As jy wit Suid-Afrikaners mal wil maak, praat oor die verlede. As jy swart Suid-Afrikaners mal wil maak, praat daaroor soos F.W. de Klerk op CNN gedoen het.

Daardie antwoorde, mnr. De Klerk, toon jy het geen idee watter uiters korrupte, onmenslike, anti-Christelike beleid apartheid was nie. Jy aanvaar waarskynlik steeds nie die internasionale verklaring van apartheid as ’n misdaad teen die mensdom nie. En deur enige aspek van daardie beleid te probeer regverdig, doen jy afbreuk aan jou grootsheid as ’n leier wat tereg deel in die triomf van ’n skikking deur onderhandeling.

As ons nie kristalhelder oor reg en verkeerd kan wees nie, loop ons jeug gevaar om ons morele dubbelsinnigheid te erf. In die afgelope twee weke het hierdie morele dubbelsinnighede oor die verlede die hede met mening binnegedring.

Dit het begin toe ’n model ’n swart man ’n k— genoem het. ’n Swart model het teruggekap deur te wens alle wit mense is onder die vaandel van “Kill the Boer” doodgemaak. Dié twee mense het nie onder apartheid geleef nie – hulle is nou die dag gebore. Maar hulle het geleer haat uit ons onverdraagsaamheid, en veral uit ons dubbelsinnighede oor ’n verskriklike verlede.

Ons kan nie ons wonde uit die verlede genees nie tensy ons eens en vir altyd erken apartheid was boos, uit en gedaan.

Dit is soos om te redeneer die Engelse het goeie bedoelings met hul konsentrasiekampbeleid in die Anglo-Boereoorlog gehad, foute het net met die inwerkingstelling daarvan ingesluip.

Die konsentrasiekampe het ’n misdaad teen die mensdom verteenwoordig, uit en gedaan.

Ons kan nie ’n gemeenskaplike, verenigde, nierassige toekoms bou tensy ons oor sekere basiese aspekte ten opsigte van die reg en verkeerd van die verlede ooreenkom nie. Dubbelsinnigheid oor die gewelddadige verlede maak die slagoffers seer, stel die skuldiges gerus en moedig die volgende generasie aan om ongestraf in ’n openbare ruimte soos Twitter op te tree.

Stel jou voor elke ouer sê aan sy kind: “Wat in die verlede gebeur het, was verkeerd. Ek wil nooit hoor dat jy negatiewe goed oor mense weens hul velkleur kwytraak nie. As jy dit doen, sal daar gevolge wees.” As elke swart of wit ouer dit sê, sal daar nie meer voorvalle soos dié van die twee modelle wees nie.

My probleem is nie met Jessica Leandra dos Santos of haar respondente nie. Sy het vinnig ontdek Twitter is ’n selfregulerende ruimte wat swak gedrag straf. My probleem is met die res van ons wat presies dieselfde dinge in die private ruimtes van ons huis en vriendekring kwytraak.

Die gebrek aan duidelikheid oor wat moreel reg en verkeerd is, is nie beperk tot rassistiese beledigings in die nuwe sosiale media nie, maar is ook duidelik in die manier waarop die regering korrupsie aanpak. Kan ’n skadeliker boodskap aan burgers en die jeug gestuur word as die regerende party se hantering van Richard Mdluli? ’n Man wat na bewering ’n aandeel gehad het in moord, korrupsie en die massa-aanstelling van familielede in die staatsdiens, word nie uit sy pos geskors nie, maar sywaarts geskuif – en dit slegs ná maande van openbare druk. Dit gaan nie daaroor of die misdaad-intelligensiehoof skuldig is of nie, maar oor die langsame oordeel en die onsekerheid wat geskep word, wat Suid-Afrika vashou in die morele moeras wat deur pres. Jacob Zuma in stand gehou word.

Ek het op Moedersdag lank gedink oor my oorlede ma en haar onderskeid tussen bokdrolletjies en rosyntjies. My vriend se ma het verder gegaan: “Ek ken die verskil tussen perdemis en wol, en met wat jy nou hier kwytraak, kan ek nie brei nie.’’ Goeie raad vir F.W., Jessica en ons almal.)Prof. Jansen is die rektor van die Universiteit van die Vrystaat.

- Die Burger

http://www.dieburger.com/Rubrieke/JonathanJansen/Jakkalsdraai-oor-reg-en-verkeerd-20120514

Jakkalsdraai oor reg en verkeerd is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

A few years back, I interviewed some of the most successful CEOs in the world in order to discover their management secrets. I learned that the “best of the best” tend to share the following eight core beliefs.

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.

Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies, departments and groups. They build huge armies of “troops” to order about, demonize competitors as “enemies,” and treat customers as “territory” to be conquered.

Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They naturally create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers … and even competitors.

2. A company is a community, not a machine.

Average bosses consider their company to be a machine with employees as cogs. They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try to maintain control by “pulling levers” and “steering the ship.”

Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community–and company–at large.

3. Management is service, not control.

Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they’re told. They’re hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create environments where individual initiative is squelched by the “wait and see what the boss says” mentality.

Extraordinary bosses set a general direction and then commit themselves to obtaining the resources that their employees need to get the job done. They push decision making downward, allowing teams form their own rules and intervening only in emergencies.

4. My employees are my peers, not my children.

Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can’t be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees take their cues from this attitude, expend energy on looking busy and covering their behinds.

Extraordinary bosses treat every employee as if he or she were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere, from the loading dock to the boardroom. As a result, employees at all levels take charge of their own destinies.

5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

Average bosses see fear–of getting fired, of ridicule, of loss of privilege–as a crucial way to motivate people.  As a result, employees and managers alike become paralyzed and unable to make risky decisions.

Extraordinary bosses inspire people to see a better future and how they’ll be a part of it.  As a result, employees work harder because they believe in the organization’s goals, truly enjoy what they’re doing and (of course) know they’ll share in the rewards.

6. Change equals growth, not pain.

Average bosses see change as both complicated and threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape. They subconsciously torpedo change … until it’s too late.

Extraordinary bosses see change as an inevitable part of life. While they don’t value change for its own sake, they know that success is only possible if employees and organization embrace new ideas and new ways of doing business.

7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation.

Average bosses adhere to the old IT-centric view that technology is primarily a way to strengthen management control and increase predictability. They install centralized computer systems that dehumanize and antagonize employees.

Extraordinary bosses see technology as a way to free human beings to be creative and to build better relationships. They adapt their back-office systems to the tools, like smartphones and tablets, that people actually want to use.

8. Work should be fun, not mere toil.

Average bosses buy into the notion that work is, at best, a necessary evil. They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly.

Extraordinary bosses see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable–and believe therefore that the most important job of manager is, as far as possible, to put people in jobs that can and will make them truly happy.

Geoffrey James‘ “Sales Source” (formerly “Sales Machine” on CBS) is the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog. His best posts, with many extras, are in his new book: How to Say It: Business to Business Selling. @Sales_Source

8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Thinking about using a potential employer’s job offer to get your current company to counter and pay you more money?

Stop right there.

Using another job offer as a bargaining chip may be tempting, but too often, it ends badly. If you want a raise, then negotiate it on your own merits–or prepare to move on.

Here’s why:

1. Employers often make counteroffers in a moment of panic. (“We can’t have Joe leave right now! We have that big conference next month.”) But after the initial relief passes, you may find your relationship with your employer--and your standing with the company–has fundamentally changed. You’re now the one who was looking to leave. You’re no longer part of the inner circle, and you might be at the top of the list if your company needs to make cutbacks in the future.

2. Even worse, your company might just want time to search for a replacement, figuring that it’s only a matter of time until you start looking around again. You might turn down your other offer and accept your employer’s counteroffer only to find yourself pushed out soon afterward. In fact, the rule of thumb among recruiters is that 70 to 80 percent of people who accept counteroffers either leave or are let go within a year.

3. There’s a reason you started job-searching in the first place. While more money is always a motivator, more often, there are also other factors that drove you to look: personality fit, dislike of your boss, boredom with the work, lack of recognition, insane deadlines–whatever it might have been. Those factors aren’t going change, and will likely start bothering you again as soon as the glow from your raise wears off.

4. Even if you get more money out of your company now, think about what it took to get it. You needed to have one foot out the door to get paid the wage you wanted, and there’s no reason to think that future salary increases will be any easier. The next time you want a raise, you might even be refused altogether on the grounds that “we just gave you that big increase when you were thinking about leaving.”

5. You may be told to take the other offer, even if you don’t really want it–and then you’ll have to follow through. Using another offer as a bluff is a really dangerous game.

6. Good luck getting that new employer to ever consider you again. If you go all the way through their hiring process only to accept a counteroffer from your current employer, then the former is going to be wary of considering you in the future. If it’s a company you’d like to work with, you might be shutting a door you’d rather keep open.

Now, are there times where accepting a counteroffer makes sense and works out? Sure, there are always exceptions. But it’s a bad idea frequently enough that you should be very, very cautious before doing so.

Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. She’s also the author of Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Leader’s Guide to Getting Results and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.

Why You Shouldn’t Take a Counteroffer is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Gaming House Zynga's new San Francisco headquarters

Here is a heads-up alert for you: be prepared because not only will the infamous “War For Talent” be returning to impact your firm, but it is already underway in its full intensity here in the Silicon Valley. Begin planning for this next round of talent wars, because once the intense competition begins, there simply won’t be time to catch up with, no less get ahead of your talent competition. If you’re not familiar with the “war for talent” phenomena, it involves a prolonged period of intense competition where top applicants are both scarce and arrogant, employees leave by the droves, firms regularly raid each other for talent, and bidding for top talent is commonplace.

If you have global contacts, you already know that not just in the Silicon Valley, but also in Australia, as well as parts of Canada, India, and China are already involved in the latest round of the “War for Talent.” Entire industries like social media, gaming, and oil/minerals are currently involved in a war for talent, as are top-rated firms like Facebook, Google, Apple, Zynga, and most startups in social media, mobile phones, medicine, and technology. Here in the Silicon Valley, talent competition has already returned to near 1999 levels. For example, recently a recruiting firm sent 150 cookie baskets directly to key employees at Zynga, the social game developer. They didn’t send them to their home, but directly into the office where they could provide the maximum impact by creating a buzz and letting every employee learn that outside firms wanted them. Winning a war requires bold action not conservatism.

Examples of How Boldness Is Required in a War for Talent

Here are a few of many examples on how firms have stretched the limits of talent management in order to remain competitive.

• Match this referral bonus - DNAnexus, a Silicon Valley sequence storage and analysis firm, offered a $20,000 referral bonus for successful referrals for the relatively common job of software engineer.  They also threw in a full genome sequence for the employee as an added bonus.
• Low tech drive-by recruiting – Zspacer, a cloud security firm, drove a van with a “we are hiring” banner continually around the building of its “target” competitor, Blue Coat, in order to entice the competitor’s employees into leaving.
• Turn a job into a game – most people like playing games and competing, so turning a cashier’s mundane job into a competitive game with a score (gamification) can make it more fun. While at the same time, an employee can know how well they are doing as an individual and compare to others.  This new “personal leaderboard” process at retailer Target has been reported to have resulted in increased cashier efficiency, lowered checkout times, and increased employee morale.
• The death of the cubicle - rather than employees having offices, the Silicon Valley has been the home of the cubicle. But once firms like Google and Facebook found that cubicles reduce interaction and collaboration between employees (both of which are required for innovation), they took steps to eliminate them and replaced them with an open space arrangement for the team. Google goes even a step further and now offers “standing desks” (like a counter where the employee stands instead of sits), which dramatically increases the number of interactions, while also being healthy for employees.
• Free beer for life – the Silicon Valley startup Hipster offered new hires $10,000, a lifetime supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon, “authentic” skinny jeans, striped bowties, and a pair of Buddy Holly glasses. A little weird, but innovators like weird.
• Interview live from anywhere – most interviews take forever to schedule because they require travel to your site.  This new iphone app from HireVue allows candidates to interview from anywhere at anytime, using their mobile phone or iPad.  Now almost every candidate and manager can find time for an interview.

Why Should I Be Concerned About This War for Talent?

An analogy between police weapons and military weapons might help you understand why a war for talent requires completely different tools and preparation. Consider the work environment of a policeman. It is a difficult and sometimes a dangerous job but the tools and strategies required to do the job are relatively basic (i.e. equivalent to normal recruiting, retention, and talent management). However, when you’re facing a real war, a policeman would be outgunned. Instead, soldiers with sophisticated equipment and strategies would be required. The tools that they would need in order to win the battle would have to be two or three times more sophisticated than those of a policeman.

The same is true when you’re in a war for talent. You need to overhaul everything and develop completely different and much more powerful talent management tools, strategies, and approaches. You may even need a completely different team of talent management professionals. To make matters more difficult in this current round of the war for talent, the recent growth of social media and the mobile platform now requires the creation of talent management tools that have never existed before. This upcoming “war” will be even more ferocious than the last because of the recent litigation and government actions to eliminate informal “no-poaching” agreements between firms. Firms that in the past have been your “friends” will now be encouraged to raid your employees continually.

Action Steps to Take to Get on a “War Footing”

Now is the appropriate time to begin preparing for this next war for talent. In order to be prepared, you will definitely need to revise your talent management strategy and you will certainly need more than a handful of new tools. The battle will require sophisticated recruiting, powerful onboarding, superior retention, predictive metrics, exciting training, and a leadership development program that can replace lost leaders rapidly. You will also need to develop a competitive analysis function to stay ahead of your competitors and a market research function in order to better understand the changing expectations of your target talent. You may even need new talent management leaders who are agile, who learn fast, and who know how to operate under “wartime conditions.”  It requires a different breed and many on your staff may not be ready for it.

There Won’t Be Much Advance Warning Before This Power Shifts to Employees and Applicants

Obviously you won’t receive a formal announcement, so unfortunately, by the time you realize that you’re actually involved in a war for talent, it may be too late. You simply won’t have time in the midst of the battle to renew your strategy, your staff, and your talent management approaches. Things that you have taken for granted over recent years like a high applicant flow, complacent candidates, and low turnover may completely turnaround in a few months. Workers who have recently demanded security will shift their expectations to include challenge, innovation, development opportunities, and an opportunity for wealth through stock options. And unless you have good metrics, you won’t realize until months afterward that the changes have occurred.

But it Seems Calm Now Where I Work!

If you work in nowhere, smaller town, USA, for example, you might think that this author is crazy because the high unemployment rates where you are means that candidates are still begging for jobs in your town. But you should also be aware that if you had been a talent manager in the mineral-rich areas of Montana, Alberta Canada, or Western Australia, you too at one time had little difficulty finding skilled labor. That is until all of a sudden, you experienced a dramatic shift in the competition for labor. You may not see the war for talent appearing at your doorstep for a longer period of time if your firm trains its own workers or if you hire mostly hourly workers with basic skills. However, if any part of your operation requires technologists, mathematicians, scientists, or experts in monetization or social media, you’ll soon find that your current approaches to talent management will become ineffective. And as unemployment rates continue to drop and the housing/mortgage crisis subsides, finding top talent will become difficult everywhere.

What Are the Foundation Causes of a War for Talent?

A war for talent is a relatively recent phenomenon because in the past, finding and applying for jobs was a slow paper- and mail-driven process. But now that almost anyone can be found on the Internet and interested people can find and apply for dozens of jobs within an hour, fighting over talent has become common. These “war conditions” occur when there is continuous rapid change in the marketplace due to intense competition. And as a result, employee skills need to be updated continually. In this situation, the shortage is not the number of people available (there may be many) but the number who have the required advanced skill sets. So, a war for talent is a skills shortage not a people shortage. For example, today if you need advanced skills in technology, oil and minerals, medical research, and social media you are likely to find plenty of labor available (due to high unemployment rates) but finding people with the right skills, in the right location with right performance levels for these critical jobs may be a continuous battle.

Final Thoughts

Many of the professionals who currently work in talent management were not in the field when the original war for talent occurred during 1999 and 2000. To those and others that may have forgotten what it was like, remember that even though talent management received a great deal of attention and boatloads of money, it was not a good time.  If you weren’t prepared, days were long and hectic and even with unlimited resources, it was a struggle to hire and retain even mediocre workers. If you don’t think the war for talent can be stressful and even ugly, connect with someone on your network who worked at Cisco, HP, or Intel during the late 90s or today at Zynga, Facebook, or Twitter.

Like it or not, the war for talent is returning and it is already at ferocious levels in the Silicon Valley and in other high-growth areas around the world. These tremendous differentials in talent demand between different business units and regions may even force large global firms to adopt a dual talent management strategy — one where you simultaneously manage for both slow and fast growth at the same time. So if you skip over this warning, please remember later on that you read it here, when there was still time to prepare.

http://www.ere.net/2012/03/19/the-war-for-talent-is-returning-dont-get-caught-unprepared/

The War for Talent Is Returning is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

“I cannot believe it!”, was Oona’s first response when the West Coast Personnel floating trophy was handed to her at the function. “I had no idea that I was going to win the award!”

Roodt Griesel, MD of West Coast Personnel awarded the trophy to her. He said that Oona Thompson stood out for her excellent client service, steady performance and ability to listen to and act on client and candidate needs.

Oona is a recruitment specialist at West Coast Personnel. She recruits staff on behalf of manufacturing companies in the health and beauty sector, medical staff and construction companies, and specializes in laboratory and medical, managerial and office support staff.

The floating trophy holds a proud place in her office. Oona ensures that it stays bright and shiny.

Mrs Thompson was awarded the West Coast Personnel Recognition of Excellence award after the results of a poll and excellent feedback from client companies on consistently high service levels. This coincided with her 5^th year of service at West Coast Personnel.

Recognition of Excellence 2010 winner: Oona Thompson is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker’s children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning.

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them – with the permission of the givers – to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer’s wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children.

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentelman’s game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa’s greatest freedom fighters outside his home.

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is the Cape Town university psychologist who interviewed the ‘Prime Evil’ in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid.

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school everyday, even through their matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies.

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country those deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o’-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness.

* This article originally appeared in Mango’s inflight magazine.

Prof. (JD) Jonathan Jansen Vice-Chancellor and Rector

Prof. Jonathan Jansen was appointed as Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State on 1 July 2009.  He is an Honorary Professor of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, received an honorary doctorate in Education from the Cleveland State University, USA in 2010 and was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Science of the Developing World (TWAS) in the same year. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is a Fulbright Scholar to Stanford University (2007-2008), former Dean of Education at the University of Pretoria (2001-2007) and an Honorary Doctor of Education from the University of Edinburgh. He is a former high school Biology teacher, who completed his undergraduate education at the University of the Western Cape (B.Sc.), his teaching credentials at UNISA (HED, B.Ed.), and his postgraduate education in the USA (MS, Cornell; Ph.D., Stanford). His most recent books are Knowledge in the Blood (2009, Stanford University Press), while he has also co-authored Diversity High: Class, Color, Character and Culture in a South African High School (2008, University Press of America). In these and related works he examines how education leaders balance the dual imperatives of reparation and reconciliation in their leadership practice. Knowledge in the Blood received an outstanding book recognition award from the American Educational Research Association. His co-authored book Curriculum: Organizing knowledge for the classroom is in its second edition. Prof. Janses serves as Vice-President of the South African Academy of Science and from this vantage point leads three major studies on behalf of the academy, including an inquiry on the role of the South African Ph.D. in the global knowledge economy and another investigation into the future of the humanities in South Africa. He recently served on the boards of bodies such as the Centre for the Study of the Internationalization of Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia; the International Commission on the Child of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (Washington D.C., USA); and as member of the general assembly, International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum, among others. He has served as international consultant to UNESCO, the World Bank, the governments of Namibia and Zimbabwe, USAID, SIDA (Swedish), CIDA (Canadian), the European Union (EU), Germany, the Netherlands, DFID (UK) and the USA (through agencies such as the Academy for Educational Development in Washington D.C.). He has served as national consultant to SAQA, the CHE, HESA, the HSRC, SAMDI (now PALAMA), and the NRF. He has also worked closely with embassies of various countries represented in Pretoria, especially the Latin American representatives. He has chaired ministerial committees on further education and training (appointed by Minister Kader Asmal) and (currently) school evaluation and teacher appraisal (appointed by Minister Naledi Pandor). In addition, he has advised provincial governments on school change. Prof. Jansen has extensive experience in higher education as professor, head of department, dean, (acting) deputy vice-chancellor and, at the two South African universities he worked at, as senate representative on the council (UDW and UP). He has chaired committees at all levels of the university, and does extensive training for deans and for young scholars. He works closely with the business community on matters of education and training and is a non-executive director of ADvTech, a major provider of private education in South Africa.

My South Africa by Jonathan Jansen is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Can the 500-year-old system survive

“All systems have lives. When their processes move too far from equilibrium, they fluctuate chaotically and bifurcate. Our existing system, what I call a capitalist world-economy, has been in existence for some 500 years and has for at least a century encompassed the entire globe. It has functioned remarkably well. But like all systems, it has moved steadily farther and farther from equilibrium. For some while now, it has moved too far from equilibrium, such that it is today in structural crisis.”

This statement  by Immanuel Wallerstein in an article published by Foreign Policy on the second day of 2011 sumerises the growing pessimism in many circles that capitalism as we got to know it, especially since the 1970s, can survive for much longer. It might have developed terminal structural defects, many commentators argue.

Some of Wallerstein’s arguments even imply that the democratic model as we know it and as it developed in tandem with modern capitalism might be part of the problem and therefore could come under pressures of its own.

His main arguments are:

• The basic costs of all production factors have risen remarkably — personnel expenses, cost of renewal of resources and infrastructure;
• Democratisation of the world has led to demands for more and more, from education to health care and guarantees of lifelong income leading to significant increases in taxation of all kinds;
• Combined, these costs have risen beyond the point where serious capital accumulation is possible; and
• Price increases have limits beyond which they cannot be pushed  because of the elasticity of demand.

The result is a growing profit squeeze, which is reaching a point where “the game is not worth the candle”, he writes.

It might be these structural pressures, some commentators argue, that led to the situation that, in turn,  led the chase for profit via complicated, high-risk financial products that in reality produced nothing of any practical value and were at the root of the financial crisis that started in late 2007.

The extraordinary expansion of the world economy in the post World War II years until 1970 has been followed by a long period of economic stagnation in which the basic source of profit has been rank speculation sustained by successive indebtednesses.

The financial system has been prostituted to the point where its core business, of being a facilitating service industry is totally overshadowed among others by the chase of profit via, often debt-financed speculation that does not add a single penny to real production.

To what extent production as the core value of capitalism has been displaced is well illustrated by the fact that according to Benjamin M. Friedman of Harvard University, from the 1950s through the 1980s profits earned by financial firms (excluding insurance and real estate) accounted for 10% of total United States profits. By the 1990s it grew to 22% and to 34% from 2001 to 2005.

“Fantastically high salaries and bonuses attracted more than a quarter of Harvard’s graduating job-seekers to investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and the like,”  Bloomberg reported in November last year.

As was painfully illustrated by the financial crisis of 2007/08 and by the fact that the financial industry is full-steam back at its old game,governance of the sector has not kept up with developments in that sector or with the effect of globalisation on the financial industry.

And, as Bloomberg points out in its November article, “any effort to make finance safer, especially via new taxes, will be vociferously opposed by Wall Street and the banks, whose profits are amplified by leverage”.

Other threats

But the state of the financial sector is by far not the only threat to the modern capitalist system.

In another article on the same Foreign Policy-webpage referred to above, under the heading “Economies can’t just keep on growing,” Thomas Homer-Dixon writes: “Within this century, environmental and resource constraints will likely bring global economic growth to a halt.”

He argues that available resources already restrict economic activity in many sectors, though their impact usually goes unacknowledged and cites as an example rare-earth elements essential to the manufacture of many technologies. Meeting demand will require new mines at staggering environmental cost.

He also points out that for the petroleum industry the amount of energy received for each unit of energy invested in drilling has dropped from 100 to 1 in Texas in the 1930s to about 15 to I in the continental USA today. The oil sands of Alberta, Canada yield a return of only 4 to 1.

If the World Bank’s projected rates of global economic  growth hold steady, global output will have risen almost tenfold by 2100, which will imply tripling of carbon emissions. This, according to scientists, in terms of impact on the climate would cause such extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms that farmers would likely find they couldn’t produce the food needed for the world’s projected population of nine billion.

“Indeed, the economic damage caused by such climate change would probably, by itself, halt growth,” Homer-Dixon writes.

Socio-political implications

Much is written about the resentments building up in many societies against the ever-growing economic gap between the privileged few who benefit from the system as it is presently functioning and the majority in most countries.

The most dangerous factor, however, is ever-increasing food prices and the growing numbers of those who go hungry across the globe.

In an article in the UK Guardian newspaper Raj Patel last week reported that the UN has announced that its global food price index is now higher than it has ever been. Already this year, protestors have taken to the streets in India, Jordan and Algeria.

Illustrating how shocks to the system in one part of the world get transferred to other parts because of  the way the economic system has developed over the past 100 years. About food inflation, he writes: “It’s true that weather events have had an impact on global markets, but this is hardly the first La Nina. This historian Mike Davis, in his magisterial work Late Victorian Holocausts, looked at how the world responded to the cyclical El Nino/La Nina shocks throughout the 19th century.

“In the 1800s, the effects were survivable – but by the 1890s, in the so-called golden age of liberal capitalism, weather shocks were being transmitted directly to the poor through the newly established system of global commodity markets. And it’s these markets that have recently gone into overdrive.”

More than $200 billion has been poured into food markers since the financial crisis by speculators hunting profits, creating volatility. In the meantime  one billion people have gone hungry in 2009.

But if  you think that by governments clamping down on such practices the problem will be fixed, you would be mistaken. Without global consensus fixing the present problems of the economic system will be extremely difficult – and if you think that is a likely scenario, just ponder the following sentence from the Patel article: “The World Bank’s Robert Zoellick calls for freer markets, but researchers at ,er, the World Bank found that it’s government spending that helps most!”

In conclusion

In conclusion we take a paragraph out of Wallerstein’s article: “The only sure thing is that the present system cannot continue. The fundamental political struggle is over what kind of system will replace capitalism, not whether it should survive. The choice is between a new system that replicates some of the present system’s essential features of hierarchy and polarisation and one that is relatively democratic and egalitarian.”

Article taken from:

http://www.bluechipjournal.co.za/articles/other/475-capitalism-under-pressure

Capitalism under pressure is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Those who are experiencing high amounts of stress in their lifestyle need to always be aware of the idea of burnout potentially looming in the future. While the term ‘burnout’ is often thrown around in discussions of stress, do you really know what it means, and how it’s caused?

Burnout isn’t a recognized clinical psychiatric or psychological disorder, there are some similar features between burnout and diagnosable conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders or mood disorders. However, burnout is much more common; for example, it’s estimated that 25%-60% of qualified professionals, between the ages of 32 – 55, experience burnout! It’s also less severe, more temporary in duration, and clearly caused by situational stressors rather than a biologically mandated chemical imbalance. (It’s kind of like depression’s non-clinical, less intense cousin that just comes for a visit and leaves when you reduce the stress in your life.)

Six Classic Symptoms of Burnout

1)    Depleted Physical Energy: Prolonged stress can be physically draining, causing you to feel tired much of the time, or no longer have the energy you once did. Getting out of bed to face another day of the same gets more difficult.

2)    Emotional Exhaustion: You feel impatient, moody, inexplicably sad, or just get frustrated more easily than you normally would. You feel like you can’t deal with life as easily than you once could.

3)    Lowered Immunity to Illness: People who are suffering from burnout usually get the message from their body that something needs to change, and that message comes in the form of increases susceptibility to colds, the flu, and other minor illnesses.

4)    Increased Absenteeism and Inefficiency at Work: When experiencing job burnout, it gets more difficult just to get out of bed and face more of what’s been overwhelming you in the first place. This may be an unconscious defense against burnout, but those experiencing it tend to be less effective overall and stay home from work more often. This is part of why it makes sense for workers to take some time off before they’re feeling burned-out, and why it makes sense for employers to refrain from running their workers into the ground; they might not get back up so quickly!

5)    Less Investment in Interpersonal Relationships: Withdrawing somewhat from interpersonal relationships is another possible sign of burnout. You may feel like you have less to give, or less interest in having fun, or just less patience with people. But for whatever reason, people experiencing burnout can usually see the effects in their relationships.

6)    Increasingly Pessimistic Outlook: When experiencing burnout, it’s harder to get excited about life, harder to expect the best, harder to let things roll off your back, and harder to ‘look on the bright side’ in general. Because optimism is a great buffer for stress, those suffering from burnout find it harder to pull out of their rut than they normally would.

Preventing burnout

If you recognize the warning signs of impending burnout in yourself, remember that it will only get worse if you leave it alone. But if you take steps to get your life back into balance, you can prevent burnout from becoming a full-blown breakdown.

Burnout prevention tips

• Start the day with a relaxing ritual. Rather jumping out of bed as soon as you wake up, spend at least fifteen minutes meditating, writing in your journal, doing gentle stretches, or reading something that inspires you.
• Adopt healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping habits. When you eat right, engage in regular physical activity, and get plenty of rest, you have the energy and resilience to deal with life’s hassles and demands.
• Set boundaries. Don’t overextend yourself. Learn how to say “no” to requests on your time. If you find this difficult, remind yourself that saying “no” allows you to say “yes” to the things that you truly want to do.
• Take a daily break from technology. Set a time each day when you completely disconnect. Put away your laptop, turn off your phone, and stop checking email.
• Nourish your creative side. Creativity is a powerful antidote to burnout. Try something new, start a fun project, or resume a favorite hobby. Choose activities that have nothing to do with work.
• Learn how to manage stress. When you’re on the road to burnout, you may feel helpless. But you have a lot more control over stress than you may think. Learning how to manage stress can help you regain your balance.

Assess Your Risk For Job Burnout with this easy “Job Burnout Quiz”!

Is your job putting you under excessive levels of stress? Our work lives take up much of our waking hours, and affect us greatly. This quiz is designed to analyze features of your job that may put you at a greater risk of burnout, and assess your emotional state and feelings about your job, to let you know more about your burnout risk. Assess your situation, and find resources for combating burnout.

Take The Quiz

Adapted from source:www.about.com

Are You At Risk For Job Burnout? is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Gauteng may still be where most of the money and corporate action is, but for some  workers the Cape could offer better salaries.

According to the global pay comparison group PayScale, based on survey of almost 35 000 salaries Johannesburg (R234 651) and Sandton (R235 661) still have the highest median annual salaries in the country.

Lower down on the list are Witbank (R182 327), Pretoria (R179 932), Cape Town (R177 816) Durban (R166 361) and Port Elizabeth (R138 073). (Official government figures also show that Johannesburg’s per capita income of R58 705 a year – followed by Tshwane’s R49 912 – is the country’s highest.)

One recruiter’s survey, released this week, showed that employees on its books earn the most in Pretoria – 7% more than the national average salary, followed by Johannesburg (4% above the average).

Figures from JobCrystal show that Cape Town pay comes in at 5% below the average.

“However, it does appear that the so-called Cape Town tax – where candidates in Cape Town are paid less than those in Gauteng, ostensibly due to the better lifestyle – is showing signs of narrowing,” says JobCrystal MD Kevin Laithwaite.

Gauteng – which, according to the latest police statistics, still accounts for 50% of the crime in SA – is traditionally seen as a less desirable place to live.

Research by academics from Finland, New Zealand and the North West University on quality of life in South Africa found that if non-monetary measures are used – such as life expectancy, a better environment and higher literacy rates – Cape Town ranks first in South Africa.
It is followed by Ekurhuleni, Durban, Port Elizabeth and then Johannesburg and Tshwane. (When only measured in terms of “monetary” quality of life, Johannesburg tops the ranking.)

According to a recent study by First National Bank, the Western Cape has the best inward migration rate and the lowest outward migration in South Africa.

As more people wanted to live in the Cape, the subsequent demand for jobs is pushing down salaries.

However, Sandra Burmeister, CEO of recruitment group Landelahni Business Leaders, says earnings of executives and those with scarce skills (accountants, engineers and ICT professionals) are now on par in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

“This is simply because there are too few of these skills available in the market to be paying them any less in Cape Town.

“We have noticed, however, that in the case of black executives and scarce skills in financial services, the Cape Town rate of pay may well exceed the Johannesburg rate, just by virtue of the limited supply of specifically black candidates in the Cape and the desire to attract candidates for the role from other provinces.”

However, for more junior roles there is still a sizeable pay differential, Burmeister says.

“In secretarial, administrative, junior and even middle management, human resources and other support roles Cape Town is still paying less. I would think the differential is anything between 10% and 25%, depending on the role and the availability of skills. There are still more candidates available than jobs in these roles.”

There is one exception, though, Burmeister noticed.

Call centre agents are extremely well paid in Cape Town (mostly by international firms) – about 25% to 30% more than call centre agents in Johannesburg.

“We have an oversupply of entry level people and unemployed graduates with good communication skills in Johannesburg.”

Madge Gibson of Jack Hammer Executive Headhunters says the executive pay differential between Cape Town and Gauteng is all but wiped out.

”At an executive level it’s all about the role, the skill and the experience – whether we are recruiting from Johannesburg or Cape Town, the salary stays the same.”

The Western Cape economy has also sharpened up in recent years, attracting more companies and entrepreneurs.

According to Globalinsight data, the Western Cape economy showed average annual growth of 4.2% during the past decade, beating the Gauteng growth rate of 4.1%.

-Article from Fin24.com

West Coast Personnel specializes in placing qualified professional people with selected companies. Go to www.wcp.co.za to learn more.

Cape Town best city to work in is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel

Roodt Griesel and his dedicated team at West Coast Personnel has your best interest at heart, employers are assured of impeccable integrity and service.

West Coast Personnel makes Recruitment Cape Town a day at the beach…

Situated in Table View, Cape Town, West Coast Personnel services the entire Western Cape and has been doing so for the past 16 years. West Coast Personnel is a front runner in recruitment Cape Town.

The head office at number 254a Blaauwberg Road, Table View is a one stop destination for employers and job seekers alike.

With specialist recruiters in IT, Technical, Accounting, Project Management just to name a few, recruitment Cape Town has never looked better.

Their recruitment Cape Town comes with a guarantee…

West Coast personnel is a member of APSO and guarantees employers the placement, it’s because of this guarantee and their rigorous selection program that they have an above average success rate.

Roodt is a peoples person and his personal motto is “how can I help you”, he ‘s managed to put together a team of seasoned professionals with hands on real life experience.

They will be able to assist you in finding that special person to fill your gap and for job seekers they offer a comprehensive Curriculum Vitae service that will ensure your asset as a first class employee will be highlighted.

For top recruitment Cape Town you found your match.

Recruitment Cape Town is a post from: Recruitment Cape Town - West Coast Personnel