Written by lvan lsraelstam, Chief Executive of Labour Law Management Consulting.
The number of employers seeking labour relations training through consultancies such as ours is increasing. But the efforts of these employers to pass their learning on within the organisation is often frustrated because:
- Managers are not necessarily training experts.
- Senior and line managers at whom the training is targeted often have the attitude of, “let the expert handle employee problems, I’ll just mess it up”. But the implementation of discipline is an integral part of line management’s function and no manager can turn down the opportunity to add to his/her skills. It is therefore important that line managers fully accept that labour relations skills are essential management tools and that the training is presented in a stimulating way geared towards facilitating the manager’s effectiveness and status.
- Management is under “too much pressure to waste time on training”. Too many managers get caught in the vicious circle of being too busy “doing” and therefore having no time to manage and to develop management skills, and this itself is a problem which may have to be addressed via management training.
- When line managers do attend IR or labour law training they often forget what they learned after a week. The training programme therefore needs to be designed professionally in order to ensure long term retention and effective carry over on to the job.
- Some line managers believe that unless their employees receive the same training as they do the exercise will be a waste of time. These managers are perfectly correct because, where employees are not trained on the LRA (for example) or get their input from union meetings they will look at labour relations from a very different perspective to that of the manager.
- Insufficient funds are budgeted for such training. It is astonishing that employers are not prepared to spend a few hundred rand on training a manager but do not mind taking the risk of having to spend tens of thousands of rands on going to the Labour Courts. We have represented countless employers taken to the CCMA because a manager mishandled a shop floor grievance or disciplinary matter.
The potential to manage people may well be inborn to a small extent. But the knowledge of the law must be learned as must many skills related to conducting employee management properly in line with the law and company policy.
Details:
To obtain assistance with adherence to the tough new Equal Pay laws please contact Ivan at ivan@labourlawadvice.co.za or (011) 888-7944.
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