97
98 overlap from that group to that of Company A Dbn is extremely unlikely. Adopting at least some of their proven policies will go a long way in increasing the desirability of Company A Dbn without having to enter into a salary war with competitors.
5.3.3 Encouraging Teamwork and Collaboration
A top-down directive is required to break decades-old ‘glass’ walls and groups that have been created at the Dbn company, specifically within the Oracle technology teams which were the only ones that expressed strong dissatisfaction at the lack of integration and collaboration between teams. Supporting both BEEE, cultural interaction and cross-team familiarity, respondents have suggested team-building initiatives to break through this perceived divide. It is an activity that will impact project time lines to a small degree, but the long-term benefits of equalising and socialising resources across this red-flagged department far outweigh this.
Collaboration generates new streams of thought, which if accompanied by encouragement of employees’ freedom to innovate, will likely drive faster evolution of products and technology at Company A, as compared to the current practice of stipulating and micro-managing teams’ hours and efforts (Harris and Alter 2014).
5.3.4 Delivering 360-degree Performance Management Solutions
Management does concede that line managers rate performance on completely different standards, and accept that an unbiased assessment is conditional on a 360o evaluation by all stakeholders with whom employees interact. The executive have put in motion the delivery of such a company-wide, role-defined assessment tool, and it is recommended that they seek line management and employee input before finalising such, to ensure buy-in when it is eventually launched – thus avoiding costs that have resulted from other inappropriate administrative systems that have needed to be re-done after launch due to employees’ adverse reactions to their ill-fit.
99 5.3.5 Living Organisation Values in Practice
Company A’s organisational values are listed as Integrity (including accountability), Passion, Transparency, Mutual respect, Solution focus, People focus, and Good corporate citizenship (including sustainability).
While these are stringently applied to the customer and business partner levels, responses from employees reflect that these principles are not be as strongly monitored nor enforced internally on the employee level. Respondents cite core information not being shared, only being informed of a change after it is put in play without consultation, ‘silo’ mentality that puts resources in defensive mode when collaboration is clearly more effective, and general lack of accountability from resources, most notably at the Dbn office.
Employees perceive such failure to live up to touted values as a breach of organisational integrity, which has been shown to influence their likelihood of leaving the company and seeking alternate employers (MacLeod & Clarke 2012).
5.3.6 Developing a Leadership Pipeline
A defined leadership pipeline is essential to address the company’s attrition challenges (Drotter & Charan 2001). The first step would be to identify leaders or managers in the organisation who display high EQ traits, as these are likely to be leaders that employees will willingly follow – as opposed to top-down chosen senior managers who employees may resent.
Ensuring team leads and line managers are engaged is also crucial to preventing counter-productive, resentful reactions to a leadership strategy.
A third requirement for successful talent strategy roll-out at Company A is to ensure that whenever high-performers are moved from one hierarchy level to the next, that they have the required training and skillset tools to effectively perform therein.
Noting whether or not the internally-promoted resource is actually comfortable with delivering on their new management role, as opposed to insisting on developing software, is crucial to catch a bad leadership decision before it causes upset or resentment in the organisation (Drotter & Charan 2001).
100 Potential leaders’ readiness to transcend must involve the Human Capital department, in defining measurable and objective assessment measures to replace decisions based on personal preference or past experience (Charan et al 2011).
5.3.7 Competitive Recruitment Strategies
Less than 10% of surveyed employees comprised female software developers, which indicates a potential gap in the market that Company A should pursue as a competitive talent strategy. University graduates are of largely equal gender make- up, hence encouraging promising female students to follow a software development path within Company A’s graduate recruitment programme will set the organisation apart in the local market; targeted marketing and brand support of gender equality in the software development field would assist in improving employment equity statistics and would bring in a new target market into the currently limited software development arena.
Given the large reliance on Oracle technology within Company A Dbn, a concerted partnership exercise with the Oracle software house to co-host conferences and youth learner workshops with the aim of encouraging internships in the field once the high-performing learner has completed tertiary studies, is recommended. It has proven successful in rival companies in the Durban area, such as Company Drv, whose ratings by employees have been consistently high across the study.
Moving into the arena of private schools by offering bursaries, summer schools or internships, would also bring the brand to the attention of the parents and guardians of these students, many of whom are key decision-makers in the Durban and KwaZulu-Natal business sector. To not take this approach, given the number of private schools in the area is to almost let potential sales and resources slip through Company A’s hands.