Nov 20, 2009

REVERT : The plight of young black professionals


Brothers and Sisters, we know that its been a while since we reverted with regards to the status quo on the e-mail that had been sent to Mr. Jimmy Manyi, well we finally had the opportunity to have a brief chat with the individual in question, yesterday evening, he unfortunately has not been privy to the e-mail sent to him detailing exactly what we have been discussing in this forum, the reason he has not seen the e-mail is because of his “extremely efficient” gatekeeper in the form of a PA who decides which e-mails he reads and which ones he doesn’t, he subsequently requested that we re-send the e-mail which has been done so that he could get a clearer understanding of what we were telling him. He provided us with his landline number which obviously also has a gatekeeper, but nonetheless, it should assist us in following up on a response to the e-mail.

At the session, Mr. Manyi spoke of transformation initiatives such as employment equity and BBBEE, the monkey tricks that white corporate South Africa has been using in attempting to frustrate these initiatives. Mr. Manyi spoke of the penalties that are currently being reviewed, that will be imposed upon companies that don’t comply, amongst them being the fact that the transformation initiatives are going to be made law, and those that refuse to comply will be individually named and shamed (no more safety in numbers), a proposed penalty of a fine of 10% of a company’s turnover and spot fines. Mr. Manyi also alluded to the fact that once the transformation plan is made a law, the government will be obligated not to deal with naughty companies, and will also be entitled to cancel any contract that it may have with a company that has been found to be naughty and resisting transformation.

Mr. Manyi went further to acknowledge that because white women were also beneficiaries of EE, the ill-disciplined company’s had taken advantage of this by flooding the workplace with Suzanne’s, Tracey’s and Marietjies, and thereby exacerbating the situation of having over-representation of white women, who only make up 5.5% of the economically active population yet their representation at “executive levels in companies is 14.7%, at senior management they are at 19% and middle management they are at 22%” . Mr. Manyi assured the gathering that there would be no more “nicey, nicey” when dealing with transgressors, whereby companies will be asked to comply etc etc before punishing them, he further went to state to the audience that if you work for one of these companies, you should let them know that there is a new man in town and if they do not comply “something bad is going to happen to them”

The audience was informed that the above mentioned would all be compiled in a document termed the “DG review” which we should look out for in the not so distant future. Mr. Manyi went on to further acknowledge how the regressive forces in companies appoint uncle toms to executive positions and middle management to fill the BEE quota, these uncle toms, once there will frustrate the advancement of Blacks within the company, The DG said, “We know in companies that you will get a Black person who enters a group of whites but knows that doesn’t make him/her white, then you get a Black person who enters a group of white people then thinks he/she is white” and subsequently frustrates black people, “we have Black people and then we have non-whites, we have to come with a programme to deal with these non-whites”.

Mr Manyi touched on a number of relevant challenges within working environments, but what was evident from his address is that the man means business; hopefully this wasn’t just lip service being paid to the cause, but the confidence that his address inspired indicated that the man is taking no prisoners, and for the mere fact that he is a deployed DG says that the current administration wants to get the wheels of transformation rolling.

So, brothers and sisters, there seems to be some headway being made in this regard – with respect to us taking the next steps on what has been proposed in terms of forming an association that doesn’t only bark but can actually bite, I would propose that this rather be sent to individual inboxes rather than posting it here for all and sundry to see, from the inboxes, individuals will be encouraged to invite more leaders with similar mindsets to come and join us at our inaugural meeting, where we will take resolutions on a certain number of discussion items prior to us drafting our objectives, strategic alliances etc and a comprehensive battle plan or plan of action if you may.

If you have not already provided your e-mail address, please do so by sending an e-mail to the following address – marketings101@gmail.com, looking forward to hear from you all, its time to roll up our sleeves and do something about our plight, unless we want to preserve the status quo and walk between now and eternity without seeing any change whatsoever and end up blaming everybody else but ourselves.

If I may borrow from an African proverb that I recently heard at a BMF event “If you want to walk fast, walk alone……If you want to walk far, walk together”. In resounding the message already put forward by some members, we need to act as a collective to effect proper sustainable change…Collectively we cannot and will not fail.

ALUTA CONTINUA!!