Human capital: employee development

Our people are key to our business performance. Our human resources strategy therefore focuses on attracting and retaining talented people who have the skills and leadership required for sustainable value creation.

We strive to be an employer of choice by encouraging our employees to reach their highest potential in an engaging, professional work environment. We reward performance excellence and address non-performance. While our employees are accountable for their individual actions, we support teamwork and the mutual exchange of knowledge, regardless of cultures, genders and background. We foster a culture of respect with zero tolerance for discriminatory behaviour.

We offer competitive remuneration, comprehensive training support and skills transfer. Performance targets, training and skills development are reviewed annually and aligned with the group’s strategy.

Hyprop complies with employment laws and is committed to protecting human rights, ensuring that our code of ethics and disciplinary code are communicated to all employees.

Workforce breakdown

Total number of employees	2016		2015
Hyprop Investments Limited
Permanent employees	232	*	199
Contract and casual employees (mainly information kiosk and event staff)	47		43
Total Hyprop workforce	279		242
Employees who are permanent %	83		82
Employees belonging to a trade union %	—		—

* Marketing function brought in-house from 1 November 2015

Employment equity (EE) and transformation

Our EE policy codifies and stipulates the promotion of equal opportunity and fair treatment by eliminating discrimination and implementing measures to redress disadvantages experienced by designated groups and ensure their equitable representation in all occupational categories.

Hyprop’s ﬁve-year employment equity plan was approved by the Department of Labour in 2013, and an annual progress report is submitted in January each year. Hyprop complies with the Employment Equity Act and is committed to organisational transformation to diversify its workforce.

Our challenge is that, due to extremely low employee turnover, very few vacancies become available.

Employee engagement surveys

Annual employee engagement surveys ensure we timeously address any issues on employee morale, productivity and turnover. The 2016 survey indicated that 97% of employees currently feel that the company’s benefits, processes and policies are implemented according to expectations. The survey included our recruitment process, corporate culture, employee policy implementation, HIV and Aids education, remuneration, company benefits as well as the work environment and facilities.

Employee retention

Motivated by an engaging work environment and competitive remuneration, the commitment of our people is reﬂected in high retention rates, especially at senior level. While low employee turnover ensures continuity and aligns group performance with our long-term strategic objectives, we remain mindful of the value of fresh insight and aim for an appropriate balance between internal and external appointments.

	2016		2015
Employee retention	Hyprop %	Average service years	Hyprop %	Average service years
Top management	100	9	100	8
Senior management	100	7,4	91	7
Middle management	92	7,5	92	7
Administration	88	6	91	6
Maintenance	89	10,5	98	9,5
Total	91	6,3*	93	6,2

* Includes employees transferred from Word4Word (197 transfer, with original employment date used)

	Number of employees
Movement	2016	2015
Internal placements	19	7
New appointments	25	16
Dismissals	6	1
Resignations	15	13
Retirements	2	1
Section 197 transfers due to sale of asset		11
Section 197 transfer due to cancelled marketing contract	42
Employee turnover (%)**	9	7

** The number of people who departed, relative to the total number of employees at year-end

Employment equity statistic

	African %	Coloured %	Indian %	White %
New appointments	48	24	16	12
Section 197 employment contract transfer into company	10	17	0	73
Internal placements and promotions	21	32		47
Resignations	27	40		33
Dismissals	50	17	17	16
Retirement	—	50	—	50

Development and training

Our training and development programme considers our own requirements, skills shortages in the property industry and transformation imperatives.

Training needs are identified during the employee review process, while the group-wide skills base is objectively assessed to identify focal areas for training in the year ahead.

The objectives of our training strategy include:

Enhancing knowledge and the skills base
Enabling employees to contribute to our business and growth
Encouraging further education to enhance competence in current positions and increase eligibility for promotion
Supporting employment equity initiatives.

One of our primary objectives is to establish a succession plan by developing junior managers for middle management roles.

During the year, a combination of internal and outsourced training sessions covered key areas:

Training spend***	2016 R	2015 R
Leadership	436 087	690 634
Business operations	482 633	536 753
Graduate programme	54 351	85 250
Green building leasing principles	59 928	9 789
Leasing and administration	4 500	63 000
Health and safety	31 818	6 406
HIV/Aids health training and information	213 941	52 349
Total	1 283 258	1 444 181

*** Actual training spend for the year was in line with budget

Value of training

	2016					2015
	Cost of training R	Training cost %	Number of people trained	Number of training sessions	Average spend per session R	Cost of training R	Training cost %	Number of people trained	Number of training sessions	Average spend per session R
African	218 108	17	94	225	969	152 392	10	83	249	612
Coloured	116 277	9	59	116	1 002	37 363	3	40	120	311
Indian	84 829	7	112	349	243	223 063	15	103	51	4 374
White	850 464	66	18	55	15 463	1 022 378	71	16	309	3 309
Foreign nationals	13 580	1	3	8	1 697	8 985	1	3	11	817
Total	1 283 258	100	286	753	1 704	1 444 181	100	245	740	1 952
Male	421 974	35	113	310	1 361	657 007	45	114	336	1 955
Female	861 284	65	173	443	1 944	787 174	55	131	404	1 948
Total	1 283 258	100	286	753	1 704	1 444 181	100	245	740	1 952

Additional human capital measures

	2016	2015
Total working days	70 168	55 352
Total number of person days lost due to absenteeism (sick, family responsibility and maternity leave)	1 177	1 321
Percentage of total person days lost due to absenteeism (%)	1,7	2,4
Total number of days lost due to industrial action	—	—
Percentage of total days lost due to industrial action	—	—

Employee relations

The national human resources manager is responsible for employee relations. A disciplinary and grievance policy governs these relationships and is available on the company intranet, in hard copy at each management office, and on the website.

There were 11 disciplinary cases during the year, resulting in six dismissals. No grievances were reported.

Employee benefits

To entrench Hyprop as a preferred employer, we offer a range of employee benefits that exceed legislated minimum standards, including:

Membership of a defined-contribution pension fund with death, disability and funeral benefits
Four months’ maternity leave pay (paid at 50% of cost to company)
Annual leave rises to 20 days after five years with the group
Employees qualify for six days’ paid study leave for approved qualifications
Free paid parking at all our management offices.

Non-discrimination

Discrimination is not tolerated. Any reported instances are immediately and appropriately dealt with under our code of ethics and conduct and related disciplinary procedures. Policies are reviewed annually and distributed to employees.

No incidents of discrimination were reported during the year.

Labour relations

Hyprop has no unionised employees and there was no impact on the business from industrial or labour unrest during the year.

Health and safety

Our policy is to create a safe and healthy working environment, with procedures to manage occupational incidents and compensation claims in line with legislation. In brief, we aim to:

Provide a health and safety programme that is effective, of high standard, and continuously reviewed and improved
Comply with relevant statutory provisions for health, safety and environmental matters that affect employees, customers, contractors and the public
Ensure all employees are properly informed of their responsibilities for health, safety and environmental matters and discharge these effectively
Encourage employees to participate in preventing accidents and preserving health
Provide the resources and training to achieve these objectives.

Each shopping centre is responsible for executing this policy on site through its operations manager. At group level, the national facilities manager is responsible for biannual audit reports, drawing on submissions from each centre.

All centres conduct regular health and safety training for employees, while third-party suppliers perform annual health and safety audits.

All construction projects have health and safety consultants who represent Hyprop and monitor activities on site regularly. On large and complex projects such as Rosebank Mall, the contractor has its own health and safety officer managing contractor teams and subcontractors.

There were no serious casualties or injuries during the year at any of our properties or projects.

HIV/Aids	2016	2015
Number of employees and contractors who received voluntary counselling and testing for HIV/Aids	533	247
Number of employees and contractors tested for HIV/Aids	258	200
HIV/Aids prevalence rate among employees (%)	6	5
Contracted employees tested for HIV/Aids	115	—
HIV/Aids rate among contractors (%)	6	—

HIV/Aids remains an issue in South Africa that could affect the wellbeing of our employees, leading to emotional distress, absenteeism, employee turnover and lower productivity. As a formal risk assessment determined the impact of HIV/Aids on the group as negligible, Hyprop does not have targets for addressing its direct impact, nor does it have strategies for addressing indirect business risks (eg effect on customer base/supply chain).

Our formal HIV/Aids policy, reviewed annually, provides guidelines on creating a non-discriminatory workplace, dealing with HIV testing, conﬁdentiality and disclosure, providing equitable employee beneﬁts, dealing with dismissal and managing grievance procedures. It also ensures affected employees’ rights to conﬁdentiality.

Where employees willingly disclose their status, Hyprop offers counselling and encourages openness, acceptance and support.

Every year, HIV/Aids awareness days are held at each centre management office by professional nurses, with an external healthcare service provider conducting voluntary counselling and testing programmes. Employees are offered the opportunity to test for HIV, cholesterol and stress levels.