The dynamic effect and implication of retrenchment on existing staff in Durban Telkom.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Retrenchment has become a common practise utilized to improve organisational performance. Although retrenchments have increasingly become part of standard managerial strategies in organisations, their efficacy in increasing the efficiency of organisations remains unclear. Normally, retrenchment is aimed at improving organisational performance through increasing productivity, cutting costs and increasing competitive advantage. In certain instances, retrenchments have indeed proved effective in fulfilling these objectives. However there is a growing number of studies that seem to suggest that retrenchment results in an insignificant improvement and in some cases a decline in organisational performance. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of retrenchment on survivor employees’ job satisfaction, commitment, mental and physical well-being and ultimately their job performance at Telkom Durban. A qualitative research method with an interpretivism approach was adopted for this study. The respondents for the study were 12 and were selected using non-probability sampling. Questionnaires were used as data collection instruments. The questionnaires covered various aspects including biographical information of the respondents, their job commitment, the retrenchment process, personal experiences pro and prior retrenchment and their retrenchment coping mechanisms. A pilot study was undertaken to ensure reliability and validity of the research instrument. The data obtained from the questionnaires was restructured, coded and analysed. The findings of this study showed that Telkom survivor employees were affected by retrenchment, emotionally, mentally and physically. The emotional and mental states experienced by survivors were predominantly negative and include anger, fear, uncertainty, worry, shock, sadness and disappointment. Although the survivors used various coping mechanisms to deal with their feelings and emotions, the organisation did very little in ensuring the survivors coped. This resulted in a reduction in productivity, loss of trust for top management and a decline in job commitment. The study could not conclusively determine the impact of retrenchment on the overall profitability of the company as the respondents had conflicting views on the matter. Based on the research and literature findings, it is recommended that retrenching organisations develop strong communication systems, provide support to retrenchment survivors and ultimately create a conducive organisational climate

Severance pay programs around the world : history, rationale, status, and reforms

The paper examines severance pay programs around the world by providing the first ever overview of existing programs, examining their historic development, assessing their economic rationale and describing current reform attempts. While a significant part of the paper is devoted to a comprehensive 183 cross country review of existing severance arrangements and their characteristics, the paper goes beyond a mere description. It develops and empirically tests three hypotheses about the economic rationale of the program, namely severance pay being: (i) a primitive income protection program, (ii) an efficiency enhancing human resource instrument, and (iii) a job protection instrument. The paper also reviews the recent reforms of Austria, Chile, Italy, and Korea.Labor Policies,Labor Markets,Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Economic Theory&Research,Social Protections&Assistance

Women Working in the Shadows: The Informal Economy and Export Processing Zones

A publication providing a description of women’s work in the world economy and the manner by which their rights are systematically violated. Suggests that the ILO Agenda for Decent Work and the recommendations of the UN Development Fund for Women be used as guidelines to ensure womens’ rights in the workplace

Textile and clothing industry competitiveness in the Southern African region

This is a study of the relationship between approaches to people management and competitiveness, by examining the case of the textile and clothing industry in Southern Africa. The textile and clothing industry has historically played a major role in many national economies (including many southern African countries) contributing not only to overall economic growth, but also to the creation of significant numbers of relatively well-paid jobs. In the Southern African Region (SAR), the textile and clothing industry has undergone many structural pressures in the face of increased cheap imports from South-East Asian countries – above all, China and Bangladesh - which have resulted in the closure of many firms, and the significant downsizing of many survivors. This study seeks to explore the relationship between HR practice and organizational sustainability in the textile and clothing industry in Southern Africa region, with a particular emphasis on the cases of three countries: South Africa, Mauritius and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Whilst at very different stages of national development, and with distinct political and developmental histories, all three countries were subject to active industrial policies, including the development of national clothing and textile industries. Again, all have faced the challenge of sustaining these industries in the face of liberalization and intensive competition from the Far East. This study is based on a multi-method approach, combining in-depth interviews with national industry surveys, and the usage of relevant documentary sources. It takes cognizance of the increasing relevance of new HRM practices and discourses to the growing field of Development Studies in the 21st century. The existing HRM literature suggests that there are a number of alternative people management strategies through which firms may secure their competitiveness, most notably strategic approaches to hard HRM (which treats people as an instrument to be strategically deployed to promote competitiveness), soft HRM (which promotes cooperative approaches to managing people) and traditional labour repression (managing people simply as a cost, to be managed in a short-term, un-strategic manner). The literature on HRM in Africa has suggested an alternative paradigm, which combines autocratic paternalism with elements of communitarianism. This study found that the bulk of firms encompassed by the study employed HR policies that recognizably fell within the soft HRM paradigm, enabling high value added production. However, an important exception lies in the area of security of tenure: firms tended to combine high levels of employee involvement and participation; as well as a commitment to human resource development, along with a persistent reliance on the usage of redundancies to adjust changes in the relative need for labour. Hence, this study highlights the limitations of theoretical approaches which see HR strategies as being necessarily coherent and self-reinforcing. Firms may broadly adhere to one approach, whilst adopting aspects of another as needs arise and in response to external pressures. An important exception to this was Mauritius, in which security of tenure appeared to be stronger, perhaps owing to the greater ease of enforcing regulations against illegal imports in a relatively small island country by allowing firms to plan for the future with greater confidence. In contrast, firms in South Africa were characterized by much lower security of tenure, against a backdrop of declining profits, reflecting the competitive challenges posed not only by legitimate low cost imports, but also illegal imports and the proliferation of rural sweatships. One again, this study highlights the relative fragility of the position of many firms and the continued importance of governmental support, most notably in terms of export incentives, support and facilitation in the adoption of new technologies, as well as better policing against illegal imports

The political economy of policy reform: Labour market regulation in India.

The central questions posed by this thesis are: what are the effects of labour market regulations pertaining to job security in India, and why are these regulations so difficult to reform. The thesis finds that job security regulations have a negative effect on both efficiency and equity. They have a significantly negative impact on employment in all categories. They benefit a small minority of highly educated and high human capital workers, while excluding the large majority of the labour force from secure, protected work. They also have a negative impact on output, as they discourage investment. This is shown through a ranking of twenty four Indian states according to the strictness of job security regulations. Highly labour regulated states have lower levels of investment, leading to a negative impact on output, employment and real wage. In this way, these regulations harm both efficiency and equity. In saying this, this thesis supports the distortion view of job security regulations as held by the World Bank, and refutes the institutional view as held by the International Labour Office (ILO). The findings of this thesis show that the result of high levels job security regulations do not cause a necessary trade-off between efficiency and equity (sacrificing the former to get more of the latter), but that the result is a negative impact on both efficiency and equity. The thesis then asks why policies that reduce both efficiency and equity are so difficult to reform in a democracy like India. It explores this by doing an inter-state analysis of policy reform in ten Indian states, considering each state as a separate democracy. It finds conclusive evidence that political factors influence the capacity and motivation to carry out labour policy reform, and it analyse what factors these might be. We use a multi-pronged political economy approach in this thesis. We use extensive historical and institutional analysis, combined with fairly simple, but powerful, empirical analysis. Most of our empirical analysis relies largely on simple and straightforward ordinary least squares (OLS). We are encouraged by the fact that we use four different datasets, and all four give us the same significant result. This gives us confidence in the strength and robustness of our findings

ASEAN development and multinational corporations : a study of the perception of the senior managers of MNCs on ASEAN development

The object of the study was.to investigate the feelings .and reactions of the senior managers of multinational corporations, (mcs), to the development of the Association of South East ~sian Nations, (ASEAN). ASEAN is a regional grouping of six developing nations formed in 1967 primarily to promote economic cooperation among member states, Though the Association is now in its 20th year of existence, the level of ASEAN economic corporation is currently superficial at best. In recent years however, ASEAN governments both individually and collectively are increasingly turning to the private sector for new leadership to speed up the development of ASEAN as a regional economic force. These new governmental initiatives are important to ASEAN. This is because not only is the increased pace of private sector investment critical to the health of the economies of the individual member states but more fundamentally, the successful development of ASEAN as a regional force in international trade would help project ASEAN as a more credible economic grouping. In the private sector, MNCs, because of their access to large investment funds and their international networks, are vital forces for ASEAN development. Besides the traditional strengths of mcs, this study hypothesised that organisations whose senior managements in the region were supportive of ASEAN could make greater contributions to ASEAN development