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Graduate School of Business and Leadership

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Browsing Graduate School of Business and Leadership by Author "Akande, Will Adebowale."

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    Employee turnover and retention in South African municipalities : the case of Sisonke District Municipality.
    Mnukwa, Nomonde.; MacDonald, John.; Akande, Will Adebowale.
    In South Africa municipalities are a key cornerstone in the delivery of services to citizens. Managing human resources becomes essential, especially given the fact that municipalities are service organisations and major infrastructural backlogs exist within the country. Furthermore, effective planning, operations and maintenance of the infrastructure are continuously required; this calls for competent human resources. The KwaZulu-Natal Integrated Development Plans Appraisal Committee requested the Sisonke District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal to address the issue of high employee turnover in the municipality and develop a retention strategy. This study was therefore intended to establish and investigate the factors that contribute to the turnover of employees at the said Municipality. The research was conducted with a sample of 40 of the Municipality’s staff members across all its departments. A survey research strategy was selected for this study, and self administered questionnaires were utilised to collect data from the respondents. The results revealed that lack of recognition; pay; no performance rewards; lack of consultation during policy development; lack of performance assessments; poor communication; better career prospects elsewhere; and no training and development by managers contribute to high employee turnover in the municipality. Furthermore, the study established that there was no relationship between employee turnover and the councillor-employee relationship, the rural nature of the municipality or ethnic discrimination. However, the results indicated that a relationship existed between employee turnover and working conditions in the municipality. It is consequently recommended that the municipality extend a performance management development system to all employee levels in the municipality. This can be by means of adopting and refining the Performance Management System already approved by the Department of Public Service for the public sector and currently being implemented by all government departments. In addition the municipality needs to invest in the development and empowerment of its managers and in return hold them accountable by adding a clause in their performance agreements regarding the management and empowerment of people. Lastly, the municipality needs to consider reviewing its salary structure or the possibilities of having incentives as rewards for best performance; and some incentives that will serve to attract employees and reduce their turnover.
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    The outsourcing challenges and effectiveness of insourcing maintenance function at Eskom.
    (2010) Ntshangase, Bhekani Aaron.; Gani, Abdul Sattar.; Akande, Will Adebowale.
    In view of the competition many organizations seek to survive by producing more, with fewer resources, in a shorter period of time (Pintelon and Parodi- Herz, 2008:21). Outsourcing maintenance of production assets over the years has become a popular solution of making the business efficient (Pintelon and Parodi-Herz, 2008:25). Though simple in concept, maintenance outsourcing is difficult in execution, especially in a cost-sensitive environment. There are many cases of failed maintenance outsourcing due to different reasons (Partners in Performance, 2007:1). In such cases, most companies revert to maintenance insourcing to regain control of maintenance activities.
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    Understanding declining customer service ratings at a major South African commercial bank.
    (2008) Munien, Devanamah.; Kader, Abdulla Dawood.; Akande, Will Adebowale.
    In recent years, the four major South African commercial banks (ABSA, Standard, First National Bank and Nedbank) have been measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty through market research, the results of which reflect their customers’ perception of service delivery by these banks. Standard Bank has shown steadily declining service levels since 2004 as perceived by its customers in the feedback to the monthly customer service surveys. Standard Bank, Personal and Business Banking in KwaZulu-Natal is the case study of this research. The Bank in KwaZulu-Natal implemented structural, technological and process changes during the period 2004 to 2006. Customers expressed dissatisfaction with the installation of centralised contact centres and retail credit centres during their visits to the bank. Customer dissatisfaction was evident in the customer comments in the monthly customer survey. This provided strong motivation to the Standard Bank’s Central Customer Service Support Unit that customers still preferred the personal touch rather than the speed and efficiency that technology and new structures and processes promised to deliver. Senior Executives at the bank were measured on sales and service performance in their areas of responsibility. The customer service component comprised a weighting of 45% of the overall performance scorecard. There was a growing concern that the bank needed to regain customer confidence and as a result, repositioned itself as a bank that focuses on meeting customer needs balanced with a need to be profitable. Enhancing customer loyalty has become a popular topic for managers, consultants and academics. The arguments in support of loyalty are simple to understand. Loyal customers are reported to have higher customer retention rates, commit a higher share of their category spending to the firm, and are more likely to recommend others to become customers of the firm (Keiningham, Cooil, Aksoy, Andreassen & Weiner 2007). The Standard Bank subsequently adopted the strategic operating model with customer centricity as the core theme in August 2006. The operating model is underscored by the strategic C@Ps (Compass Aligned Performance System) that aligns the Bank’s performance with its strategic objectives. To monitor their performance and guide improvement efforts with regard to customer loyalty, managers frequently rely on customer feedback systems. This feedback is typically obtained through customer surveys that contain measures of satisfaction, repurchase intention, and word-of-mouth intention (Keiningham et., al 2007). Customer feedback survey ratings at this bank indicate a downward trend since 2003. This study will focus on customer service ratings in KwaZulu-Natal branches during the period 2004 to 2007, total customer accounts in the bank’s books in KwaZulu-Natal, the ATM availability statistics and attempt to link these changes to the declining service ratings. Customer satisfaction is strongly influenced by customer expectations. The gap between perceived quality and expected quality, called “expectancy disconfirmation is a strong predictor of customer satisfaction (Keiningham et., al 2007). Customer responses in the monthly feedback surveys indicate dissatisfaction with service delivery in some areas of the bank. This study will further investigate the competence of the two core customer delivery channels, the Automated Teller Network and the Branch Network in delivering to customer expectations. The research will be conducted by analysis of secondary data available on the customer service ratings for the period 2004 to 2007. ATM uptime data has been made available from the bank’s ATM reports for the period 2004 to date. To assess whether the declining customer service ratings have contributed negatively to retention of customer accounts, secondary data available from the bank’s database will be analysed and the findings presented in this study. The knowledge and competence level of staff in the bank will be analysed by the results from questionnaires sent to a population of branch and support staff in the bank. This research was conducted through the use of questionnaires handed out to a cross-section of the bank’s population in 6 randomly selected branches in urban KwaZulu-Natal. When conducting research for the purpose of this study, quantitative and qualitative methods were used. From the research it was noted that the performance of the ATM delivery channel could have contributed to declining service levels. This was evident in the ATM availability information from 2004 to date. The research has provided a base for a weak positive correlation between the performance of the ATM and the Customer Evaluation of Branch (CEBS) ratings. Although the ATM performance shows levels above 96%, it is evident that customers are experiencing variations in the service provided at ATM’s in the province. Analysis of secondary data available in the bank’s database, shows that accounts opened during the period 2004 to 2007 were significantly higher that the total number of accounts closed. From the total accounts on hand at the end of each month for the period under review, it is clear that the total accounts are on the increase year on year. It is easy to conclude from the analysis of available data that declining service levels have not contributed to a loss of customer accounts, however, the scope of the research does not allow for investigation into the value of accounts closed and opened. From the analysis of responses to the questionnaires, it is noted that there is a moderate correlation between the knowledge and competence of staff and the creation of value for customers. Good customer service cannot be predicted by trained and knowledgeable staff alone. Employees need to develop a sense of ownership of delivery to customers. This should be facilitated by line managers and supervisors. The bank is fortunate in that it has numerous improvement interventions at its disposal, including a structured framework in which staff can develop and enhance customer service skills and their performance managed accordingly. This will ensure that individual employees are motivated to be a critical link in the chain that delivers quality and creates customer value.