As South Africa wraps up Youth Month in commemoration of the Soweto uprising 45 years ago (16 June), the reported official youth (15-34 years) unemployment rate has increased to 46,3% in the first quarter of 2021. Despite government efforts to curb youth unemployment, the situation remains dire. As we continue to observe, companies that were better prepared for a global crisis, such as COVID-19, were able to respond quickly to change – given employees with broad skills that could adapt to new situations. Global research by IFS revealed that more than half of companies plan to increase spending on digital
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Monthly Archives Jun 2021
Helping employees remain remote – Tamara Parker, CEO of Mercer South Africa
President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation yesterday on the progress in the national effort to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. He said, “All employers must allow their staff to work from home wherever possible.” Remote work is no longer just a temporary safety measure. In many organisations, it is now the new normal. Tamara Parker, CEO of Mercer South Africa, said, “While working remotely makes sense from a safety perspective, it is creating new challenges, for the employee we are seeing a rise in employee stress, workload, and loneliness. While there is strong evidence that remote work often improves employee productivity, researchers have also found that coordination
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CAPE ARTIST BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO THE TABLE BAY’S USED COFFEE CAPSULES
The Table Bay’s mascot, Oscar, immortalised in aluminium Millions of coffee capsules are used around the world every day as coffee lovers, including guests at The Table Bay hotel in Cape Town, get their caffeine fix. When Joanne Selby, the hotel’s general manager, learnt about sculpture artist Godfrey Dambuleni creating beautiful works made from used Nespresso capsules, she commissioned the artist to make a version of Oscar the Seal, The Table Bay’s mascot, using spent capsules from the hotel. The story of Oscar and his friendship with a lonely fisherman is the stuff of legends and is closely intertwined with
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KNOWING YOUR GROUP BENEFITS WHEN STARTING YOUR FIRST JOB
By Elio E’Silva, Alexander Forbes – Head – Direct Corporate Solutions When starting your first job, understanding employee benefits and compensation can be complicated. However, it’s worth understanding what group benefits are available, and how they can assist you. When I started my career, the benefits available to me seemed extremely daunting, but this need not be the case. What did retirement fund contributions as well as group life, disability and funeral cover mean? As we are all at different points in our lives and careers, we may also perceive the value of such benefits in different ways. Retirement savings
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UNDERSTANDING PRIMARY HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS
By Katleho Mosehle – consulting manager at Alexander Forbes Health Primary healthcare helps South Africans get access to affordable healthcare by putting private health cover within reach. What are primary healthcare products? Primary healthcare products are affordable healthcare solutions that offer access to primary healthcare services at private health practitioners. These products are insurance products and are not medical schemes. Primary healthcare products do not offer Prescribed Minimum Benefits or comprehensive private hospitalisation as would be available through a medical scheme. The benefit of having such a product is the lower monthly premium in comparison to medical scheme premiums. In
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MERCER 2021 COST OF LIVING RANKING SHOWS THAT N’DJAMENA IS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE MAIN CITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA AND NIGERIA
N’Djamena is the most expensive city for expatriates in Africa and Lusaka the least expensive The rankings provide an important insight for multinationals on the cost of recruiting or relocating an expatriate in Africa Mercer’s 2021 Cost of Living City Ranking of 400 global cities has listed N’Djamena (Chad) as the most expensive city in Africa for expatriates with Lusaka (Zambia), the least expensive. Based on the ranking, N’Djamena moved up two spots in 2021 from 15th to 13th place, while Lusaka moved from 201 to 208 in the rankings. The rankings provide an important insight for multinationals on the
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PnP Clothing brings affordable designer clothing to customers with emerging local talent collab
Pick n Pay Clothing is shaking up the local fashion industry by making designer wear more affordable and accessible to its customers by collaboration with three young emerging South African designers – Zarah Cassim and Julia Buchanan from Cape Town, and Sipho Mbuto from Durban. This is a continuation of the partnership launched in 2020 between PnP Clothing and award-winning fashion designer, Gavin Rajah, who will mentor the designers, creating exclusive and limited collections for PnP Clothing over the coming months. “The success of the designer collaborations when first launched last year and the positive response from PnP Clothing customers
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Boardwalk Hotel and Casino appoints new Food & Beverage Manager
Sun International’s Boardwalk Hotel and Casino has appointed Patrick Carty as Food & Beverage Manager, as of June 2021. Carty is responsible for the effective day-to-day management of Food & Beverage operations, including restaurants, beverage operations and food and beverage service in the casino operations. He returns to Boardwalk in Gqeberha where he worked early in his career as Assistant F&B Manager. He was promoted to Banqueting Manager in 2014 and to F&B Manager in 2015, before moving to Pretoria in 2017 where he assisted with the opening of Sun Time Square. Carty holds a degree in International Hospitality Management
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HELP YOUR TEENAGER MANAGE MONEY BETTER
By Kerry Sutherland, certified financial planner at Alexander Forbes Helping your teenager start good money habits now will serve them well for the rest of their life. Learn to manage money for life Money management is about learning how to earn, save, spend, borrow and repay money responsibly. For the most part, our children learn about money by watching how their parents deal with money. Giving them small sums of money and allowing them responsibility for it teaches them lifelong money management skills. Peer pressure and brands Today’s teenager is increasingly shopping online, and with boredom at home – especially
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From rescuing snakes to saving electricity, Jaco, Flamingo’s SHE Professional
When you hear that the man responsible for the health and safety of all staff and guests at Kimberley’s Flamingo Casino is a volunteer paramedic and assists in fighting veld fires in his spare time, you realise just how passionate Jaco Van Wyk is about his day job. Van Wyk’s official title is Flamingo Casino’s occupational safety, health, and environmental professional, and, since last year, also the Covid-19 Compliance Officer. His role for the past 11 years has been to ensure the health and safety of more than 140 staff, 40 security officers and 40 cleaners, working shifts, plus guests,
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