labour issues | Real Communications

“No man is an island, entire unto itself, but rather a piece of the whole”

And no business can “make it on its own” or say “to hell with the rest”……..

Strategise your branding

Every business is an integral part of a community, society, country and the world. And nowadays a concerned public is watching business more closely and able to scratch the surface of your utterances and actions to reveal the true you. What it finds impacts your business reputation.

A business has to start its branding process by exploring its core values. Yes, values. Today there are powerful societal and political forces at play and these are influencing how the public and audiences perceive a business. If your business shows a blatant disregard for certain labour or environmental principles, they won’t like you, even if your product is top-notch.

Strategic brand communication planning is a must for all businesses. Those who don’t engage in strategizing their brand communication will suffer negative consequences that directly impact their operations, stakeholder engagement and reputation management:

Strategic branding gives you a sound foundation based on your beliefs and values.
A strategy provides the criteria for defining who you are and what you want to achieve; it finds opportunities to focus on your strengths and reformat weaknesses. It differentiates you from the rest, positions you exactly where you want to be and gives you a competitive edge.
Identifying who your people or stakeholders are and what their needs and expectations are, gives you the advantage of direct, relevant and meaningful engagement with them.
A strategy ensures that you plan your communication and your actions to reflect and reinforce your values. The integrity of your business ensures ongoing delivery on its promises and achievement of its goals.
Strategic planning is a mindful, purposeful process aimed at long-term commitment to stakeholder engagement and relationship building, and addresses issues of sustainability, good governance, ethical branding and reputation, using these as guiding principles in the business.
A strategy works from the inside out where your internal goals are aimed at making the ‘outside’ world a better place for all, and ensuring that the people out there want to continue doing business with you – this applies to both commercial and social brands.
Strategy is for a good business, it’s good for business and it makes great business sense.

In an extract taken “Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles” Ruchir Sharma (Head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management) maintains South Africa does not have what it takes because it seems that “The steadfastness [shown at the start of the new dispensation] is starting to look like stagnation”.
Much progress has been made in the socio-economic area. However, in trying to ease the pain of previously disadvantaged through social welfare grants, South Africa has not done itself any good in encouraging productivity. Instead it is becoming a welfare state at the expense of real growth. Today, SA is the only major country with more people receiving social grants than holding down jobs; here are 16-million receiving social grants, six times more than there were in 1998. The ANC is backed by its allies in perhaps the most powerful union movement in the developing world. But none of these power centres — not the state, not the private companies, not the ANC or its union allies — seems to have much sense of urgency about ramping up growth.
To drive employment and growth, there has been much talk about skills development and training and job creation; many plans and programmes have been set up but no progress is being made. There is either too much red tape and regulations; a sense of entitlement in the minds of job seekers; lack of skills, labour problems and debilitating pay demands; lack of commitment on the part of big business, and other factos slowing down the rate of growth.
It seems it is up to small enterprises to take the lead in training people to at least be able to function effectively in a work environment. Apart from focusing on the technical skills training like plumbing, accounting, computers etc., we must also invest in “soft skills” development: improved communication skills, leadership skills, ethics and critical thinking in business, to name a few.
We’re up for it, but are government and big business going to support our initiative?