into a period of selfishness. A trust deficit has emerged, forcing HR leaders to look at how they can manage and inspire an BY AADIL PATEL the transition from selflessness to selfishness that was attributable to a growing trust deficit in workplaces. Employers began to default. They were not equipped with dealing with remote workers so they began micromanaging employees and expected them to be online all the time. anxious workforce. I see many similarities to the 2007/2008 global finanWhen President Ramaphosa announced the national economic downturn as an opportunity to get rid of lockdown in March, South Africans applauded him non-performers. and workplaces came There is nothing wrong with together. Never in all my years had I seen a level of “...selfishness began embarking on retrenchment processes in the pursuit of trust between employers and employees as we saw to creep in when they profitability. But if that is the path that companies choose towards the end of March and the first two weeks of April. Employers always trusted employees to work from home and expected saw being home as an opportunity to ‘take a to follow, the leaders within those organisations cannot turn around and condemn the selfishness and trust deficit within their workforces. We them to be at their desk. During this period of uncerbreak’ from work…” must understand that trust goes both ways. tainty, employees' financial survival was dependent cial recession in that some employers have seen the on employers and, as a result, they made extra We didn’t listen to the millennials effort to comply with even the most draconian of From an employee perspective, selfishness began expectations. to creep in when they saw being home as an Trust deficit opportunity to "take a break" from work. This was understandable given that they had to manage their But the levels of trust slowly dissipated. Some children's schooling, home chores, and were dealing employees were unable to grasp how to work with a heightened sense of anxiety surrounding what remotely because they had household chores to consoon became a pandemic. tend with, as well as children and home-schooling, which added to the mix of distractions. Even though they may have contemplated the idea of remote working, employers have failed to equip While they may have wanted to be empathetic, managers with the tools necessary to manage peoemployers still had businesses to run and thus began ple working from home. I recently did a matchbook
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survey in which 40 percent of the people I spoke to would rather go back to the office instead of continuing to bear the level of micromanagement they have had to endure while working remotely. I think that is because, after the national lockdown was announced, there was a sudden scurry for technology that would be implemented, not to make employees' lives easier, but simply to monitor their performance – that is, checking the times that people log in and out – instead of checking whether there had been true deliverables. Millennials have been telling us over and over again that they want to be measured, not according to their physical presence, but according to their output. We have failed to heed their advice because we have not effectively prepared for this type of situation, despite having years of notice of the changes to the nature of the workplace. We only have ourselves to blame for being unprepared.
Decriminalise disciplinary procedures
From an employee side, employees began to abuse policies and processes that their organisations had put in place to deal with Covid-19, such as presenting fake sick notes and refusing to come to work despite the many safety measures placed by employers. Others would say they had put themselves in quarantine because they had been in contact with someone that tested positive for the virus in order to get time off. But when the time came for instituting misconduct and disciplinary action to deal with such behaviour, companies needed to reform their approach to discipline to deal with this new world. How do we deal with misconduct and underperformance at a time when we cannot hold formal disciplinary hearings because employees can refuse to attend and cannot be forced to use their own laptop or internet connection? We need something that's agile, flexible and quick. The Labour Relations Act does not stipulate any requirement for companies to hold formal criminal-trial-style disciplinary processes. This is merely something that many HR practitioners had become accustomed to doing even though it is time-consuming, laborious, and expensive. Employers should rather do an internal investigation, and write to the employee inviting them to provide a written submission that should be taken into consideration. That way, they will still be abiding by the fairness principle of allowing employees to be heard. This will allow us to expeditiously deal with discipline and performance during this new working world and the emergence of different forms of misconduct.
PARENTAL LEAVE FOR ALL GENDERS AT THE JSE
In a CHRO Community Conversation, HR leaders tipped their hats to Donald Khumalo and the JSE for introducing a groundbreaking parental leave policy
BY SUNGULA NKABINDE
The CHRO SA Community Conversations, which were introduced as a way to keep HR leaders connected since the national lockdown, and which are hosted in partnership with Workday, have been a huge success. They have been a great platform for HR leaders to ask each other questions, exchange ideas, blow off steam and compare notes on what it's like to be in charge of the people agenda during these trying and uncertain times.
In one of the more recent conversations, JSE HR director Donald Khumalo shed light on the motivation behind the groundbreaking move to introduce a gender-neutral parental leave policy for all employees at the stock exchange. The new policy enables both men and women to play a role in raising their children whether they have come from birth, via adoption, or through a surrogate. Since early July, JSE employees who have recently welcomed a baby into their family have been able to take paid leave over four consecutive months regardless of their gender, tenure or gender identity. Different from maternity leave, which is exclusively for childbearing employees, parental leave allows employees to stagger their time off. That means a new father, for example, can take the leave after the mother's maternity leave so that the child effectively gets eight months of parental care. “We started this journey last year in June because we are a member of the World Federation of Exchanges, which subscribes to the 17 UN Sustainability Goals, and one of those goals is to encourage companies to rid themselves of gender stereotyping policies and introduce gender-neutral policies,” said Donald. “A number of things informed our decision, not least of which was the change in society. The traditional idea of parenthood being one where families are made up of fathers and childbearing mothers is no longer the only reality. Infertility and same-sex relationships are just two examples of scenarios that can lead couples to a different path, and we felt that our parental leave policy needed to reflect that.” Donald said the JSE had added a 'B' to their D&I strategy, which is now their Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging strategy. That is why it was important to ensure that their colleagues from the LGBTQI community are treated with respect and dignity, and afforded an equal opportunity to parent without the challenges of a binary parental policy. At the beginning of this process, one employee told Donald that, while working for a previous employer, they had taken unpaid leave in order to look after their kids because their maternity leave policy did not allow for them to stay home and look after their children while their partner was in ICU in hospital following complications at birth. “These are the kinds of practical considerations we took into account.”
Tough questions
The hardest part about introducing the new policy was, Donald said, convincing the executive team that it would be worthwhile given the cost implications. The leadership looked at the number of men who
had taken paternity leave in the past and, given that the average age at the JSE is 37, there were concerns about the cost implications of a policy like this. Said Donald: “We were very clear that the benefits would far outweigh the costs. I worked very closely with our CFO to put a plan in place around what we would do if the cost would begin to escalate beyond what was reasonably expected. Among other things, we targeted a five percent headcount savings from vacant roles, the savings from which could be allocated to self-fund this policy rather than create an additional cost item.”
HR leaders congratulated Donald and the JSE for the progressive policy, which is seemingly being replicated locally. Vodacom is the most recent company to follow the JSE’s lead, announcing the introduction of a similar policy. With their interest piqued, Donald’s peers shot questions at him to find out how the JSE managed to deal with some of the challenges that can come with a policy of this sort. Globeleq Senior HR manager Laura James asked about employees who may try to game the system. “How can we resolve the potential issue of absent fathers – which is sadly too prevalent in this country – who may take a four-month holiday, leaving their partners to look after the child without their help?” asked Laura.
Donald’s response was that the JSE operates on a basis of trust, saying that employees are not monitored or policed, nor can they be, according to the law. “It's one of the things we dealt with during the focus groups we had in the process of crafting this policy, We trust that employees will take this leave for the purpose it is intended. If they are found to be violating this trust or if it does come to our attention that an employee has abused the system, we will institute disciplinary processes accordingly,” said Donald. Another question came from Alton's Mamcy Letuka who asked about couples in polygamous relationships, particularly given that there a number of traditions in South Africa that see men having multiple wives.
“This was another issue that came up in their focus groups and, while we respect employees’ constitutional rights, we countered this challenge by saying that employees were only entitled to take this leave for one child per annum.”
