Saturday Sep 04

Social development

Sustainable development is integral to Simeka Business Group’s corporate strategy and governance practices.

INTRODUCTION

Simeka Business Group has devoted time to create a deeper understanding and commitment to the importance of triple bottom line reporting in order to create a sustainable environment in which the company and its staff members can operate. Simeka Business Group has processes, programmes and initiatives in place to ensure that all components of sustainability are achieved.

Sustainable development achievements for 2007 have included:

  • BEE ownership in excess of 50%;
  • The group is ISO9001/2000 accredited;
  • CSI spend is targeted to be 1% of net profit after tax; and
  • The SEAL programme continues to produce well trained and educated staff.

ICAS

The Simeka Business Group Employee Wellness Programme is more than your average coverage.  It offers assistance in financial advice, legal issues, relationships, family matters, substance abuse, work issues, stress, trauma, debt and health issues for you and your family.  The toll-free number on the right will connect you with a consultant to assist you with all your queries.ICAS e-Care is an innovative online health and wellness programme that will give you access to an array of modules including: Personalised weekly emails (matched to your unique profile), comprehensive health portal (website) and a monthly Health Newsletters (in print-and-keep format).

BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

In accordance with the latest ICT Charter and BEE Code as defined by the Department of Trade and Industry, Simeka Business Group is well over the required BEE ownership level, which now exceeds 50%. Although this is greater than the required rating the company remains focused on enhancing these credentials, particularly through employment equity, corporate social responsibility, affirmative procurement and enterprise development initiatives.

Simeka Business Group prides itself on high BEE employment levels within the group with 70% of group executives being black, 20% female board representation and 90% of the board members of Simeka Business Group are black.

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

Table 1: Breakdown of occupation levels, 2007

 

MALE

FEMALE

 Total
African Coloured Indian White Diasbled African Coloured Indian White Diasbled
Top management 1 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5
Senior
management 		4 6 11 43 1 2 0 4 15 0 86
Professionally
qualified 		16 10 10 109 0 10 3 1 33 0 192
Skilled junior
management		 48 26 19 49 0 36 20 21 69 0 288
Semi-skilled 61 5 4 2 0 31 12 2 4 0 121
Unskilled 2 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 5
Total
permanent 		132 47 47 204 1 82 35 28 121 0 697
Part-time contracts 57 13 15 64 0 18 12 3 34 0 216


Graph 1: Percentage change of categorised staff: 2006 and 2007



Graph 2: Comparative of top and senior management: 2006 and 2007

Simeka Business Group has made every effort to make the company more representative of the demographics and achievements from 2006 to 2007 are shown in graph 1. Based on historical employment equity targets, the group has improved in overall employment targets as well as within top and senior management. Graph 1 depicts a satisfactory increase in employment levels of African, Coloured and Indian staff members from the last reporting period. Similarly graph 2 depicts increases in both black top and senior management to levels of 70% and 44% respectively in the current period. Employment equity within the group is tracked on a monthly basis in order to ensure that targets are met and maintained. Centralised recruitment has been adopted by the group to ensure that all policy requirements are adhered to.

AFFIRMATIVE PROCUREMENT

Simeka Business Group has adopted a policy of affirmative procurement in the form of an enterprise development programme for owner-drivers in subsidiaries such as Cybernet Logistics Africa. Simeka Business Group employs these contract drivers and maintenance staff and supports them through the provision of vehicles, fuel, telecommunications and office space. This enables the contractors to support Cybernet clients with efficient and timeous on-site repairs and maintenance. The intention is for Simeka Business Group to explore the eventual ownership of the vehicle by the contractor thus being totally empowered.

A similar structure is in place at Advocate Solutions where one large project with the Department of Justice has seen Simeka Business Group join forces with other SMMEs to roll out IT hardware and infrastructure in the magistrate and high courts throughout South Africa.

Simeka Business Group has experienced great success with these programmes and contractors are empowered and benefit from the entire value chain through their participation.

SAFETY AND HEALTH

Simeka Business Group has formalised a Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) policy as the group is committed to the safety and health of all employees. The policy calls for employees to report any risks to their supervisors who in turn report these to the group SHEQ representative.

The group SHEQ representative is responsible for reporting to executive management at EXCO meetings any safety and health risks identified by supervisors. The group SHEQ representative regularly assesses health and safety risks in line with the group’s policy and based on the reports received from the supervisors, provides recommendations to the managing director of the relevant subsidiary. During the year the group SHEQ representative attended further training to help in the identification of possible hazards.

Simeka Business Group is in the process of appointing a permanent group quality manager.

HIV AND AIDS

The group acknowledges the extent of the HIV and AIDS pandemic and its potential impact in South Africa. The group

has adopted and provides for fair, ethical and equitable treatment of employees living with HIV and AIDS in the group’s formal HIV and AIDS policy.

The group acknowledges that HIV and AIDS shows no racial or class preference. The group’s HIV and AIDS policy calls for the required and maintained level of confidentiality of the employee’s status. Should a staff member volunteer their status, the relevant managers are briefed on managing an HIV-positive employee.

Employees are encouraged to seek medical treatment, counselling, ongoing testing and assistance from support groups. Simeka Business Group further enforces a precaution policy for all employees at risk of infection, such as those performing first aid.

 

THIRD PARTY CERTIFICATIONS

The Simeka Business Group group is accredited with ISO9001/2000. This international standard is important to the group and especially relevant with contracts such as the one to build Hewlett-Packard computers in South Africa on behalf of HP. An ISO accreditation stipulates parameters within which Simeka Business Group must operate and these include, amongst others, quality and standard controls, corrective actions and compliance with regular audits. Simeka Business Group was audited by SGS during the financial year and received a rating of compliance. If any non-conformities are detected immediate corrective action is taken by Simeka Business Group.

PEOPLE AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Simeka Business Group strives for superior service delivery in all aspects of its business. This can only be achieved through superior performance from staff. A major challenge for the group is to recruit, develop and retain key skills in a competitive environment and one in which certain IT skills are in short supply. Simeka Business Group continues its unique SEAL programme – Skills Education And Learning. This programme encourages employees, especially those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, to attain better qualifications within their disciplines. The programme is based on encouragement, incentives and rewards self-growth.

To best suit Simeka Business Group’s specific needs, SEAL focuses on client services management, Microsoft certification and Solutions Architect certification. The 20 learners involved in the programme last year have successfully been integrated into various Simeka Business Group clusters where they are employed as financial clerks, assemblers or lab assistants on the production line of HP machines and packers of the HP computers. The SEAL programme continually takes in new learners each year as SEAL and mentorship programmes are proving to be successful for Simeka Business Group as a platform to ensuring succession planning at junior and middle management levels within the group.

During the past year a specific learnership programme at ITQ in partnership with Oracle South Africa was launched. Two learners were identified to participate in the programme which is geared towards general Oracle development areas. The course material in this period includes:

  • Oracle Database Development;
  • Supply Chain Management.

Simeka Business Group is in discussions with the ISETT SETA to introduce a second programme in the form of a NQF Level 5 qualification. This will incorporate the I-CSS and Matomo Technologies subsidiaries as there are synergies between the two entities. As Simeka Business Group strives to train and retain, it also participates in learning outcomes for staff where the cost of studies will be reimbursed if the learner passes the exam or certification. The staff member is then expected to remain with Simeka Business Group for a certain period of time which is dependent on the rand value of the course or training.

EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION

The IT sector is currently experiencing a skills drain for a number of reasons. Simeka Business Group, through its training programmes and incentive schemes, aims to attract, train, improve skills levels and retain staff at all levels throughout the organisation. In this light, Simeka Business Group has three forms of incentives in place for staff:

  1. Guaranteed earnings in the form of cash and a non-cash component. The latter includes benefits such as a provident and medical aid fund;
  2. Short-term incentives in the form of performance bonuses based on individual and company performance over a period of time; and
  3. Long-term incentives in the form of a staff share scheme which staff are entitled to participate in after one year of service to Simeka Business Group. Shares are issued in relation to the particular staff member’s salary level and staff members are able to exercise the shares over a three-year period in tranches of 33% in year one, 33% in year two and 34% in year three.

The intention of incentives such as the above is to put into place a strong and robust retention policy to ensure a sustainable and well educated workforce and full employee participation.

Simeka Business Group’s has embarked on an Employee Assistance Programme. The programme has been developed in conjunction with the ICAS Employee Assistance Programme and addresses social issues such as health problems, family support, economic issues, litigation matters, psychological assistance and the like.

It is also important for staff who are situated in different offices to understand what the group is involved in. To this extent the launch of Simeka Spirit has proven to be a beneficial tool. It is a communications tool in the form of a newsletter that addresses current affairs across the group, new business sales, social investment initiatives within the various clusters, team building events and relevant general news on the Simeka Business Group group.

ENVIRONMENTAL

The nature of Simeka Business Group’s business does not cause direct impact on the environment. Nonetheless, Simeka Business Group is sensitive to even the smallest impact its operation might have on the environment and as such has an Environmental Policy in place which is in line with ISO9001/2000. To this extent the group is committed to assessing the potential impact of its operations, however small, on the environment and taking preventative measures to protect the environment. All employees are required to report any environmental hazards at the operations.

CORPORATE SOCIAL INVESTMENT

Simeka Business Group is committed to giving back to communities in need and as such has developed a focus on education. The group has chosen to support a school in eNgcobo, in the Eastern Cape.

The group is in the process of setting up a foundation to focus on corporate social investment initiatives with key areas of intervention being:

  • Education – in the format of bursaries;
  • Health with an emphasis on HIV and AIDS awareness; and
  • General development with a stance towards learning in order to benefit the group in return.

A target of 1% of net profit after tax is envisaged to be used for corporate social investment initiatives.