The 'must' culture

Business must employ people and not expect them to work!

It’s been a while, and I really thought I’d endure beyond it, but I just couldn’t. The recent bomb that was dropped on South African society and its co-committal response from government just could not be ignored. Let me clear a few things up from the start. I am an employee. I am also a business owner. I’m in business because I saw a way to do something better than what was being done and provide a service. To this end I started a company. As my reputation spread I got more work to do. The more work I did the more work I got and so the snow ball rolled and my company revenues grew.

To maintain these good vibes and continue making a profit, I started hiring people to do some of the tasks, to the point where I am now mainly focussed on keeping the business in the clear waters of profitability and continued growth. But, to be able to do this, I need the people I hired to do their jobs. To do their jobs and become more efficient at it. I am paying them a salary for the time they spend and as the companies bottom line grows, so too do the remuneration packages. However, their remuneration growth cannot exceed the company growth, because then the company work for them instead of the other way around. My bottom line is always under pressure from changes in legislation, taxation, medical and retirement insurance for employees and to cover the companies operations. This means the input and overhead costs are rising which has to be covered from the profits.

I now need to ask the question. Has neither government nor the unions ever figured out that you cannot spend more than you make? Now, government and the unions are shocked about the loss of 14,000 jobs at AMPLATS. Really! The unions went on strike demanding increases far beyond a ‘reasonable’ mark and got them because government was the big bully on the block. This meant more expenses on Amplats side. Now both government and the unions where informed of this ‘situation’, the possible closure/reduction/restructuring of expenses at AMPLATS, more than a year ago. Yet, neither of the two parties did anything to stem the tide of their populist tendencies. After all, they needed to get new leadership elected and quite frankly their wasn’t anything to toot about aside from being popular. Make you realize that the adage of selecting teams is correct: “When faced with selecting the competent jerk and the lovable buffoon all teams will select the buffoon”. This appears to be how elections are run now.