Zimpapers Logo

Nick Mangwana View From The Diaspora
The Supreme Court Judgment took Zimbabwe by storm and whatever the response of the Government, labour relations will never be the same. This hypothesis is based on the cynical nature of employers who rushed to get rid of employees in a whirlwind of retrenchments without packages. Initially, this columnist wasquite sympathetic to the cause of the employers considering the current employment climate in Zimbabwe. Human resource rationalisation and layoffs always accompany either the embracing of new technology, economic challenges, the loss of a key customer, the coming of new competition or sometimes simply necessary restructuring. So employee layoffs which some pejoratively call redundancies (implying the employee has become useless) or retrenchment in Zimbabwe is part and parcel of business practice. But it must be done responsibly not as callously as being witnessed in Zimbabwe.

The moment the judgment, which companies perceived as favourable came, they went into fatalistic mode.

Here was a chance to avoid paying a large outlay of retrenchment payouts by chucking away as many workers as possible before either that judgment is reversed or the Government intervenes to mediate the legal framework again.

What they never cared about was the welfare of the employees they were heartlessly throwing on the streets. They had sympathisers who said that it was only sensible for companies to do that. No, it was not. What might have been necessary was for these companies to embrace Socially Responsible Retrenchments.

The notion that companies only owe a duty to maximise profits for its owners as exposited by Milton Friedman has been widely discredited and practiced in Zimbabwe should now disavow of this very archaic business doctrine. Businesses are corporate citizens and therefore like any citizen they need to take responsibility even if there is no legal burden. But how can one even start talking of corporate social responsibility with this lot?

There is a lot of blaster and showboating sound-bites by a lot Zimbabwe’s new age executives talking about how they take Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seriously. Well, Corporate Social Responsibility does not entail donating a few blankets to an old people’s home or orphanage. It is not just buying patronage by donating to some influential provincial politician’s cause. It is about taking heart for the very people who sacrificed their lives, blood and sweat to your company because they believed their lives and that of their significant others depended on it. It is making decisions to alleviate the suffering of these not only because it’s the decent thing to do but also because it is a humanely thing to do and more importantly, you owe them that moral responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility is not giving a few scholarships to some gifted students, call in a high profile politician, the cameras and glitz and glamour. That is not CSR; that is cynical advertising. Corporate Social Responsibility is an attempt to meet the interest of all stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, financiers and communities. It is about creating value for these and more but at the heart of it all is the employee. When the value is created for the employee, value is created for their families and value is created for their community and it all cascades into the whole society. But when employees are thrown onto the streets like a discarded piece of trash, a reverse trajectory of this ensues.

One should never take the idea of throwing somebody on the street lightly. You don’t just sign somebody’s last pay cheque and go home to your wife and kids and enjoy a nice cold beer and tomorrow is another day. Retrenchment is an exercise with victims and survivors. The villain is the corporate entity and its executives who live large and profligate lives (like some politicians) when all around them there is poverty. When carried in this callous way, a retrenchment will severely damage morale and fatally evoke a sense of insecurity for the survivors. One wonders why these companies even need human resources managers. Maybe they should just have payroll clerks and a personnel hangman.

The job of the human resource manager is not to write the ominous three month notice letter. Quite a lot of those in Zimbabwe have some degrees in psychology. They should use their training to ensure the emotional well-being of the worker is catered for otherwise they are turning into glorified clerks. A good human resources practitioner should pride themselves in their skill to manage working life transitions and not just to protect the employer’s interests at the negation of that of the employee. If a legalistic approach was needed in human resources then companies would just employ law graduates as their human resources managers. If moral constrains cannot mediate socially responsible retrenchments then the this is a loud invitation for a legislative tinkering.

Granted companies in Zimbabwe are operating under very difficult and trying conditions. But to just tell somebody who has worked for you for say 15 years that it’s over in three months arouses a sense of shock, anger and panic. This is more so when the three month pay is not coming as a lump sum for the worker to use it as seed money for a project. If this money comes every month when it is due it will just go to recurring expenditure. After all it was already inadequate for the day to day living demands. There is no other way to describe this except that it’s very wrong.

Socially responsible retrenchments attempts to provide a psychological cushioning to the employees. Some of these employees have not been paid for months and were clinging on to a hope that the economy will turn the corner and better days were on the way. Then the Zuva Petroleum judgement came, and before the judge’s ink had even dried the country witnessed pure mass employment murder. Retrenchment has to be proportionate and calculated to achieve a legitimate business aim, and in this scenario who is to adjudicate and ensure that the current blitz in Zimbabwe is transparent and above board?

Even in liberalised and developed economies like Britain there is a processes to laying off people. It is not a unilateral employer’s decision. There is an all stakeholders’ involvement. This makes sure the interests of both external and internal stakeholders are taken account off. Shareholders and top executives are not the only stakeholders of the company. There should be Worker’s Union consultation and a fair and equitable criteria established as well as a psychological of emotional support mechanism set up. There should be reasonable payout for people to carry on with honest livelihoods. Instead of best practice Zimbabwean companies opted for a legalistic business approach. That approach causes the government to legislate responsibility and going by what was witnessed with price controls the outcome can be tragic. Businesses should regulate themselves or they will be regulated by the responsible authorities.

The raison d’etre of business is not to make profit without regard to anything else. Profit yes, but also provide a service, meet a need and have concern for the employee and certainly show concern for the community even where there is no secondary gain traceable to the company in doing so. If this is not part of your corporate philosophy then you are still too far from being responsible. There is such a thing called Socially Responsible retrenchments even in the absence of a forbidding law. Socially responsible retrenchments is not about compliance with the law. It is about taking note that retrenchments harm to individuals, families and communities and therefore where they are not avoidable they should be carried with careful sensitivity. Employees should not be objectified collateral victims of economic decisions. Companies should not just look at financial costs and then make their decisions based on that and believe the social costs are not their responsibility.

When people call for a dynamic and responsive approach to managing corporate affairs this is not what they have in mind. What they have in mind is the Chief Executive asking for a pay cut during an economic downturn and forgoing some of his/her perquisites to help alleviate employee hardship. There should be an interlocking fragility between the board, the executives and the employees to create a situation where everyone is affected by the decisions of the company and its financial position and not just the employees.

But what has been witnessed in Zimbabwe is a lack of honesty which breaks trust and these companies will never be the same again.

A corporation is an integral part of society and not just a self-centred profiteering entity. It is an intrinsic part of the community it is based in and it owes society a duty of care. That includes doing minimal harm to other constituents. Thus a company should do what is right, what is moral and what is justly even when there is no legal obligation to do so. Effects of unavoidable layoffs must be mitigated by the company beyond the legal compliance. That is modernity. That is being responsible. Not to throw employees on the street without any regard like unrecyclable litter.