Durban — The eThekwini Municipality is exploring methods to improve staff productivity and service delivery by including shift duty systems.
In a report the municipality’s Governance and Human Resources Committee put to the eThekwini Municipality Executive Committee (Exco) on Tuesday, they are also exploring ways to manage overtime.
Last month, the municipality implemented a new overtime policy that imposed drastic cuts on the overtime pay that workers can claim.
The city said it was concerned about the amount being claimed for overtime.
In August and at the beginning of September, staff at Durban Solid Waste (DSW), the Electricity Department and the Water and Sanitation Unit downed tools at different stages after their overtime pay was cut by limiting the hours they could work.
The city said the overtime budget of the different units should be reduced by 50% and that the number of hours of overtime the workers can work should be limited to the legal 40 hours a month.
The committee report seeks approval to institute a formal process and parameters for the consultation process with labour unions and staff for the proposed implementation of the shift systems developed by Organisational Development and Change Management (ODCM).
The committee report explained that the ODCM’s core functions included improving labour productivity, operational efficiency and organisational effectiveness within all municipal operations.
The report stated that concentrated improvement programmes are instituted within the prioritised municipal units which are in an unsustainable operational state and with exorbitant expenditure levels exceeding the budgeted provision.
The report said these interventions are executed to identify the most efficient and cost-effective mechanism for service delivery, resulting in the elimination of waste and the optimisation of operational resource deployment.
The report further said that the municipality is also exploring options available to manage overtime but without compromising service delivery, and that the ODCM has developed the shift system to manage overtime where applicable, but this needs to be consulted with the relevant parties before adoption.
The matter will be further discussed at a full council meeting on Wednesday.
Daily News