Organisations must have a constant influx of candidates for potential employment. New employee positions are required as market areas are expanded. Recruitment occurs even in the face of limited growth or decline in service capacity, because individuals with specialised skills or training who leave the organisation must be replaced, and because services or technologies that have been revised or modified must be staffed. The recruitment of personnel plays an important role in assisting the organisation to adapt and remain competitive. The Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs (DEDEA) employs a wide variety of workers. Thus, the sources of applicants and types of methods used to expand the applicant pool vary depending on the occupational classification being considered. It, therefore, becomes self-defeating to invest significant resources in a recruitment effort if such effort is offset by high turnover rates. Retention of employees is as essential as their recruitment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the organisational factors impacting on employee retention at DEDEA. The population for the study included 781 DEDEA employees. The response rate for the emailed questionnaire was 54 percent or 425 respondents. The Likert-type scale instrument consisted of forty questions divided into two sections: Section one looked at the demographic profile of the respondents and section two focused on getting responses on the five organisational impacting on v employee retention, namely: career development; compensation; positive recognition; staff engagement and management. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the following research design was adopted: Step 1 A literature review was conducted to determine the various organizational factors impacting on employee retention. Step 2 From the literature review, a process model was adopted to assist the researcher in structuring the research questionnaire. Step 3 A questionnaire was constructed according to the principles and guidelines in steps 2 and step 3. Step 4 Empirical data was obtained by means of an email survey. Step 5 The results of the survey were analysed and interpreted. Step 6 The empirical results were integrated with Step 3. Step 7 Conclusions and recommendations were done. The main findings from the study were: - The study revealed a significant relationship between the selected organisational factors and employee retention. - The study also produced a model suitable for use by DEDEA as a guide in determining what initiatives the organisation should embark on to improve employee retention.

M.B.A. / The importance of a free market in a post apartheid South Africa has been acknowledged. The benefits should be spread so that all individuals may be able to share in the wealth generated by the people within the country. Privatisation is one mechanism for redistributing the wealth ofthe State, and the use of an Employee Share Ownership Participation Scheme (E.S.O.P.S.) is a way in which the wealth can be spread over a large proportion ofthe population. This was a basic policy of Thatcher's Government in the U.K. The same rationale is apt for the South African situation. An E.S.O.P.S., is similar to a profit sharing or a pension plan, and may be grouped with various holistic empowerment strategies. There are however two fundamental differences from these two traditional plans: 1. It invests only in the equity ofthe employer 2. The E.S.O.P.S., provides the organisation with an increased finance tool, through an increased ability to borrow. One of the business trends, in the U.S.A. and the U.K. and more recently in South Africa has been to extend the ownership of shares to employees. This secures a stake in the company, an avenue for retiring owners, and as protection against hostile takeover bids. Other motives that have been used are, as an educational experience and also as a part of participative management philosophy. The author has made a study of the acceptance of E.S.O.P.S., schemes in the South African Mining Industry and the impact of this concept on the workers through an attitude survey. The author headed the Department of Mining Engineering in the new University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment. He lectures the subjects Mineral Engineering Management, Coal Mining and Coal Services to candidates for the National Diploma (NO) and Bacculareus Technologae (B Tech) in Mining Engineering.

M.Phil. (Industrial Psychology) / Orientation: Positive experiences in the workplace, such as support and work engagement, are essential for enhancing subjective wellbeing (happiness and satisfaction with life). Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between social support, supervisor support, work engagement, happiness, and satisfaction with life, as well as investigate whether work engagement mediates support on subjective wellbeing (happiness and satisfaction with life). Motivation: The presence of support (social and supervisor) and work engagement can spill over and affect non-work; specifically, subjective wellbeing (happiness and satisfaction with life). Individuals with high subjective wellbeing are successful across multiple life domains. Method: A cross-sectional survey was used with participants spanning across diverse organisations, ages, racial groups and occupational levels (N=789). The Work Engagement Scale (May, Harter, & Gilson, 2004), Job Demands-Resources Scale (Jackson & Rothmann, 2005), Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985 ) and Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) were used to determine the objectives of this study. Results: The results show significant relationships between happiness, satisfaction with life, social support, organisational support, and work engagement. Additionally, work engagement predicted happiness and satisfaction with life; social support predicted work engagement and satisfaction with life. Supervisor supports predicted subjective wellbeing (happiness and satisfaction with life) but not work engagement. There is therefore partial mediation, as supervisor support did not predict work engagement. Contribution: This study seeks to highlight the concept of support (social and supervisor) and work engagement as constructs that are significant in enhancing subjective wellbeing (happiness and satisfaction with life). Through organisations promoting these positive outcomes at work, enhances productivity.

This research study was conducted to determine the need for an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) at Kalafong Hospital as a way of assisting troubled employees to deal with either personal or work-related problems they experienced. These problems affect their job performance negatively if left unattended. An EAP is effective in dealing with employees’ problems as it addresses all social problems that affect employees’ job performance. The aim of the study was to explore the feelings, experiences and needs of employees of Kalafong Hospital with regard to an EAP at Kalafong Hospital. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews utilising a schedule as a guideline for the researcher during the interviews. Twenty (20) respondents participated in the study. This investigation revealed that employees of this hospital experienced personal and work-related problems that, if left unattended, had a negative effect on their job performance. Methods currently used to help troubled employees of this hospital are not as effective as that of an EAP. Social workers provide very little help to employees as their services are earmarked for patients of this hospital. Supervisors and union representatives are also not formally trained to assist troubled employees and thus provide very little help to the employees. It is therefore concluded that there is a need for a structured Employee Assistance Program in this hospital, as it will provide comprehensive services to employees. / Dissertation (MSD (EAP))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Social Work and Criminology / Unrestricted

The researcher is employed at Aventis Pharma as an Employee Assistance Practitioner since 2001. Employees at Aventis Pharma do not utilize the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). They wait for supervisors to refer them to the EAP for assistance. The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons for the resistance of troubled employees to utilize the EAP at Aventis Pharma. In this study, a qualitative approach was the most appropriate because the researcher’s intention was to get information on employees’ perceptions, not numerical data. The researcher intended to ascertain the respondents’ feelings, perceptions and opinions based on their resistance to utilize EAP. The researcher utilized applied research because Royce (1991:19) states that its findings are used to solve problems of immediate concern. The researcher utilized applied research in order to understand the problem in detail and to generate knowledge with regard to solving the problem of resistance. The researcher utilized an exploratory design that is more qualitative in nature. The purpose of the exploratory study was to gain insight into a situation, phenomenon, community or person (Bless&Higson-Smith, 1995:42). The researcher explored the respondents’ perceptions, feelings and opinions of EAP to find out their reasons for not utilizing the EAP. A phenomenological strategy was utilized. The aim of the researcher was to understand perceptions, feelings and opinions about utilizing the EAP from various respondents. A literature study as well as an empirical investigation was implemented in this research project. Respondents were gathered on a sampling basis and a semi-structured interview schedule was used to gather information from the respondents at Aventis Pharma. In this study the semi-structured interview schedule helped the researcher to gain knowledge and understand the respondents’ perceptions, feelings and opinions on the utilization of an EAP. The interview schedule consisted of open and close-ended questions. A tape recorder was used to ensure that all the necessary information was recorded. After collecting information, it was analysed and interpreted and the researcher compiled a report to document the research findings. The researcher conducted a pilot test with 2 employees who were not part of the main study and this helped the researcher to check the effectiveness of the interview schedule before it could be done on a large population. The research population for this study was the employees of Aventis Pharma. The company is situated in the east of Pretoria. It consists of 215 employees. The boundary of the sample consisted of 12 employees at Aventis Pharma. The company consists of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled employees. The respondents were employees who are semi-skilled, those who have standard seven to a diploma. The respondents were between the ages of 20 and 55 years, males and females from various race groups. For the purpose of this study, the researcher utilized the non-probability purposive sampling. The in-depth interviews revealed the following: The majority of employees knew about the EAP, marketing was done within the company but some employees could not differentiate between the EAP and social work. Different types of written materials were used to introduce the programme in the company. Employees do not want supervisors to refer them to the EAP; they want to consult on their own. They believe that if a supervisor refers you to the EAP, it means you have problems. The employees’ resistance to consult on their own forces the supervisors to apply a mandatory referral. On the issue of supervisory training, employees feel that supervisors should not be trained on EAP. They believe that supervisors will not leave their jobs and became EA practitioners. For most employees, supervisory training is a waste of time. / Dissertation (MSD (EAP))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Employee Assistance Programmes are the various interventions in the workplace, which are aimed at helping employees who are experiencing personal and work-related problems. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a need for a structured Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) at Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital. In this study, the researcher utilised a quantitative approach due to the nature of the research topic under investigation, which is geared towards the assessment of the needs of employees for an EAP, because she wants to base her knowledge gained on objective measurements of the real world, not on someone's opinion, beliefs or past experiences. The researcher utilised research in this study to explore the need for an EAP programme that might be designed/introduced to solve employee problems. For this study, the researcher opted for a combination of an exploratory-descriptive design, due to the fact that little is know about the phenomenon, group or programme. The researcher used a combination of interval/systematic sampling and random sampling to complement each other in eradicating any bias that has the potential of occurring when applying interval/systematic sampling. To achieve representation and precision in this study, the researcher divided the total population of 525 Sterkfontein employees into five categories according to their departments and attached the actual number of employees in a particular department as reflected in the staff establishment document of Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital to the appropriate stratum. The results derived from this endeavour were thus: Management (25), Clinical Staff (45), Administration (44), Nurses (253) and the General Assistants (158). The researcher divided each employee in each respective category by one tenth or 10% in order to know how many respondents from each category could be included in the sample, and added together all the figures derived from such a division to obtain a sample size of 53 respondents for the study. As a result, the researcher came up with the following respondents in five (5) categories of employees: - Management (3), Clinical (5), Administration (4), Nurses (25) and General Assistants (16). The researcher compiled only one questionnaire for all five (5) categories of Sterfontein Psychiatric Hospital employees because EAP recognises that employees start from the CEO to the lowest paid employee in the company and, as such, considers all employees to be equal. The investigation illustrated some limitations in the normal running of the hospital. Most of the respondents had both personal and work-related problems, which impacted negatively on the hospital. There were no mechanisisms in place that were geared towards helping troubled employees or providing skills in handling troubled employees. Hence, from these limitations, it became clear that there is a need for an Employee Assistance Programme at Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital. / Dissertation (MA (SW))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Social Work / unrestricted

The intention of this study was to measure the work engagement and EVP of employees and further to investigate the relationship between work engagement and EVP. A secondary objective was to determine to determine to what extend intrinsic rewards of EVP affects work engagement more than extrinsic rewards. The study was quantitative in nature and data was obtained by means of an electronic survey. The EVP questionnaire and UWES were used to measure EVP and work engagement respectively. Results showed that there is no practical relationship between work engagement and EVP; however, evidence suggested a statistically significant relationship between work engagement and EVP. There was no evidence to suggest that in the relationship between work engagement and EVP, intrinsic components of EVP affect work engagement more than extrinsic rewards. It was however suggested that although the extrinsic rewards component of EVP are important in attracting and retaining employees, rewards had no correlation with work engagement. Implications of the findings suggest that rewards might be important when attracting and retaining employees to a company. However, in order to develop levels of work engagement rewards play no significant role. Companies should invest in enhancing the intrinsic components of their EVP to such an extent that it contributes to levels of work engagement.

The Consulting Engineering industry plays a very critical role in the construction industry. Its primary role is to plan and design projects before they go on to the construction phase. During the construction phase of a project, consulting engineers are responsible for supervising the works and ensuring that construction is done according to design specifications. The selected company, where this study was conducted, provides civil engineering consulting services. The main purpose of the research was to identify retention strategies that could be used by the company in order to reduce staff turnover. To achieve this objective, the researcher completed a literature study. The literature study revealed the characteristics of knowledge workers, and what makes knowledge workers wish to extend their stay with an organisation. The study examined variables that lead to staff turnover i.e. leadership and communication, organizational culture, performance management and job satisfaction. The empirical study was conducted at LK Consulting Engineers. A survey with a questionnaire was administered to all engineering practitioners who were registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa. Interviews were also conducted with three managers. The study demonstrated that leadership and communication, organisational culture, performance management and job satisfaction are important variables leading to retention of knowledge workers. The study also demonstrated that training and financial remuneration is not enough to retain knowledge workers, employees should feel valued and provided with the opportunities to make meaningful contributions to the organisation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate staff retention at an institution of higher learning. The University of South Africa (UNISA) was the institution under scrutiny in this study. The reason for conducting the study was that employees at UNISA, and especially those at the College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET) with scarce skills, were difficult to attract and retain in their positions. It is thought that this scenario could create an increased workload and lead to stress and job dissatisfaction among remaining staff members in the college. This could resultantly influence the quality of education rendered to students. It was therefore important to identify the reasons behind staff turnover and to consider possible retention strategies that could be employed to retain employees at UNISA. The theoretical study focused on two main facets: factors that influence an employee’s decision to either leave or stay in an organisation; and on retention strategies used by the institution. In addition, interviews were conducted with a senior executive in the Human Resource Department and a senior academic manager in CSET at UNISA, to gain their views on how scarce skills were defined, the reasons for staff turnover and the utilisation of retention strategies to retain employees. A qualitative analysis was applied to the interview responses. In addition, a survey consisting of a self-administered questionnaire was conducted amongst academic staff at CSET and 64 responses were received, which represented a response rate of 30%. The questionnaire focused mainly on turnover intention, factors influencing turnover and retention strategies. The information gathered from the questionnaire was statistically analysed and interpreted. The respondents provided mostly positive responses to personal, job and organisational factors which influence retention compared with market factors, indicating that these factors played a significant role in retention. The results revealed that factors such as: remuneration and packages; recognising academic staff for their contribution; providing a satisfying and stimulating work environment; valuing and engaging employees and empowering supervision could be used to retain employees with scarce skills. The respondents agreed that UNISA could be perceived as an employer of choice and was actively seeking ways to retain employees, but were uncertain of the extent to which a fair compensation system, an attractive value proposition and care for employees with scarce skills were evident. No significant differences were found in terms of length of service, gender or race.

Employee participation is a common and popular aspect of most labour relations systems in many countries, including South Africa (the RSA). For years now, there have been debates around the actual benefits of employee participation initiatives to both the business and its employees. Various factors influence the development of participation initiatives within businesses. Some of these factors include legislation, management perceptions and attitudes, socio-economic factors, political and business complexities. These factors vary from one economy to another, from industry to industry, from company to company and may be classified into internal or external factors. It is even suggested that participation initiatives and levels of implementation may be different within the same organization, from department to department, and from one geographic set-up to another within the same organisation. It is for this reason that this research was undertaken. RoyalServe(RS) has an average of 12 000 employees and about 800 sites or branches or units within the RSA. A number of employee participation models and initiatives exist within RS, and it has been argued by many (inter alia trade unions, employees, managers) that the implementation of these models varies from one site to the next - with one of the major influencing factors being the size of a branch or site. Employee participation initiatives and models are established either voluntarily or in response to compliance with legislation. Some scholars and practitioners have suggested that employee participation models that yield positive results for both parties are the ones that are voluntary and have not been undertaken for legal compliance purposes. Others argue that even in cases where it is legislated and practiced for compliance, the end result remains the same. From a comparative point of view, the Japanese and German models of employee participation have been, for some time now, crowned as classic examples of employee participation. Interestingly, the two models (Japanese and German) were implemented for contrasting reasons. The Japanese model is voluntary whereas the German model is legislated. Both models remain leading examples of how successful participation can be, regardless of the reasons for its implementation. Royal Serve Cleaning operates in three Sub Saharan countries: South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia (making it a transnational organisation). The Head Office is situated in Midrand, Johannesburg, RSA. The following regional offices exist to provide immediate and more flexible support to both employees and clients at regional level: Cape Town: Western Cape; Midrand: Gauteng Province, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga; Bloemfontein: Free State, Lesotho and Northern Cape; Durban: KZN; Port Elizabeth: Eastern Cape; Namibia.The primary goal of this research was to investigate how the size of a site influences the implementation of employee participation within RoyalServe Cleaning (Pty) Ltd. Put differently, the question to be answered by the research is: are employee participation initiatives applied similarly across all sites within RoyalServe regardless of size? Another question that has been answered in this research report, albeit indirectly, is: do RoyalServe employees understand the various participation initiatives in place at all levels of the organisation? Accusations have been leveled by some employees that employee participation initiatives at RS are benefiting only those employees based at the big sites at the expense of the smaller ones. The research methodology followed in this paper includes: A review of the available literature about RoyalServe employee participation strategies, initiatives, minutes, reports and practices; The development of a questionnaire which was then distributed to selected employees at all levels within the organisation. The analysis of information gathered in the above activities and recommendations formulated was based on gathered data.