Some believe that Edcon is an Employer of Choice because of its magnitude. We know better. We know that it’s our most valuable asset that makes us great. No not our renowned denims. In fact, every one of our 14 brands across over 1000 stores in South Africa carries this single most valued asset – and that’s our people.
Our business employs over 25 000 permanent employees and a further 20 000 temporary staff who consider us the best retail company to work for. People who are action-oriented, smart, exudes dynamism and savvy, thrive in a diverse environment and exploit opportunities to grow and develop, and those who are passionate about people and are resilient in an environment of continuous change will flourish in a career at Edcon, which is a fast-paced organisation focused on customer satisfaction.
Our company culture and style are built on our values. Steve Ross, our CEO, underscores this when he says, “Values are more important than financial numbers.” This statement captures our focus on building a values-based organisation. To this effect we undertake to value People, Integrity, Performance and Professionalism(PIPP).
Our culture is driven by the following imperatives: a constructive leadership style; an aspiration to remain an Employer of Choice, critical to attract and retain employees from designated groups; incentivised customer-focused employees; a sustainable high performance environment; intertwining organisational growth with individual growth; and life-long learning. We believe that this culture also creates conditions for effective employment equity implementation.
At Edcon we recognise that the sustainability of our success lies in our people. As a strategic business partner within Edcon, HR is committed to attracting the right people for our business. We offer competitive remuneration packages and recognition schemes to ensure that we make the right investment in our employee’s career at Edcon. And once on-board, we pride ourselves in providing our employees with an integrated learning experience to both unleash their full potential and build their capacity to meet current and future business requirements.
These are but a few reasons why Edcon is not only the largest retailer in Southern Africa, but also an Employer of Choice.
At Edcon we view learning as an integral part of growing our most valuable asset, our people. And we recognise that when employees grow, they in turn grow the business. Our commitment to our employees is demonstrated by the fact that over our past financial year we invested 4.6% of our payroll to learning and development.
We also offer permanent employees a staff bursary to encourage them to further their qualifications. In addition, we offer children of selected groups of employees the opportunity to participate in the Steve Ross bursary.
To help facilitate learning at Edcon, we operate our very own Retail Academy which offers a range of learning opportunities, from technical, financial, management and leadership to graduate and internship programs for industrial psychologists to our new, imminent beauty technology certification.
We are proud to be accredited by SETA as a training provider and are fully compliant with the requirements of the Skills Development Act.
So whether you are a graduate preparing to start a career or a seasoned retailer you have various exciting career opportunities at Edcon.
Our Merchant Development Program, for upcoming planners and buyers, as well as the Operations Management Development Program for those who are born traders provides lucrative career options for graduates. Apply now.
At Edcon we believe that happy people make more productive employees. But we also recognise that outside the realm of work our employees play various other roles, which in their own right carry their own amount of responsibilities and challenges. So, in order to help our employees obtain and maintain a work-life balance, we have invested in various initiatives to encourage one’s overall wellness, be it physical, emotional, or psychological.
A holistic approach to wellness in the workplace has led us to roll-out wellness programmes as one of the key pillars of our Employer of Choice endeavours to address the needs of our staff.
Some of our wellness initiatives include:
- The Edcon Care Centre which is located at our Head Office. The Centre provides staff with free access to lawyers, medical practitioners, psychologists and financial advisors.
- The Wellness Centre reinforces health issues by creating awareness around regular health days, such as Breast Cancer month, which is observed nationally in October, and world Aids Day.
- The wellness function networks with other organisations as well as NGOs to share information and key learnings.
- The wellness function has established an Employee Care Line which provides employees with a comprehensive group of services. The strategic objective of this initiative is to ensure that the services of wellness are accessible to as many employees in the Edcon Group as possible, irrespective of their geographic location.
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The HR Team has the capability to advise on team dynamics and individualised counselling to enhance employee capabilities. Just another way of showing we truly care!
In our Policy document we state that “Edcon firmly espouses the following business reasons for implementing Employment Equity, in pursuit of our stated objective of ‘Employer of Choice’, and beyond mere statutory compliance. This includes broadening the skills base with a diverse workforce and for greater market penetration into a diverse community, supported by a diverse inclusive culture conducive to employment equity and sustainable business.
Our employment strategy rests firmly on seven main pillars:
- Appropriate structures and resources to co-ordinate and monitor the implementation of Employment Equity;
- Ensuring that the composition of the organisation begins to reflect regional and/or national economically active demographics at all job levels;
- Equitable policies, procedures, practices and facilities; an organisational culture that is conducive to Employment Equity, diversity and sustainable business
- An equal opportunity situation for all women.
- The elimination of unfair discrimination against, and promotion of reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities.
- Retaining, promoting and developing employees from designated groups through focused and appropriate recruitment, retention and development initiatives
- To retain, promote and develop employees from designated groups through focused and appropriate recruitment, retention and development initiatives.
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Edcon strives to pay market related salaries for all positions. Remuneration strategies differ within functional areas, and where appropriate, higher levels of incentivisation have been introduced.
Remuneration is influenced by individual performance and substantial recognition is given to employees nominated by their colleagues for living the Edcon values via our Golden Hearts Recognition Scheme.
Edcon is also conscious that corporate governance requires sound remuneration policies to balance economic and budgetary constraints with strategic business issues. As such we have designed a special incentive scheme that will add value to our business and reward qualifying employees at the same time.
At Edcon we value our employees’ progress and therefore rely on a good performance management system which encompasses planning, monitoring and reviewing on an ongoing basis. This system is designed to ensure that we are able to effectively assist our employees enhance their capabilities. As such employees are reviewed regularly against their specified goals and provided with constructive feedback which helps support their performance. This increases employees’ awareness of their performance, which is highly relevant given that the guaranteed pay and incentives of employees are directly linked to their level of performance. Between 20% and 35% of managers’ and supervisors’ goals continue to be linked to a People Index that measures progress in workforce diversity, talent management, performance management and leadership. We believe that this high weighting on people issues ensures focus on the value of good people management in the sustainability of our successes.
One of our priorities is to execute our Integrated Talent Management strategy to ensure that Edcon has an engaged and talented workforce equipped to contribute to the achievement of the Group’s 2013 strategic objectives.
Some specific initiatives include our talent acquisition process which has been benchmarked against top South African companies. We also recognise the value of working tirelessly to improve our leadership style and organisational culture.
As a direct consequence, we have been able to identify, develop and retain key talent for succession planning purposes.
The types of jobs at Edcon include the positions of buyers, merchandise planners, marketers, store managers, human resource practitioners, financial specialists, operations specialists, store designers, shop-fitters, information systems specialists, administrators, sales associates, floor managers, logistics specialists and accountants. For most of these jobs we have carefully mapped the career paths employees could follow, supported by excellent training and development programmes in place.
Edcon has implemented a well-defined leadership framework in our quest to enhance and sustain a culture of leadership in the Group.
Fourteen leadership competencies have been identified within the framework of four domains (see below). In addition, we have incorporated leadership skills as a category in our annual recognition awards. To further reinforce the importance of leadership, 10% of the performance goals are dedicated to measuring leadership effectiveness.
The intention of Edcon’s special approach to leadership is to get everyone to understand that leadership includes not only effective management that involves day-to-day process, people and performance management but also mobilising and motivating people around a vision or strategy for the way work is done.
The four key domains of our leadership model are defined below.
| This is about the kind of person you are – and how you make the best of what you have to offer in order to realise the organisation’s goals. |
This is about the way you work with others – how you help to bring out the best in all and inspire them to take responsibility for good performance. |
| This is about how you manage the processes we have in place – and the solutions you find and decisions you make for sustaining continuously improving performance. |
This is about your understanding of world and industry trends and how they influence customer expectations. It’s also about your ability to create future strategies, relating them to work and getting people to understand the necessary changes. |
So, we’re the largest retailer in Southern Africa. We are multi-branded, we are multi-national, but we also multi-talented because our common most valued asset is not our renowned denims, but our people. It is this asset which HR supports and develops to empower them to take our business to new heights, thus ensuring Edcon remains a compelling place for which to work. |