The Minister for Employment, Immigration and Civil Status, Miriam Telemaque, visited the Constance Ephelia Hotel and Resorts, as part of her ongoing program to synchronise the partnership between the ministry and the private establishments.

The Minister was accompanied by the Principal Secretary for Employment Department, Mr. Jules Baker, the Special Advisor for Employment Ms. Veronique Bresson, the Director General for Labour Relations Mr. Steve Monnaie and other officials from her ministry.

The delegation was led on a tour of the hotels facilities where they got the chance to interact with the workers in each department, of which most expressed their general satisfaction with their working conditions. Several issues related to service charge, salary package, and career progression were however raised.

During the debriefing with the management of the hotel, Minister Telemaque commended the establishment for maintaining a status amongst the hotels with more local workers than non-Seychellois and recognized the efforts made to improve the employees' work life balance by providing infrastructures like a kindergarten.

It was recommended that the management of the hotel considers the issues raised by the workers and that they review the remuneration packages that entail different pay grades to better compensate between work experience and education level. The General Manager, Mr. Stephenne Duchenne, said that it remains the spirit and core values of the Ephelia Group to find different ways and better incentives to retain staffs and create a learning environment to enable both personal development and on the job training.

The meeting closed with the Minister giving the assurance to Mr. Duchene, Mr. Orvilke, and the staffs of Ephelia of her ministry's support and to continue the dialogue to find solutions to the challenges raised to improve employee performance and employer relations.

The issues raised will be followed up in three months' time by labour inspectors.

'Business as normal' at Air Seychelles

The department of employment will be working in close collaboration with Air Seychelles Ltd to improve on the working conditions of the airline's staff.

This statement was made by the Minister for Employment, Immigration and Civil Status, Myriam Télémaque, after a series of ministerial visits she and her delegation undertook at Air Seychelles on September 21 and 22, 2017.

This forms part of her ministry's plan to conduct visits at different work places so as to interact with employees and better gauge their conditions of employment.

Due to the large scale of Air Seychelles which currently employs over 800 people, the visits spanned over two days and included tours at the company's Victoria sales offices, its Praslin terminal operations as well as operations at and near the international airport.

Minister Télémaque's visit revealed a lot of concerns from Air Seychelles staff, who were more than ready to list down their list of grievances to the minister and her team.

On the subject of redundancies, Air Seychelles confirmed to the ministerial delegation that there are currently no plans to make any employees redundant.

"What we have suggested to the management of Air Seychelles is to at least talk to their employees. Give them a timeframe as to when they will discuss on the issue of redundancy so as to remove doubts that they could lose their jobs," Minister Télémaque stated.

In an interview with the press, Mr Kinnear stated that the speculation on redundancies at Air Seychelles are unfounded.

"This is business as normal. I expect everyone to turn up and do a full day's hard work as I would expect on any day of the week," he said.

As to other speculations that Etihad is not injecting money into Air Seychelles and the latter will soon have to end its merger with the UAE carrier in light of challenges faced by Alitalia and Air Berlin, Mr Kinnear replied: "Etihad remains a fully committed stakeholder. The management contract has been renewed for the second five-year contract period as communicated earlier in the year. What is going on elsewhere in the world, with other European stakeholders does not in any way reflect on the Etihad-Air Seychelles relationship."

Air Berlin and Alitalia, two of Etihad's high profile investments, both filed for insolvency earlier this year.

Concerning salary increase, Mr Kinnear had this to say: "Some staff have had salary increases, some departments have had salary increases. We have got an ongoing range of vacancies going on every week and every month for staff to apply for promotions."

"I'm a big believer in internal promotion. I like to see people apply for a job that is a higher grid, they earn more salaries out of it, take up more responsibilities and develop their skills sets as well," explained Mr Kinnear.

He also stated that staff cannot remain in one job for an infinite period and expect to receive salary increments for the same type of work they have been doing for 10, 20 or even 30 years.

"In that way you are not rewarding for performance or productivity" but rather for longevity, which according to Mr Kinnear is no way to run a business.

Air Seychelles staff therefore have to distinguish themselves among their peers and perform to their utmost capacity to receive performance-related increments.

However, the airline's management will be exploring options for their low-salaried, shift-based employees.

When asked about the way forward now that these issues have been brought to their attention, Mr Kinnear guaranteed his staff that every single item raised during the debriefing session will be reviewed by the company.

"Sometimes comments are misinterpreted, sometimes they are made out of context and sometimes they are very valid. There will be a mix of things that will need addressing and there will be a mix of things that may have been borne out of confusion or misinterpretation. We now have to work with the staff and managers, and communicate to the staff to help understand what actions are to be taken," added Mr Kinnear.

The department of employment is expected to hand over an official report to the management of Air Seychelles and conduct a follow-up visit early next year.

The accompanying photographs show the minister and her team interacting with staff as well as a debriefing session with the airline's chief executive and his managerial team.

Employment ministry calls for closer working dialogue with private sector

Employment, Immigration and Civil Status Minister, Myriam Telemaque has called for a closer working dialogue between workplaces and the Ministry with the aim of enhancing partnership with that sector of our economy.

Minister Telemaque launched the call during her visit to the Global Supplies Centre, based at the Free Trade Zone within the grounds of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) at Boise de Rose and that specializes in the importation and wholesale distribution of goods and other products sold to hotels, major tourism establishments and local retailers.

Accompanied by a delegation of senior officers from her Ministry as part of her on-going programme to enhance partnership with the private sector, Minister Telemaque was taken on a conducted tour of the premises and also met with the company's management and staff.

Issues raised by the staff focused on their monthly salaries, overtime, multi-tasking in their daily jobs, time-off requests to attend to their personal matters. The general observation after talking to the staff is that the company has been experiencing high staff turnover that have resulted on their heavy reliance on foreign workers.

In her meeting, Minister Telemaque explained that Ministry responsible for employment was taking a new approach to have a closer working dialogue and improve industrial relations within the private sector through consensual and understanding working relations for the betterment of workplaces.

"Today, my delegation and I have witnessed that you all work in a conducive and satisfactory working environment. The possibility for it to be further improved exist but that will come with both the management and staff coming together as a team and prepared to work closely with the Ministry responsible for employment," Minister Telemaque said.

She recommended with full assurance that her Ministry will provide its assistance to the management of Global Supplies Centre to work on an action plan in order to have in place a proper and effective human resource structure that will timely address issues that staff may have and determine a comprehensive localization of posts.

"My Ministry's vision is to ensure that there is good work relations between the employer and employee for the betterment of the company as the workforce contributes towards its commercial success" Minister Telemaque re-iterated.

As part of her planned Ministerial Visits, the Minister of Employment, Immigration and Civil Status, Mrs Myriam Telemaque visited local beverage company, Seychelles Breweries last Friday.

The Minister was accompanied on her visit by the Principal Secretary for Employment, Mr Jules Baker, the Special Advisor for Employment Ms Veronique Bresson, the Director General for Industrial Relations Mr Steve Monnaie and Director General for Labour Migration Ms Cecile Hoareau.

The visit was an opportunity for the ministerial delegation to meet with the executive team of one of the manufacturing employer in Seychelles. Seychelles Breweries has approximately 150 employees.

Prior to engaging with the staff of Seychelles Breweries, the Minister and her entourage were given an overview of what Seychelles Breweries is all about and its role in the Seychelles' economy.

In the presentation, Minister Telemaque was briefed on the company's workforce and what are the different programmes in place to develop the capacity of the brewery's employees. The company informed the Minister of the Graduate's programme which had just been recently re- launched with the objective of building future leaders for the country.

After the presentation, the Minister visited the different departments within the brewery and had the opportunity to interact with the employees to understand whether they had any employment issues also to learn of the challenges they face and acknowledge the contribution they are making to the development of the country's economy. The Minister was also updated on the actions taken to tackle the previous issue of ammonia in the factory.

At the end of the visit, Minister Telemaque said that she was satisfied with what she has seen at the brewery in terms of the working environment of the employees. She said that the staff she had spoken to did not have any major issues and were generally satisfied with their working conditions. The few concerns raised, however, were discussed with the management after the visit and they agreed to address those concerns in the shortest possible delay.