Evaluating the Public Employment Services, administered by the Department of Labour in Mthatha
- Authors: Mntuyedwa, Ntandokazi Miranda
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Labor market , Unemployment -- South Africa -- Mthatha , Employment agencies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9093 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1011638 , Labor market , Unemployment -- South Africa -- Mthatha , Employment agencies
- Description: The Public Employment Service of South Africa (PES-SA) registers unemployed work seekers and placement opportunities to enable the Department of Labour (DoL) to place as many of these work seekers as possible in work. The aim of the present study is to identify challenges in the implementation of PES-SA, and to identify and make recommendations on areas for improvement and strengthening. The study is restricted to two of the six main PES-SA service offerings: (a) Registration Services and (b) Recruitment and Selection Services. The study was partially a process evaluation and partially an impact evaluation. The process evaluation assessed the quality of PES-SA‟s systems, structures, capacity, management and strategic focus. The purpose of the impact evaluation was to understand the challenges and gaps in delivery and implementation, the reasons behind the low matching success, and the extent of uptake by users. The evaluation therefore had a technical data-evaluation component and a component which assessed the reasons behind statistical and other quantitative data patterns. The study was conducted in Mthatha Department of Labour, Eastern Cape. The sample of the study was drawn from workseekers that are in the database and the Researcher drawn 40 respondents and the use of quantitative method was done. A questionnaire was developed and issued out to respondents. The Public Employment Service staff in Mthatha, Department of Labour was also interviewed. All five Employment Service Practitioners and a Career Counsellor were interviewed. A qualitative study was used for these respondents. In the responses of both teams it was deduced that the intention of the service is good but up to this far it has not proven any impact on the reduction of unemployment. Reasons behind the failure of the service were outlined to be the reluctance of the employers to utilise the service and the IT systems that is failing. The staff also mentioned that they were never trained on the service and therefore finds it difficult to render some of the services. Another challenge that was picked up from staff members is that the service is not yet legislated.
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- Date Issued: 2011
The human resource department as a strategic business partner in organisations
- Authors: Sakonda, Archford
- Subjects: Human capital -- Management , Strategic planning , Employment agencies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9431 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020178
- Description: The human resource department in many organisations is at a crossroad of relevance, constantly being faced with the challenge to prove that it can add value towards the objectives of the business. The Human Resource (HR) department is also faced with a reality that, if the department does not add value to the organisation, it will be farmed out to independent contractors, who can deliver the HR functions at a more efficient and cost effective way. However, organisations have a great opportunity to achieve excellence and competitive advantage through the utilisation of the organisation‟s human resources. Many scholars and authors argued that organisations can achieve the most out of its human resources if the HR department is a Strategic Business Partner (SBP) in these organisations. A thorough literature review has led to the discovery that, despite the appraisal of the Strategic Business Partners (SBP) approach to the management of human resources, little progress has been made with the reinvention of the HR departments from support function towards being a SBP (Lawler & Morhman, 2003; Keith, 2007). The slow progress in the transformation of the HR department was attributed to a wide range of factors including the lack of competencies to take up Strategic Business Partnership roles, lack of management support, and incongruent organisational cultures (Keith, 2007; Sanders & Frenkel, 2009; Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with HR professionals, Managing Directors and other Directors, who sit on a strategic table, to identify the challenges and opportunities the HR department faced as a SBP in organisations. A self-administered questionnaire, based on an existing questionnaire (Ulrich & Cornell (1997) HR role assessment survey) was used to gather the perception of employees regarding the roles the HR departments play in organisations. In this study organisational culture was identified as having a huge impact towards the implementation of HR departments as SBPs. The study also identified the competencies needed for the effective execution of SBP roles, the challenges HR departments may face in the process as well as the important roles the HR department should be devoting most of its time and resources to.
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