candidates, we wanted to better understand the drivers that make them stay. This programme speaks directly to our retention strategies. In essence it is important to know which aspects of employee satisfaction we were good at, but it was critical to determine which aspects we were not good at.”
Eliance has identified two focus areas from the Deloitte survey. The first is communication. Strydom commented that, in the past, their methodology has been top down. He has realised that some of the changes here would be more social interactive and bottom up communication. “Communication is not just writing things down and disseminating it via emails, notice boards or staff meetings. I think that in today’s world we need to emulate business communication to how people communicate with their friends and family. I believe if we manage this change our communications will become more effective and inclusive” Strydom shared.
The second focus area centres on creating
career paths within their Small Business landscape. The reality is that the smaller an organisation is, the more extensive job profiles become and the flatter management structures become. Strydom concedes that this is a huge challenge. He indicated that Eliance will be devising programmes to further develop staff member’s skill base and to promote more innovative ways of delivering their products and services to their clients.
Eliance has a very unique organisational culture that is supported, in part, by their recruitment practices. Strydom continues; “I think in many other organisations people feel the need to wear masks when they are at work. Not at Eliance. We try to emulate the real world in our everyday behaviour. I treat people here the same as I would treat them anywhere else. There is no difference here between how we treat staff and how we treat our family. Staff will never be lambasted for being themselves. But this only works when you employ the right people to fit into this type of community culture.
Our employees know that, when they wake up in the morning and don’t feel like coming
52 Management Today | March 2012
to work for any reason, they don’t even have to inform us that they are going to be absent. We believe that you should not be here if you are not going to contribute fully. This practice works at Eliance because of a strong sense of community. Very few people abuse this freedom. We’ve found that the community is self-managed and peers, rather than management, address any infringements. Staff members understand that the next person in the value chain will have to work that much harder at delivering to our clients if the practice is abused.
The principles that we recruit on are firstly IQ and secondly EQ. We go to great lengths to determine that applicants have the desired personality to fit into our culture. Third on the list is their work ethic. Questions such as ‘are people prepared to work the long hours or overtime when needed? Are they happy to go home when the work is incomplete?’ And the last principle is skill within the IT field. But it is also not as simple as that. You need to get the combination of these four principles right for the community to stay self-regulatory.
Our ethos is that we believe that family comes first. If you don’t have the support of your family you are not fully engaged at work. Most of our staff members are at the early stages of starting their families. No organisation, no crisis or shareholder will take priority over the needs of the families of our employees. I feel this ethos has delivered for us. In many organisations the focus is solely on profit. My main focus is on satisfied employees. Once they are happy the rest will automatically fall in to place. I practice a servant leadership style. I am here to serve our employees. I think this has been critical for our success. We don’t have physical assets that we sell. Our assets are our people and the IP that resides within them.”
Management Today magazine asked Strydom to comment on challenges leaders currently face in the South African landscape. “In the IT and Software Development industry the biggest challenge is the retention of skill within South Africa. Another is to create and maintain a level of optimism in the country. Young people today have many more choices
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