In partnership with REMchannel, Printing SA invited members to attend a series of its Salaries and Skills Benchmarking Research Forums at its four chambers around the country. The third and final forum was held for its Northern and Central Chambers at The Canvas Riversands in Midrand on 11 May 2023.
Central Chamber regional manager Ashley Samuel welcomed attendees and CEO Dr Abdool Mahomed outlined the objective of the forum, in which Printing SA – commissioned by the FP&M Seta – has partnered with REMchannel to help give its members a better understanding of the current markets with respect to salaries and skills. REMchannel is a reward management platform giving employers the tools to weightings, thresholds, targets and benchmarks of remuneration.
‘This project is about benchmarking at least 50 job titles that we find are commonly used in the sector,’ said Dr. Mahomed.
He emphasised that there are about 140 skills across the value chain in print, packaging and signage, and Printing SA are currently just targeting the 50 most important regarded by its members.
‘The idea is to get at least a minimum of three comparative companies, and to be able to make a valid assessment as to what the remuneration range for that particular skill would be. We aim to illustrate in broad terms what the minimum or maximum will be.
‘It could be that your company had got a specific kind of equipment for a particular operator to operate on, and it may differ from one company to the next. Another difference could be perhaps a person has come in with your company and has developed with the processes for 10, 15 or 20 years, and he/she may have that experience behind his/her name, whereas another company may be employing a new person fresh from wherever.
‘So there will be differences, the job might look the same, but in terms of experience and even affordability, it will differ from company to company.’
What will come out of this research for example is the ability to identify a range within a particular job description utilised commonly in the sector, and companies will have an idea what to benchmark against their own. Printing SA have also engaged with its associative unions to maintain confidentiality.
‘We are very honoured to be partnering with Printing SA on this project,’ said Rene Richter, REMchannel owner, who said that 50 occupations and 25 companies will be included in the first year of this research, but will be a longer term engagement, ’The goal is to assist you – the printing company – in your decision making process.’
The research will be conducted in survey/questionnaire format with many participating companies. REMchannel is introducing printing jobs into its research, and want to customise the research so it is of value to the printer.
‘We pride ourselves that we do not only collect quality information – and we can of course only do that with participants, we can’t do that on our own – but we’ve got those mechanisms in place to ensure that we manage it effectively. And then we provide advisory services to our clients on that basis.’
‘Why are we conducting the research? There’s a major need for this kind of information. Every company looks at their salaries and their renumeration practices as their competitive edge and they don’t necessarily want to share that with a wider audience.’
Standard research methodology will be applied, with a report to be published later, online and accessible to all REMchannel’s clients.
Any information not updated will be deleted, as the REMchannel need all the information possible, such as various ranges of pay, promotional histories of pay, how long they’ve been with the organisation etc.
Data confidentiality is ensured through stringent data penetration testing, with a stringent submission process, and research consultants sworn to confidentiality. Furthermore the report is aggregated information, and not a list of company names and their respective information.
Richter outlined the numerous benefits of this research which include assistance in making informed remuneration decisions, helping have anecdotal discussions with staff more often than not, addressing individual performance of people within an organisation and dealing with the attraction and retention of staff.
There is always also the risk of losing staff to a competitor, and the data can determine if an organisaton’s staff are underpaid, and can make an organisation consider if they were told by their staff that they were underpaid.
‘We’re hoping this research will give you the guideline to ask ‘can I afford to invest more money in the scarce skills?’, ‘how does that affect the attraction and the retention of my staff?’, or ‘what do my benefits look like?’.
This data will also help employers make better decisions in terms of retirement, medical aid and leave.
The Department of Labour’s guidelines are also used in the research in terms of various different job levels with an organisation. Union wage negotiations also need to be factored into research.
‘Without your participation there will be no research, so we are very much reliant on you to analyse whether this is going to provide you with value, and if so we need you to commit to the research and help us make it valuable, maybe not only this year but into the next years. It’s part of a broader plan, there’s a lot of other work being done, its not only this research,’ said Richter.
PRINTING SA
+27 11 287 1160
info@printingsa.org
http://www.printingsa.org
