Treat employees as kings says Mutambara

COMPANIES should treat their employees as kings ahead of customers, Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara said.

In his keynote address to delegates attending the Institute of People Management of Zimbabwe (IPMZ) convention in Victoria Falls last week, Professor Mutambara said days where gone when it used to be "the customer is king".

"Those days are over when we used to treat our customers as kings ahead of our employees.

"Now it should be the human capital that should be treated like a king first before the customers and once the human capital is treated well, the customer will be given excellent service. Once this happens we will be able to develop good customer service.

"There should be an emphasis in the management of employees in the companies ahead of the customers," he said.

Prof Mutambara said time had come to treat human resources as human capital so that the employees are capable of doing their work with efficiency.

"We are redefining human resources leadership to human capital leadership. This has a huge impact on the strategy of the company.

"This move realises the importance of the employee in the company and the importance in driving national competitiveness," he said.

Prof Mutambara also said talent was more important than money adding that people should start thinking about entrepreneurships instead of sitting on their talents or academics.

He said some people had become talent managers who had high qualifications but were failing to grow themselves or the companies they were working for.

"You can have an ordinary degree or a PhD and failure or success depends on how you use it. We are talking about talents, about talentism, it is important for ICT revolution and as human resources managers you should do things differently and embrace ICT," said Prof Mutambara.

He said human resources practitioners should also think outside the country in terms of business, adding that they should think globally when they expand.

"As human resources practitioners, don't just think about Zimbabwe, think as Sadc, think as Comesa and think Africa. You need to be regional, to be continental companies to realise maximum growth," he said.

He said there was also need to have different methods of recruiting and training of the human capital.

"Skills are dying once the people are employed, we need retraining and have continuous education so that you move from lifelong employment to entrepreneurship," he said.

Comments