Employee matters

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

Employment equity is central to the Group’s business philosophy and is treated as a high priority. Creating such equity is, however, a major task as the roots of the historical situation that brought about the inequity in the first place lie outside the workplace. Equal opportunities in the workplace involve the physically disadvantaged and the advancement of women in management positions. The Group is proud that up to now it has taken great strides in achieving its equity objectives without in any way compromising the effective running of the business. To date management has succeeded in annually exceeding the exacting targets it sets itself. According to the statistics of the Department of Labour, the Group’s equity advancement outperformed the rest of the wholesale and retail sector on all levels with regards to blacks (male and female combined) as well as females.

Recruiting a sufficient number of adequately trained young people to fill the growing number of middle and senior management positions is becoming increasingly difficult, also because of the present skills drain with talented people of all population groups deciding to seek their fortunes elsewhere. To identify at the earliest stage young graduates with an interest in commerce and retailing in particular, the Group continued its close involvement with all the tertiary institutions in the country. However, because of its arduous hours, retailing tends not to be a popular occupation and other, less demanding professions find it easy to entice away welltrained and well-qualified members of staff. As a result, the Group has always believed in training up its own people and promoting from within. Such training is provided at many different levels. At the end of the reporting period the Group had 895 trainee managers of whom 76% are black while 73% of assistant managers and 55% of branch managers are also black.

EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING

The Group strives to create a healthy balance in providing training and development opportunities to both the employed and the unemployed. Training the latter is aimed at supporting the National Skills Development Strategy and contributes to job creation within the retail sector. The Group established five training academies and dedicated training facilities in virtually all the major centres in South Africa. Learning programmes for the unemployed
are widely advertised informally through our network of stores. Potential learners are also recruited from the Department of Labour’s database to support them in finding suitable career opportunities for the unemployed.

Volume and intensity
During the year training, involving every department in the business, gained further momentum through its efforts to keep pace with the growth in the Group’s operations which during the reporting period saw the opening of a record number of new stores. An indication of the extent and intensity of the training programmes is the number of training interventions which totals 93 233. Of these more than 4 000 involved staff in countries outside South Africa. A total of 39 630 employees received training in one form or another. The focus continued to be on scarce skills development in the industry to improve service delivery in stores and build management capacity at all levels. The Group continued to run the largest training operation in the South African wholesale and retail sector in close collaboration with the Wholesale and Retail Sector Education and Training Authority (W&RSETA). In April this year it launched its Retail Skills Project, set up in conjunction with the Department of Labour and the Department of Trade & Industry in which a record total of 930 unemployed learners registered for a 12-month period for five qualifications at different NQF levels in the fields of sales, operations, supervision, baking and meat processing. Permanent employment will be offered to the majority of those who complete the learning programmes. The Group is also involved in a grassroots project training 30 unemployed school leavers from previously disadvantaged communities and with very difficult personal circumstances. Again the training runs over a 12-month period and the majority of those who complete the course are assured of employment. Learning programmes are updated, expanded and replaced on an ongoing basis to suit the changing needs of the business and to meet SETA requirements. Programmes for staff elsewhere in Africa are also offered in Portuguese and French and are offered by presenters that travel the continent for this purpose. Alternatively, non-RSA staff comes either to South Africa to be trained or go to a country such as Zambia where there is an established infrastructure.

Capacity and resources
To improve staff selection and retention in an environment in which a high turnover of people is endemic to the nature of the business, store managers were equipped with the necessary selection tools to assist them choosing the best applicants to fill staff vacancies. Kiosks were placed in selected stores with staff shortages so members of the public can apply and be interviewed immediately for those positions. A further two training academies – in Port
Elizabeth and Welkom – were added to the ones in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. All of them are equipped with full-scale butcheries and bakeries and, in addition to meat processing and baking, also offer specialist training in areas such as fruit and vegetable handling and delicatessen. The majority of courses offered are fully accredited and provide those completing their training with a trade they can practise anywhere in the country. In the reporting period the Training Department launched a national coaching programme that will be a major focus during the new financial year. By the end of next year the Department plans to have at least 300 coaches in stores countrywide to tutor and support learners undergoing training, specifically in a learnership context.

Service culture
The focus on customer service is intensifying as strong accent is being placed on strengthening the service culture in stores to match customer expectations, particularly in Checkers with its higher market positioning, and customer service modules will be added to programmes covering different aspects of store operations.

System training
The roll-out to all Group stores in South Africa of the new back-office system was completed at the end of March. The next phase will see the roll-out to all Group stores in Africa. Although it is difficult to quantify the economic business benefits, the new system has already achieved substantial improvements in a number of areas, from stock ledger accuracy to electronic invoicing by suppliers.

Compliance training
In the light of the requirements of the new Consumer Protection Act, additional training in food safety will in the next 12 months be a high priority for all staff in the Group’s three supermarket chains. The focus will initially be on regional and store managers who will be responsible for ensuring such training cascades down to all staff.

Succession planning and leadership development
There is a continuous focus on identifying high performing, high potential candidates to ensure a healthy talent pipeline. These initiatives support line managers in making difficult placement decisions and provide employees with feedback on strengths and development areas as well as career opportunities within the Group. Training interventions are aligned with these initiatives to develop identified performance gaps and development areas.
To secure a constant inflow of talented new people, future executive potential is recruited mainly from tertiary institutions and the number of post grade 12 qualifications – now 1 747 compared to 1 306 a year ago – employed by the Group continues to grow. An increasing number of them are from previously disadvantaged communities. To equip them to deal with the ever increasing sophistication of the industry and the challenges presented by the transformation of Shoprite Holdings into a foremost regional player, executives across a number of disciplines are exposed to advanced training rogrammes including international leadership courses. This is supported by continuous development of managers at all levels on a variety of training programmes. During the reporting period 4 351 members of management participated in 22 392 training interventions.

Accreditation
The Group’s training and development policies, practices and procedures have been audited by the W&RSETA and the Group has again received full accreditation as a Training Provider. Working closely with several SETA’s it offers learnerships and skills programmes in various retail disciplines and there related fields at NQF levels 2, 3, 4 and 7. The Group also cooperates with universities and technikons by providing practical workplace experience for graduates and students in certain disciplines and during the past financial year 34 completed their practical studies The Group is recognised by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants as an approved training facility for Training Outside Public Practice (TOPP) for the purpose of training Chartered Accountants. Since the programme’s inception, 53 candidates were accepted for this training. At present 11 articled clerks are in service, with six joining their ranks during the past year. In the reporting period, four trainees qualified as Chartered Accountants and all four were offered permanent positions in the Group. The examination results achieved by those who qualified were substantially above the average of those who sat for these examinations.

EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE
To secure the skills needed to support its growth in the years to come and at the same time add to the skills pool in South Africa, the Group during the review period awarded bursaries to the value of R7,2 million, up from R3,8 million in 2008, to 176 people wishing to study at tertiary level in disciplines such as accounting, retail business management and pharmacy. The number of bursaries has doubled over the past two years. In the light of the Group’s fast-growing MediRite pharmacy chain the accent was on pharmacology and the majority of the bursaries went to students intending to become pharmacists. These bursaries were in addition to what was made available through the Group’s education assistance scheme for staff members and
their dependants, which also includes grants for school fees to lower-income employees.

HIV/AIDS
The Group continues to intensify its educational campaign aimed at staff to combat a pandemic which is responsible for more than 40% of all deaths in South Africa. Although there are early indications that the incidence of HIV/AIDS is not only levelling out but also starting to dip, the fact is that 5,4 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, most of them in economically active age groups and most of them women. For a large-scale employer such as Shoprite Holdings the high incidence of HIV/AIDS – a statistical calculation shows that 17% of its staff might be suffering from this incurable disease – obviously has far-reaching implications apart from the massive human tragedy. The Group from the outset tackled the problem in consultation with an HIV/AIDS committee representing all employees. The approach taken from early on was that of “prevention through education” in a campaign that addressed everyone across the board. Staff members not only had to learn how to prevent the illness, but also how to manage it once they had it and how to cope with it in others. A system of peer educators was introduced with educators selected from amongst staff receiving specialist training. They are supported by store management and receive, to assist them in their counselling role, monthly modules in DVD form in addition to other collateral teaching material. Under the name Life Lessons training is conducted once a month in stores while peer educators also attend to the needs of individual staff members while there is a help line manned by trained specialists for those exhibiting more complex problems. At the end of the review period there were 787 trained peer educators involved in the programme with at least a further 400 to be trained in the new financial year. There are also peer educators in some of the Group’s stores outside of South Africa. The programme is also having unexpected consequences in terms of staff morale, for the better understanding of HIV/AIDS and its causes, and the greater openness that engendered, have tended to draw people together, promote greater involvement and to create a sense of a shared experience. In the longer term the programme is expected to reduce the loss of valuable skills and lower staff turnover.

ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

It is required of the management and staff of Shoprite Holdings to maintain the highest level of integrity and honesty in their dealings with customers, suppliers, service providers and their colleagues. The principles supporting such behaviour are set out in the Company Rules and in the document A Guide to the Code of Conduct for Shoprite Holdings Employees. A copy is handed to every member of management on joining the company. Additional copies are available from the human resources departments in the various regions. Compliance with the code of conduct is the ultimate responsibility of the company secretary and the executive directors, with day-today monitoring delegated to line management supported by human resources officers. The code is supplemented by the Group’s responsibility philosophy as well as its employment practices, occupational health and safety controls and the quality and hygiene standards applied to the products it sells.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

The managing director of all operating companies has ultimate responsibility to all its employees and customers for compliance with occupational health and safety standards. These are monitored at divisional level, and the findings of regular inspections of all locations is reported to and reviewed by senior management.

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