05 Dec 2022

Employee recognition is  pivotal to success as it is directly linked to engagement, productivity and retention. 

 “If you want your employees to feel engaged and stay at the company, you need to show them that you value their work and contribution to the business,” says  Khoemacau Copper Mine CEO Mr Johan Ferreira.

 He was speaking on Saturday during a ceremony for honouring high performing long service employees who had been in the company’s employ for five to 12 years.

 Mr Ferreira, who was among the celebrated workers, stressed the need to recognise long service employees as they had demonstrated dedication and commitment to the company.

Such employees had helped the company in building a legacy, he said.

   Echoing Mr Ferreira’s words, the company’s human resource and communications vice president Ms Mmama Mhlanga-Fichani said employees were the most significant assets of any organisation and therefore it was only wise that they be appreciated.

 According to Ms Mhlanga-Fichani, numerous studies had found that on average, the typical employee stayed at a job for just over four years and that older employees had longer tenure at a company than their younger counterparts.

She noted that nowadays people were more mobile and likely to change jobs regularly.

Long service employees, Ms Mhlanga-Fichani said, were important as they possessed valuable business knowledge, work experience and problem solving techniques that were hard to replace. 

Retaining employees was a tough job for human resource units especially for line managers, she said adding that competition for long service employees with valuable work experience had increased in the mining sector.

 Ms Mhlanga-Fichani said as Khoemacau shifted from open pit shifting to undergrounding operations, it would soon be looking for ready-made talent.

 The best talent, she said,  went to the highest bidder explaining that to retain it, the mine needed to build a culture that included employee recognition. 

She implored mining industry leaders to figure out ways of growing the resource sector and make it prosper which she said required innovation.

Ms Mhlanga-Fichani said the industry could grow its own ecosystem skills as well as develop a talent pool demanded by the market. “It is good when talented people stay with the organisation within the same industry and we are happy that our employees will not only stay at Khoemacau but also in the mining industry,” she said.ENDS