MANY senior managers who sit at Works Council and senior management meetings are not trained in human capital management and as a result do not add much value to the management of employment relations.

The managers are instead a source of labour relations problems.

Labour relations or people management is not a skill that is acquired by virtue of being a chief executive or senior managers in an organisation but requires deliberate training if the organisation is to get maximum value from its human capital.

One of the biggest challenges with training senior managers in labour relations is that many assume they know or see training in labour relations as demeaning. However, these are generally the very people who go on to make costly errors in people management.

I once had a training session with an employer’s association for one NEC where instead of going into the training, I had to first do some team building and setting the organisation’s tone and focus in labour relations. 

Some senior managers with no human capital training believed that the NEC was for fighting the trade union and the same with the Works Council.

The Marikana incident in South Africa sobered many boards of directors to the reality that when choosing a chief executive or head of department there is a need to choose someone with human capital management and utilisation skills. 

There is now an appreciation in many of our NECs and Works Councils that trade unionists and workers committee members are not enemies but partners who should be treated with respect if the organisation is to have sustainable stable labour relations.

I sat in one management meeting in one organisation where senior managers were plotting to get rid of all members of the workers committee. 

I tried in vain to get them to look at the workers committee from a value addition perspective but it didn’t work. 

Some members of the workers committee were thereafter dismissed as a means of instilling fear among workers. 

It did not take long before labour relations got unmanageable and the board sacrificed a few senior managers including the chief executive as they were seen to be in the way of good labour relations.

It is easy to tell an organisation led by senior managers who have limited skills in labour relations management. 

Such organisations are characterised by having a workers committee that resigned and organisation running without one, having workers who refuse to join or be members of the workers committee. 

Workers who frequently report employer to the NEC claiming unfair labour practices. Having frequent visits from the trade unionists and designated agents who come to resolve disputes.

Other symptoms of a labour relations sick organisation include frequent disciplinary hearings, large members of cases before labour officers, NEC designated agent or Labour Court. 

Frequent reinstatement of wrongfully dismissed workers or out of court settlements tells of problems needing attention. 

Having tense works council meetings when only the chief executive officer and his managers talk and conduct meetings to tell workers committee members what to do is a sign of a problem.

On many occasions the grade, role and relevance of the human resources manager or officer can tell how serious an organisation is about human capital.

I recall a case of an organisation where the HR executive was graded much lower that other executives, his office was at the back of the factory and used that pool car to go home when his juniors from other departments like finance had better salaries and conditions of service. 

He had no voice in meetings, he was told what to do by other heads of department. He got frustrated and left and soon after a crippling strike occurred claiming the scalps of senior managers.

When the organisation was restructured after the collective job action, a new human resources executive was hired together with a chief executive who understood the value of human capital management in value addition.

In conclusion, the list of indicators is a long one, however the bottom-line is that senior managers have to be trained in strategic labour relations and labour law.

• Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>