HR employees' perceptions regarding the changes in labour broking

Abstract

South Africa’s labour legislation went through significant changes recently, with the changes to section 198 of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 being the most contentious. The purpose of this research was to explore the perceptions of employees in the HR department of an integrated petroleum and chemical company regarding the changes to labour broking and the potential implications of these changes for an integrated petroleum and chemical company and its employees. The qualitative exploratory study was conducted with six employees of a large integrative petroleum and chemical company making use of labour brokers, until data saturation was reached. The data were collected by means of individual interviews and telephonic interviews. The results indicated that the changes to section 198 will have some positive and negative implications. The positive implications for an organisation included more productive employees and the ability to identify high-quality employees more easily. The positive implications for the company's employees are that the lower-income employees will be protected, the new legislation will provide permanent employment and there will be better dispute resolution procedures. The negative implications to the changes to section 198 for the organisation, include for instance higher costs, the drafting of new policies and guidelines and less employment flexibility. Negative implications for the employees include unemployment, negative attitudes towards the organisation, poor employability and a situation where the current and/or permanent employees have to do all the work.