Past Events

SARA Reward Awards 2010 - The 5th Element

2010 REWARD AWARD WINNERS

The Elements have been drawn together culminating in the revelation of the 2010 winners of the SARA Reward Awards.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE AWARDS EVENING

At a prestigious, very glamorous Annual Gala Awards Banquet, hosted by SARA on Saturday 30 October 2010 at Gallagher Estate, deserving reward specialists were honoured with the coveted Strategist winner, Practitioner winner and team winner awards respectively.

The winners were announced by René Richter, Associate Director of Research at PWC-Remchannel, sponsors of the SARA Rewards Awards for 2010.

Reward Strategist Winner 2010
Bertina Engelbrecht, of Clicks Group Limited, was announced the Reward Strategist Winner for 2010

As part of the Clicks Group Limited’s focus on positioning the Group as an employer of choice and enhancing the Employee Value Proposition, Bertina successfully implemented a formal pay framework supported by governance, introduced flexibility in pay and benefits to meet the differing needs of employees and improved the organizational design.

Bertina played a strategic role in the project, i.e. Project sponsor; Executive Director as well as Project manager overseeing the implementation of the project.

Some of the benefits to both the Group and the employees include: The introduction of a Group HR governance framework; a sound grading and benefits matrix; a fair and transparent pay policy; an environment where costs are known and better monitored; reduction in staff turnover and improvement of internal equity.

Reward Practitioner Winner 2010
Menushka Govender, of Cadbury, took the best Reward Practitioner award.

Menushka played a critical role in a number of different initiatives at Cadbury South Africa over the last 12 months. During this period, amongst other things, Cadbury South Africa implemented a Cost to Company salary structure in South Africa, a continuous shift pattern in their manufacturing site and has begun the process of implementing a new Job Evaluation system throughout their operations.

Menushka was directly involved in each of these initiatives, by conducting market best practice reviews, doing research, consulting with stakeholders and external advisors and playing a key role in the implementation of each of these interventions.

Her professionalism, attention to detail, quality and presentation of work product has gained the respect and trust of key individuals in the organisation.

Reward Team Winner 2010
Woolworths Remuneration Team, represented by Yasmine Al-Sharaa, Igor Adonis, Janine Foedoerovna and Jenny Wolhuter, were crowned Reward Team winners for 2010.

Woolworths agreed to the implementation of a STEP (Store Team Employment Proposition) strategy and in the financial year 2009/2010 the Remuneration and Benefits Team was instrumental in the design, selection and implementation of a large component of this strategy.
The success and impact of what they delivered were clearly measured through hard measures which were as follows:

Staff turnover in corporate stores decreased from 35% in 2009 to 27% in 2010.
Absenteeism in corporate stores decreased from 5% in 2009 to 3% in 2010.
Culture Climate Survey: Reward & recognition improvement from 55% in 2009 to 63% in 2010.
Conversion to a more stable employment contract: Achievement of 37% versus target of 30% in 2010.

This project involved:

Merged the Alexander Forbes provident fund with the Woolworths group Retirement fund that means 4000 store employees got access to the Woolworths group Retirement fund and equal risk benefits.
Increase the funeral cover benefit from R8000 to R10 000 at no extra cost to employees.
Implemented the Tool of trade cars project in corporate stores. This solution involved the redeployment of company cars, purchasing of new cars and equalisation of salaries.
Creation of a tool to convert staff employees to a more stable flexible 40 hour per week contract.
The successful implementation of the healthcare for store staff with a 20% take up.
Introduction of a variable pay scheme (gain share scheme) for all store based staff.

The team received very good feedback internally from the various stakeholders since the implementation of the Human Resource functions had an extremely positive impact on the organisation, employees and value proposition.