UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY ORGANISATION (NPOs) LESSONS FOR ZIMBABWE

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UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY ORGANISATION (NPOs)

LESSONS FOR ZIMBABWE

Introduction

Productivity has become a topical issue in the recent years and has generated huge interest in many countries world over. The endeavour to increase the quantity of output produced per unit of input employed has triggered extensive research on this subject which has the potential to turn around the fortunes of organisation and economies at large. In order to harness the potential gains which can be derived from improved productivity, there has been recommendations to consolidate the productivity initiatives within various sectors and organisations of a given country.    This then led to the formation of various organisations to cater for productivity issues, referred to as productivity centres in a number of countries. In Africa for example, countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Ethiopia among others have recorded great success stories as a result these institutes.

Zimbabwe is still in the process of establishing the Zimbabwe National Productivity Institute (ZNPI) whose mandate is to stimulate the productivity within the economy to enhance economic growth. The ZNPI has already started training companies in various sectors especially those in the manufacturing sector. In 2018 alone, more than 200 company representatives were trained in productivity concepts and techniques.  There have been many researches around the topic in Zimbabwe and in some instances, the findings have transformed the industries such as in the mining sector.

Productivity Institutes in the Region

This section gives brief overviews of institutions of productivity in Botswana, South Africa and Tanzania.

Botswana National Productivity Centre

Botswana established the parastatal called Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) in 1993 in order to spearhead the productivity movement. The Botswana National Productivity Centre Act was also passed in the same year leading to it becoming an independent parastatal. The statutory mandate of the Centre is to enhance the national level of productivity consciousness, as an advocacy function, and to enable individuals and organisations, through training and consulting, to be productive. The vision of BNPC is to be the lead catalyst in the transformation of Botswana into a prosperous, productive and innovative nation.

The Centre has a tripartite Board, which comprises representatives of core stakeholders, which are government, employers and workers’ organisations, as well as the University of Botswana and the Botswana Bureau of Standards.

As part of its successes, the BNPC in partnership with its key partners managed to improve the awareness levels on productivity from 17 percent in 1997 to 89 percent in 2007. As a partner to the Service Quality Institute, BNPC also managed to transform services in the selected firms in the financial sector particularly in insurance and development finance.

In addition, the BNPC was ISO 9001:2008 accredited in 2009. Also together with its partners, it successfully transformed production methods of selected Small and Medium Enterprises in tourism, manufacturing, transport, meat production, chemicals and brick moulding industries. Furthermore, it partnered with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in a partnership under which it manages the data collection known as the Executive Opinion Survey.

The main competences of BNPC include, inter alia, consulting, training and facilitation; labour management relationship building; staff engagement schemes; quality improvement schemes e.g. through quality circles, problem analysis and waste management. The Centre has 6 departments and each department is headed by a manager. These include Productivity and Quality Awareness, Enterprise Support, Public Service, Information and Research Services as well as Marketing.

Productivity South Africa

The National Productivity Institute aims at improving productive capacity in all spheres the South African’s economic and community life. It is governed by a tripartite Advisory Council and Board drawn from government, organized labour and business and has offices in Midrand, Durban and Cape Town. It is financed by a mix of consulting fees and government grants.

The NPI meets its mandate by building capacity through sound project management skills, regarded as a core function of the organization. Furthermore, the NPI has surpassed its mandate by recognising the need to focus on managing large projects, through pursuing partnerships with other suitable government agencies, and to forge strategic regional links through SADC.

The organisation runs six programmes which include, National Strategic Initiatives Programme, SMME and Community Development Programme, Productive Behaviour and Competencies Programme, Knowledge Management and Research Programme, Productivity Advisory Services programme and Positioning and Promoting Programme.

As a case study, the NPI intervened in the case of the Blackheath Manufacturing Cluster comprising 8 SMME companies in the Cape Town area and Western Cape. They were faced with the challenge of how to improve productivity, increase sales and market share, while simultaneously boosting employee morale and performance - the challenge of embarking on world class processes.

Through the Workplace Challenge Programme which was implemented in each of the eight organisations, to increase productivity and to develop workplace change processes, production rose by 86%, cost savings increased by 38% and staff attendance up by 38%.

National Productivity Institute for Tanzania

National Institute for Productivity (NIP) aims at promoting productivity improvement and spreading productivity consciousness; improving performance, efficiency and effectiveness of work through consultancy, research and training; and improving management skills and know-how.

It offers services such as Management Training, Consultancy Services as well as applied researches. The Institute boasts of the large number of both managerial and low level employees it has managed to train in productivity related issues since its inception.

Overall management of NIP is vested on the Board of Directors. The day-to-day management of the Institute is the responsibility of the Managing Director. The Managing Director is assisted by two Directors from directorate of Management Training, Research and Consulting Services; and Finance and Administration. The Procurement Management and Internal Audit units also assist the Managing Director.

Lessons for Zimbabwe

It is clear from the above discussion that Zimbabwe has so much to learn from countries such as Botswana, Tanzania and South Africa as evidenced by some of their success stories. Though literature has reviewed that Zimbabwe is no stranger to the subject, a coordinated approach has always been lacking. It can be argued that enhanced productivity levels within the economy are hinged on the ability to come up with an institute to specifically deal with productivity issues.

In this regard, the establishment of the Zimbabwe National Productivity Institute (ZNPI) is a fundamental stride towards the promotion of productivity in Zimbabwe. Social partners as well as the international community agree that the ZNPI is the way to go. In its full capacity, the Institute is expected not only to improve the quality and quantity produced per unit input but also to ease the wage related friction between employers and employees by the introduction of productivity indexed wages.

It therefore goes without saying that the establishment of the ZNPI is long overdue and concerted efforts should be directed towards its establishment. Stakeholder buy-in and reliable funding sources, form the foundation on which its successful launch depend on.