Management of employee benefits in the public sector in South Africa

Workers across the globe attach more value to employee benefits. This book examines whether these benefits are properly managed in the public sector. Due to the vastness of the field of employee benefits, the author deemed it expedient to narrow the study to five variables: housing subsidy, leave, medical aid, pensions and performance bonus with the provincial department of CoGHSTA in Limpopo, South Africa as a case study. The choice of these variables was influenced mainly by the fact that the author is working on these issues daily as one of the three assistant directors responsible for HR Benefits at CoGHSTA. The hands-on experience of the author serves to fill the gaps or address lingering shortcomings in various methods employed in this study. Amongst other key findings of the study are that employee benefits are wrongly managed and that the subjective assessment of employee performance as well as the scaling down of the percentages scored by employees to accommodate the wage bill has the effect of dampening employee morale. It is hoped that this study will enable the public sector to draw valuable lessons and adopt good practice to perfect management of employee benefits.