Integrated Report 2020
As a quality hotel provider, how our people perform is the most important contributor to our ongoing success. CLHG participates in ‘Investors in People’, a UK-based organisation that provides a methodology for analysing a company’s ability to engage its workforce and achieve its objectives through its people. We have been accredited at the ‘Developed Performance Level’, which impartially demonstrates our ongoing commitment towards growing and empowering our people.
We direct our human resource (HR) efforts into three focal areas:
City Lodge leaders guide their teams according to five imperatives:
Our leaders are primarily developed within the group, therefore, attracting and retaining top talent is crucial to developing a sustainable pipeline of leaders for the future. Our approach is evidently working, as the group’s employee turnover rate of 5.5% is significantly lower than the industry average.
| Year | Voluntary turnover | Involuntary turnover | % of total headcount | |||
| 2015/16 | 62 | 43 | 8.71 | |||
| 2016/17 | 60 | 37 | 8.69 | |||
| 2017/18 | 74 | 19 | 7.88 | |||
| 2018/19 | 69 | 33 | 8.48 | |||
| 2019/20 | 41 | 22 | 5.52 |
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The group talent officer is primarily responsible for attracting, developing and retaining high-calibre people. All employees are appraised annually and those showing leadership or specialist potential are placed on specific development paths. We prioritise previously disadvantaged individuals in accordance with our employment equity and transformation goals.
CLHG conducts both in-house and independent employee engagement surveys to measure key aspects of employee experiences.
The staff share scheme annually rewards all who qualify and are employed by CLHG for a year or longer. The reward may be distributed as a dividend pay-out, or a combination of a share redistribution and dividend pay-out, depending on the group’s performance.
Employees also have access to an independent wellness programme offering:
CLHG currently has a recognition agreement with the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) trade union, which represents 15% of total employees and 16.9% of those occupying positions within the defined bargaining unit. No days were lost due to industrial action during the period.
To facilitate communication and collaboration, from time to time we send managers and union shop stewards to ‘high performance people’ refreshers on group policies and procedures.
Although CLHG’s properties are not inherently threatening in any way, we take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our guests and employees. Each hotel has an established health and safety committee, with appointed responsible persons in terms of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Employees are encouraged to attend scheduled wellness days to check medical statistics such as weight, BMI, blood pressure, blood tests for cholesterol and HIV and eye and ear tests. An aerobic workout is included to encourage the joy of exercise.
CLHG readily complied with the strict lockdown measures to curb the spread of the virus in South Africa and across the territories in which we operate. This involved the halting of operations in the majority of our hotels and at our central office. However, as the lockdown has eased and hotels have reopened, we have ensured strict implementation and adherence to all protocols. This includes the protocols required by the South African Department of Health and the Department of Labour to combat the threat of the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.
Measures taken so far include the provision of personal protective equipment, sanitising materials and methodologies, daily physical screening, contact tracing and the introduction of screens on our front desks and food and beverage service areas. The group’s protocols are extremely thorough and in fact form a significant part of the hospitality industry protocols adopted by the industry and presented to government.
The group’s adherence to health and safety practices is reviewed as part of the internal audit process. We also ensure that our service providers adhere strictly to CLHG health and safety requirements. All our hotels are required to maintain hygiene that meets or exceeds compliance with Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP) legislation.
During the year, seven minor health and safety issues were reported (2019: 30). These were resolved without further action being required.
Each year up to 10 talented black candidates are selected for accelerated development within our succession planning programme. Several of CLHG’s current general managers are graduates of this programme.
The following comparative table, in accordance with the Employment Equity Act, displays the company’s South African operations’ employee profile as at 30 June 2019 and 2020:
| Male | Female | Foreign nationals | |||||||||||||||
| Occupational level | Year | African | Coloured | Indian | White | African | Coloured | Indian | White | Male | Female | Total | |||||
| Top | 2019 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 11 | ||||||||||
| management | 2020 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | 2019 | 6 | 5 | 32 | 3 | 1 | 20 | 67 | |||||||||
| management | 2020 | 6 | 5 | 32 | 3 | 1 | 22 | 69 | |||||||||
| Middle | 2019 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 21 | 6 | 2 | 15 | 1 | 69 | ||||||
| management | 2020 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 29 | 7 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 78 | ||||||
| Junior | 2019 | 46 | 12 | 1 | 20 | 108 | 20 | 2 | 12 | 1 | 222 | ||||||
| management | 2020 | 52 | 11 | 4 | 18 | 110 | 21 | 3 | 12 | 2 | 233 | ||||||
| Discretionary | 2019 | 97 | 17 | 3 | 10 | 183 | 32 | 10 | 53 | 1 | 1 | 407 | |||||
| decision-making | 2020 | 114 | 16 | 4 | 12 | 193 | 29 | 8 | 48 | 1 | 425 | ||||||
| Defined decision-making | 2019 | 118 | 9 | 5 | 170 | 32 | 2 | 336 | |||||||||
| 2020 | 121 | 10 | 5 | 186 | 28 | 2 | 352 | ||||||||||
| Total permanent | 2019 | 275 | 45 | 7 | 85 | 487 | 92 | 14 | 101 | 3 | 3 | 1 112 | |||||
| 2020 | 301 | 44 | 11 | 83 | 523 | 87 | 15 | 98 | 3 | 3 | 1 168 | ||||||
| Non-permanent | 2019 | 20 | 1 | 51 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 77 | |||||||||
| 2020 | 9 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 26 | |||||||||
| Grand total | 2019 | 295 | 45 | 8 | 85 | 538 | 94 | 15 | 103 | 3 | 3 | 1 189 | |||||
| 2020 | 310 | 44 | 12 | 83 | 534 | 87 | 16 | 99 | 5 | 4 | 1 194 | ||||||
We continually review our definitions of service excellence as client expectations evolve.
We accordingly introduced a group-wide WOW programme to ‘wow’ all our stakeholders – from suppliers, to guests, to shareholders. A major thrust of this programme is to motivate employees from all levels and business functions to think up ideas for wowing guests. All ideas received were unfiltered and thoroughly evaluated. We were delighted to receive suggestions that will improve services, save money and hopefully resolve a number of niggles.
Employees participating in the WOW portal and programme are awarded points that can be redeemed for airtime, shopping, eating out and various retail options.
Employee development is presently focused on three primary areas:
This standing committee meets at least bi-annually and includes:
The skills development committee is mandated to deal with skills development issues and assist in determining the group’s skills requirements.
The group’s registered skills development facilitator submits a workplace skills plan annually and reports on training achieved against that plan, assisted by a training coordinator.
A total of 32 employees were promoted in the group during the year, of whom 59% were female.
| 2019/2020 | 2018/2019 | |||
| African | 23 | 25 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coloured | 1 | 5 | ||
| Indian | 1 | – | ||
| White | 7 | 7 | ||
| Total | 32 | 37 |
The following table is aligned with the reporting period for the Sector Education and Training Authority, which utilises a January to December calendar year.
| 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 |
1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018 |
1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017 |
1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 |
|||||
| % of total payroll spent on training | 3.53 | 4.00 | 3.75 | 3.94 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of total payroll spent on training previously disadvantaged employees | 2.13 | 3.66 | 3.40 | 3.23 | ||||
| Total number of interventions attended by all employees | 14 870 | 15 244 | 15 631 | 11 320 | ||||
| Total number of interventions attended by black employees | 13 498 | 13 819 | 14 209 | 10 041 | ||||
| Total number of interventions attended by black female employees | 8 859 | 9 055 | 9 494 | 6 441 | ||||
| Total spend on training and development | R10.1 million | R11.2 million | R10.5 million | R9.7 million |
Training and development highlights:
Over the past few years South Africa’s BBBEE landscape has changed considerably. Our BEE committee keeps CLHG abreast of the latest developments and identifies key focus areas for the future.
The group maintained an overall Level 4 BBBEE contributor rating under the amended Tourism Sector Codes during the year. Our scorecard has remained largely consistent with the prior year and, similar to last year, the ownership net value score did not meet the sub-minimum requirement, resulting in a Level 4 rather than Level 3 accreditation.
CLHG’s transformation steering committee has prioritised management control, skills development and supplier and enterprise development initiatives.
CLHG investment enabled our fresh produce suppliers to purchase farmland north of Johannesburg and commence small-scale farming. Funds were deployed to fence the property and build a pack house, cold storage facilities and hydroponic growing tunnels. We also connected these farmers to our other suppliers. Some of our suppliers provided additional funding for the developing farmers to increase their lands and vegetable production.
Our BBBEE scheme was implemented in 2008 and its termination date extended to 2021.
| Scorecard element | Weighting | 2019/20 | Score 2018/19 |
|||
| Ownership*Δ | 27.00 | 17.68 | 16.90 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Management control | 19.00 | 13.49 | 13.71 | |||
| Skills development* | 20.00 | 17.69 | 17.84 | |||
| Enterprise and supplier development* | 40.00 | 34.35 | 34.89 | |||
| Socio-economic development | 5.00 | 7.24 | 8.00 | |||
| Total BBBEE score | 111.00 | 90.45 | 91.34 |
* Priority element.
Δ Sub-minimum score not achieved, resulting in a one level penalty to overall rating.
CLHG is currently 22.50% black owned, with 11.59% being held by black women The current scorecard expires in September 2021.
