I Can! together with our partners Khulisani and PMI held the first Client Information sessions in last month in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg where our three biggest academies are situated. This was not only to provide our clients with an opportunity to visit our academies and meet our learners, but also to learn more about the new BBBEE codes.
Our guest speaker, John Botha, has spent the last 6 years at NEDLAC as a business representative. He is also a consultant in transformation, human capital development and labour law. Mr. Botha discussed the impact that the new BBBEE codes will have on companies that are not proactive, innovative and who do not adopt an integrated approach to BBBEE.
He predicted that the amended codes and the changes to the acts may result in the average verification will become level 7. It may also result in a 15-20% staff cost increase and a 4-10% increase in referrals to conciliation and arbitration to name but a few.
Mr. Botha urged that all companies need to act now and will have to address the following administrative matters immediately:
- Revisit entire BBBEE strategy.
- Draft and maintain a risk statement.
- Update fixed-term contracts,
- Update TES Service Level Agreements.
- Arrange an audit of TES.
- Begin an investigation into equal treatment risk exposure and
strategic options to minimize risk & employee cost increases.
- Review IR policies such as retrenchments, employment equity and similar issues.
- Establish impact on collective agreements.
- Commission and audit into the entire employment equity compliance domain on the basis of the requirements of the DG review.
- Draft new a-typical employment and equal treatment/pay for work of equal value policies.
Finally, he explained the priority elements on the new BBBEE scorecard and how companies can use Skills Development as an anchor to approach BBBEE. According to Mr. Botha, companies can target 85 points with a single integrated strategy and address a priority element. By utilizing I Can’s proposition, companies can be assured to gain maximum points on the required spend as well as impact the lives of people with disabilities.
See CNBC interview with John Botha discussing the impact of the new labour law and BBBEE amendments on local business.