A Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School learner ranted on WhatsApp recently, using the K-word against her fellow learners. What was she thinking? Did she learn nothing from Penny Sparrow? However, this article is not about the young woman’s foolishness, parental responsibility or how the school is handling it. We are discussing […]
Ian Webster
One of the problems managers have when it comes to difficult, ineffective, poor-performing employees, is our emotional state. By the time we decide we must act, either because the behaviour has been going on for so long or the incident is so serious, we are really angry and want nothing […]
Seven Questions You Need to Ask Before a Disciplinary Enquiry
Employers beware! The appointment and promotion of managers and supervisors is much more risky than you thought. Since no one is a perfect fit, we are used to assessing whether a candidate’s shortcomings can be dealt with through training and coaching. A lack of technical and people-management skills is the […]
Sexual Harassment and Other Misconduct: Employer Risk
1 The Marikana massacre four years ago, was a watershed moment in South African labour relations. The Farlam Commission into the tragedy pointed out multiple failures on all sides. For employers, the failure of management on a number of levels makes for sober reading. However, it is tempting to heave a […]
Avoiding Marikana: Four Years On
Sorry ladies. Women’s month got knocked off the front pages by the Local Government Elections this year. For those who supported the smaller parties, there was hope that this would be the year of breakthrough. Mixed results there. For ruling-party supporters, perhaps this would be the year of service delivery? […]
Democracy in the Workplace: Too Much or Not Enough
1 The ‘secret’ is out. Allister Coetzee has been appointed the new Springbok Rugby coach. Some say it is nine years late, and that he should have been given the job when the ‘poisoned chalice’ passed to the ‘quirky’ Pieter de Villiers. In spite of the delay, Coetzee appears upbeat and […]
Rugby Coaches and Acting Positions: Three Questions
4 Instantaneous response; that’s what we have come to expect today. If Google takes more than a second to return its search results, we want to throw our computer out the window. And heaven help the car in front of us if they fail to respond to the changed traffic light […]
Take Two in the Morning Before You Wake Up
7 In her poor excuse for an apology, Penny Sparrow said her racist comment wasn’t meant to be taken personally. She missed the point entirely. It is precisely because her comment about people being ‘monkeys’ was not directed at a particular person acting in a particular way but at a whole […]