Members of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber met in Port Elizabeth today to learn about Turnaround Solutions and focus on how to return their companies to profitability. A programme of Productivity SA, Turnaround Solutions introduces critical productivity awareness within stable businesses by means of Early Warning System and Productivity Training. Businesses consisting of twenty employees or more have the opportunity to return their companies to profitability using Turnaround Solutions.
The intervention by Turnaround Solutions is attained through the development of enterprise specific strategies, identification of common factors that hamper growth and competitiveness. Once the programme has identified loopholes, recommendations are made to tackle existing bottlenecks.
The Declaration of the Presidential Jobs summit (October, 1998) outlined a Social Plan which aims to avoid job losses and employment decline wherever possible, and seeks to actively manage retrenchments and to ameliorate their effects on individuals and local economics when large job losses are unavoidable.
Productivity SA’s aim is to increase productivity levels in South Africa in order to help the economy to grow. The mandate of the the Turnaround Solutions department of Productivity SA is to decrease the impact of job losses and retain jobs through sustaining companies.
THe Department of Labour’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has allocated R48.5 million to Productivity SA to help rescue companies facing possible closure and retrenchments.
Productivity SA last year successfully managed to save over 16 000 jobs across key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, civil and construction and clothing and textiles. Productivity SA is the government owned entity mandated to promote the country’s productivity levels and competitiveness and it is a Schedule 3A entity.
Productivity SA’s Executive Manager, Mudzunga Mashamaba says: “It has been almost 13 years since the Turnaround Solutions programme has been active and since its inception the programme has saved over 200 000 existing jobs.” The funding by the UIF will be availed in tranches and Productivity SA is expected to produce quarterly detailing progress.
