There is no question that effective talent management implementation requires a well-defined process. Talent management includes all talent management systems that are required to optimise the workforce within an organisation. The talent management system includes: talent planning, acquiring talent, developing talent, managing talent and retaining talent. Acquired talent should be developed to mould into the organisational culture so that they support the organisational objectives. The research objective of this study was to assess talent management implementation at Metrorail. To achieve this objective a comprehensive study was undertaken on Talent Management. The study involved conducting a literature review to understand the process that is necessary for talent management implementation in an organisation. An empirical study was later conducted to investigate whether the processes of talent management have been successfully implemented at Metrorail. The survey was compared to the literature review to establish whether the findings from Metrorail agreed or disagreed with the literature reviewed. As much as the empirical results showed a case of progress towards Employee Empowerment, Employee Engagement and Talent Retention, there were areas of concern with regard to Recruitment, Compensation and Rewards, Performance Management as well as Organisational Culture.

Orientation: In the global war for talent, companies competing in the new knowledge economy face global shortages of their most precious resource – human capital in the form of knowledge workers. In organisations that are at the forefront of the information age, such as information technology (IT) firms, the competitive advantage comes from the intangible value of the knowledge residing within pools of highly skilled employees. It is imperative to be able to attract, retain, and motivate these scarce resources. Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to deepen understanding of the reward preferences of IT knowledge workers in South Africa, specifically as these relate to attraction, retention, and motivation of knowledge workers. Motivation for the study: The world of work is evolving, and the nature of relationships between knowledge workers and their employers has changed distinctly, leading to a change in the type of the rewards they prefer. The nature of these preferences in the local, industry-specific context is poorly understood. With technology increasingly changing the way we work, the workplace is also irrevocably changing. Combined with the demanding nature of the company’s most valuable people, the shifting workplace paradigm gives rise to knowledge workers valuing different rewards than before. Research design approach and method: The research was a quantitative, empirical, and descriptive study of reward preferences, measured in a self-administered survey and analysed using non-parametric tests for variance between dependent and independent groups, internal consistency testing, and non-parametric analysis of variance (ANOVA). Main findings: This study identifies the most important reward components in the competition for knowledge workers. It further found that reward preferences differ for attracting IT knowledge workers to a company, for retaining them, and for motivating and engaging them in their jobs. Managerial implications: The study’s findings show that a holistic approach to total rewards is required, failing which, companies will find themselves facing increased turnover and job-hopping. Importantly the study also highlights that different rewards need to form part of knowledge workers’ relationship with their employer in three different scenarios — attraction, retention, and motivation. Contribution: This study suggests a competitive rewards model that builds on the study’s findings and on previous theory, to illustrate the most pertinent reward preferences that should be considered in a holistic total rewards package for South African IT knowledge workers. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M. Com. (Business Management) / Managers are increasingly expressing their anxiety about their future security, and are more concerned than ever about their job security and a stable set of rewards. This concern has been triggered by the employers who are having to make increasingly difficult decisions about their workforce compensation and its relationship to performance. There is a general perception that organisations use ‘one size fits all’, type of rewards to motivate their managers. There is also a perception that managers are only motivated by financial rewards as compared to non-financial rewards in order for them to stay with the company. The aim of the study: The aim of this study was to determine whether rewards are perceived as a motivator by managers at a furniture retail company. Motivation for the study: The rationale for this study was to find out the perception of managers with regards to rewards as a motivator. Research design, approach and method: This survey study used quantitative methods to determine the perceptions of rewards amongst managers at a furniture retail company. The target population of the study was 172 junior and middle-level managers working for a furniture retail company. In this study the target population included women and men of different age groups, race groups, and so forth. Non- probability sampling (purposive sampling) was employed as the intent was to survey junior and middle managers only. SPSS Version 15 was used to analyse the data to ensure that a quantitative analysis for the study could be conducted. The completed questionnaires by the respondents were coded and analysed to calculate frequency distribution to analyse personal data, central tendency and percentage distribution. These statistics were presented in the form of computer graphics with the help of STATKON for data analysis. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for this study to distinguish between two groups of samples in the population in order to decide whether there was a statistically significant difference. Main findings: The results for this study showed that there were statistically significant relationships between age and compensation. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management between female managers and their male counterparts. For gender and compensation, the results revealed that there was a significant difference between female and male managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management.. Regarding salary earned and compensation, there was a significant difference between higher earning and lower earning managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management Conclusion, limitations and recommendations: The respondents showed general satisfaction when it came to the rewards offered in the organisation. The results of the study revealed that rewards do motivate employees, especially in making decisions whether to stay with the company or not. The employees were very satisfied with the rewards that they received in the organisation. A major limitation of this study is that the research was only conducted in one organisation and therefore, given the diversity of companies in the retail industry, the results cannot be generalised to all organisations and other industries. In future, research should be conducted on a larger scale including more organisations within the same sector as well as across sectors so that comparisons can be made which can also be used for benchmarking. Contribution/value-add: This study has attempted to add to the body of knowledge in terms of understanding the role that rewards play in motivating managers and how these can change their behaviour in the course of achieving company objectives. The study also examined the relevant rewards perceived to be motivators by both junior and middle managers in a company.

Collective bargaining was impacted by the confrontation at Marakina and the role players, employers and unions were left looking for new creative alternatives to reward operational employees (blue collar workers).Then, finding a well-designed pay system is crucial for the success of the organisation, since collective bargaining is under pressure. The following determinants, job based pay, performance based pay, skills based pay, education and training, and tenure based pay were constructed from literature to formulate the conceptual model for the pay of operators in the manufacturing sector of Port Elizabeth. There are a number of factors that are at play in the determination and design of pay systems, which need to be considered. Two major pay systems are at the centre of this study and they are those based on the worth of the job and those that are based on employees’ skills, productivity, education and training, and tenure. Pay equity is at the heart of employment relationship and is the reference point with regard to the distribution of resources when economic productivity and profitability are achieved. The findings presented indicated that all the determinants, job based pay, performance based pay, skills based pay and education and training, with the exception of tenure based pay, were significant to the pay of operational employees. However, the multivariable regression model found that job based pay is more significant and should be modelled as the foundation of the pay system for operational employees. Other pay determinants, such as performance and skills based pay are best modelled as additional increments that accelerate employees’ pay.

Master of Science

Incentive pay systems are of interest to both researchers and practitioners as a way to improve employee productivity and efficiency. Past research has considered the design of incentive systems, the effects of systems and costs/benefits to employers. Little consideration has been given to another issue: what characteristics are associated with high incentive pay performers? Research that has considered the effect of personal variables on incentive-rewarded performance has failed to provide a theoretical framework in which findings could be considered, and thus lacks the underlying unity and cohesiveness that a theoretical model could provide. In order to investigate the relationship between an individual's characteristics and incentive-rewarded performance, a questionnaire was administered to 453 employees of a major garment manufacturer. Employees responded to questions about their background, their interests and their attitudes toward their work. Performance was measured using employee production data from a nine week period collected by the company. This study proposed and investigated a theoretical model of piecework performance which postulates that motivation, within a piecework setting, is a function of the valences of pay and workgroup affiliation. This model proposes that this measure of motivation, in combination with an ability measure, is related to performance. Quantitative results indicate that this model is useful in understanding piecework performance. Both the valence of pay and ability were found to be predictive of performance. Moreover, the valence of pay was related to age and Protestant ethic while previous findings that employees high in affiliation need were susceptible to rate restriction were not supported. Findings from this study hold promise for more effective selection of piecework employees and add insight into the use of incentive pay to increase individual performance. / Ph. D.

Thesis PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: ABSTRACT Chapter 1 investigates teacher wages in the South African labour market, in order to ascertain whether teaching is a financially attractive profession, and whether high ability individuals are likely to be attracted to the teaching force. Making use of labour force survey data for the years 2000 to 2007 and for 2010, wage returns to educational attainment and experience are measured for teachers, non-teachers and non-teaching professionals. The returns to higher levels of education for teachers are significantly lower than for non-teachers and non-teaching professionals. Similarly, the age-wage profile for teachers is significantly flatter than it is for non-teachers, indicating that there is little wage incentive to remain in teaching beyond roughly 12 years. The profession is therefore unlikely to attract high ability individuals who are able to collect attractive remuneration elsewhere in the labour market. Chapter 2 deals with explicit teacher incentives in education. It provides a technical analysis of Holstrom and Milgrom’s (1991) multitasking model and Kandel and Lazear’s (1992) model of peer pressure as an incentivising force, highlighting aspects of these models that are necessary to ensure that incentive systems operate successfully. The chapter provides an overview of incentive systems internationally, discussing elements of various systems that may be useful in a South African setting. The prospects for the introduction of incentives in South Africa are discussed, with the conclusion that the systems in place at the moment are not conducive to introducing teacher incentives. There are however models in Chile and Brazil, for example, that may work effectively in a South African setting, given their explicit handling of inequality within the education system. Chapter 3 makes use of hierarchical linear modelling to investigate which teacher characteristics impact significantly on student performance. Using data from the SACMEQ III study of 2007, an interesting and potentially important finding is that younger teachers are better able to improve the mean mathematics performance of their students. Furthermore, younger teachers themselves perform better on subject tests than do their older counterparts. Changes in teacher education in the late 1990s and early 2000s may explain the differences in the performance of younger teachers relative to their older counterparts. However, further investigation is required to fully understand these differences. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In Hoofstuk 1 word die lone van onderwysers in die Suid-Afrikaanse arbeidsmark ondersoek om vas te stel of onderwys ʼn finansieel aantreklike beroep is en hoe waarskynlik dit is dat mense met sterk vermoëns na die onderwys gelok sal word. Met gebruik van arbeidsmagopnamedata van 2000 tot 2007 en van 2010 word die loonopbrengs op jare onderwys en ervaring vir onderwysers, nie-onderwysers en beroepslui buite die onderwys gemeet. Die opbrengste vir hoër vlakke van opvoeding is beduidend laer vir onderwysers as vir nie-onderwysers en nie-onderwys beroepslui. Netso is die ouderdom-loonprofiel van onderwysers beduidend platter as vir nie-onderwysers, wat dui op weinig looninsentief om langer as ongeveer 12 jaar in die onderwysveld te bly. Dit is dus onwaarskynlik dat hierdie beroep baie bekwame mense sal lok wat elders in die arbeidsmark goed sou kon verdien. In Hoofstuk 2 word na eksplisiete insentiewe in die onderwys gekyk. Die hoofstuk verskaf ʼn tegniese analise van die multi-taak-model van Holstrom en Milgrom (1991) en van Kandel en Lazear (1992) se model van portuur-druk as aansporingskrag, met klem op die aspekte van hierdie modelle wat in Suid-Afrikaanse omstandighede van nut mag wees. Vooruitsigte vir die instelling van insentiewe in Suid-Afrika word bespreek, met die slotsom dat die stelsels wat tans in plek is nie bevorderlik vir die instelling van onderwysersinsentiewe is nie. Daar is egter modelle in byvoorbeeld Chili en Brasilië wat effektief in Suid-Afrikaanse omstandighede sou kon funksioneer, gegewe hulle eksplisiete klem op ongelykheid binne die onderwys. In Hoofstuk 3 word hiërargiese liniêre programmering gebruik om te ondersoek watter eienskappe van onderwysers ʼn belangrike invloed op studenteprestasie uitoefen. Met gebruik van data van die SACMEQ III studie van 2007 is ʼn interessante bevinding dat jonger onderwysers beter in staat is om die gemiddelde wiskunde prestasie van hulle student te verbeter. Verder vertoon sulke jonger onderwysers self ook beter in die vaktoetse in Wiskunde en taal as hulle ouer kollegas. Veranderings in onderwysopleiding in die laat negentigerjare en vroeë jare van hierdie eeu kan dalk die verskille in die vertonings van jonger onderwysers relatief tot hulle ouer eweknieë verklaar. Verdere ondersoek is egter nodig om hierdie verskille beter te verstaan.

M.Comm. / Economic growth is the key to wealth creation and competitiveness. The purpose is to improve the welfare of society and upgrade the standard of living of all citizens. The most important element to any nation seeking growth and stability is economic growth - and the key to this is a high level of productivity. Sustained growth transforms the lives of poor people. It makes higher output and income possible, which raises the productivity of their work. However, South Africa's productivity record is disappointing and has fallen behind that of its main trading partners. Productivity growth has slowed down since 1970 and is poor compared to world standards. This contributes to the poor economic growth and a decline in competitiveness. Despite strong capital investment, productivity growth in South Africa has been weak and even negative for a long time. South Africa's lack of economic growth is further accentuated by high unemployment, labour unrest and high goverment expenditure. South Africa, competing with developing countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Greece and Mexico has lagged behind these countries in terms of economic growth. Real incomes rose steadily in the 1960's, but dropped during the 1980's. South Africa was also the only country where output per person was lower (8%) in 1994 than in 1970. The next worst performer, Argentina, reported output per person of 13% higher in 1994 than in 1970. Brazil performed the best with over 80% higher output in 1994. The challenge facing the Goverment of National Unity is sustained productivity-growth. Firstly, the economy must grow faster to provide the basis for human development in the long run. Secondly, growth must benefit everybody. The economy must be stimulated to increase job creation to help alleviate poverty. In an attempt to stimulate the local economy and focus on productivity growth, incentive-based schemes are more widely being used to increase productivity. The use of incentives and "gainsharing" is recognised by management as an effective and one of a few successful methods to help raise productivity levels. In the process, a "win-win" solution is created. Ultimately, productivity gains translate into benefits for all the stakeholders. The aim of this study is thus to investigate the problems regarding productivity, methods of improving productivity in general with the emphasis on incentive schemes and "gainsharing" with a specific focus on the insurance industry in South Africa. The study begins with a thorough literature study regarding productivity, productivity improvement techniques and incentives to increase productivity. Following this is an imperical study to investigate certain specific factors which influence productivity, and methods to improve productivity through incentive schemes.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Absenteeism can be a major problem for organisations. As pressures increase on the budgets and competitiveness of companies, more attention is being given to reduce workplace absenteeism and its cost. Job satisfaction has been noted as one of the factors influencing an employee's motivation to attend. Studies on the relationship between absenteeism and job satisfaction seem to be inconsistent. Some research has found no correlation between these two variables whereas other studies indicate a weak to moderate relationship between these two variables. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism in a selected department within and Electricity Unit in the Western Cape. / South Africa

Critics often cite poor executive compensation schemes as one of the leading causes of the recent credit crisis. This paper investigates whether compensation structures at the end of the 2006 fiscal year created incentives for Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in the oil industry to take on excessive risk, which subsequently may have lead to weaker firm performance during the crisis. I find no evidence to support the argument that higher pay sensitivity through option and other incentive awards lead to worse firm performance. In fact, results do not provide any evidence that company performance during the crisis was related to CEO incentives.