Employment Equity

Our Employment Equity Policy outlines our commitment to non-discriminatory employment practices that recognise and reward initiative, effort and merit across the board while at the same tme prioritising the advancement of designated groups.

The Group HR Executive, in conjunction with each Business Unit’s HR manager, is responsible for developing and submitting Employment Equity Plans which outline employment equity goals in terms of hiring, training and promotion.

The detailed Employment Equity Plans are made available to employees via the members of the Employment Equity Committees of the respective operating entities. Further targets, strategies and specific action plans are agreed with the Employment Equity Committees and are revised annually.

We have sought to identify barriers to entry and promotion of historically disadvantaged individuals into specific job categories and occupations. To mitigate these barriers Stefanutti Stocks has adopted the following measures:

• targeted recruitment campaigns;
• bursaries for further education and to facilitate promotion
• learnership programmes; and
• mentoring and coaching programmes.

Going forward our employment equity structures will review the composition of the Group’s entities before setting new targets by the end of June 2009.

Skills Development and Training

We are committed to ongoing training and development to further the skills base and empower employees to perform better in their current positions and so accelerate advancement. Emphasis is placed on internal promotion, with particular focus on black candidates.

62 cadets are currently benefiting from the group’s Cadet Foreman programme which is an accelerated programme to train these candidates towards being Foreman. 56 % of the current candidates are black.

A training centre, accredited by the Construction Education and Training Authority (CETA), has been established. The centre conducts health and safety training, operator certification courses and basic labour skills training. Of the more than 2 000 employees who have attended courses at the centre, over 95% were black.

Courses run by the centre focus mainly on skills training as well as industry-specific courses including:

• Construction Management;
• Reading Construction Drawings;
• Civils Construction Site Administration;
• Concrete Technology;
• Machine and Vehicle Operation;
• Drill Rigging;
• Foreman Training;
• Erection of Formwork;
• Power Hand Tools; and
• Scaffolding and Preparing Work Areas.

Our employees are encouraged to further their education and learnerships are provided to suitable candidates. 42% of employees on learnerships are black. In addition, we offer bursaries to a number of students who work for the Group during vocational breaks and complete on-site training. At present 66 students are benefiting from this programme, of which 18% are black and 2% are women.

In order to incentivise and encourage advancement, top performing employees are rewarded through site incentive schemes based on the performance of the project.