Mature learnership programme in place ALAN PEAT WITH A foreign ownership, Kuehne & Nagel has slightly different black economic empowerment (BEE) rules to play by, according to national human resources manager, Colin Osborne. “As our parent company will currently not allow us to seek an outside shareholder,” he told FTW, “we have had to focus our efforts on the enterprise development aspect of the relevant scorecards as an alternative.” In K&N’s case, this has been in the form of a 49% shareholding in KN Tsepisa Logistics – an independent forwarding and clearing (f&c) company running as an autonomous business. Whilst some freight forwarding companies have a BEE arm, it needs to be noted that this is merely one element of the whole empowerment process, Osborne added. “With ownership being excluded,” he said, “we have to concentrate on the other areas in achieving what we need for our scorecard , which include top management, employment equity and skills development, preferential procurement and enterprise development as well as residual items . “Our philosophy is to approach each and every one of these in a systematic way.” K&N is currently focusing on job creation and learnership development. “We have a very effective and mature learnership programme that we plan to continue and develop over time,” said Osborne. “Building on this, we are developing a fast track programme for our previously disadvantaged individual (PDI) employees in order to move them into more senior positions within the company. “The objective is to grow our own management over time.” The initial broad-based BEE (BBBEE) audit has highlighted areas where the company can make significant improvements and has given it the impetus to move forward systematically in these areas. It could never be an overnight procedure, Osborne added. “Our philosophy has to focus on where changes can be made,” he said, “and where the process adds value to the company in order for our organisation to grow and be competitive over time.”
