Stakeholders' perception of disciplinary processes in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education.

Abstract

There is now widespread acceptance in the organisations that human resources are an important source of competitive advantage, or an important component of the value chain. In the public service sector, the delivery of services to the populace depends on the competence, motivation and discipline of the employees. All of this points to the importance of properly dealing with HR issues in organisations. This empirical study gathered the views of Ward Managers of the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Education. 40% of Ward Managers participated in this survey, and the responses were analysed utilising the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results indicate that the majority of respondents perceived the department’s disciplinary process to be unfair both substantively and procedurally. The majority of respondents felt that there were inconsistencies in the decisions to discipline employees; that the sanctions were inconsistent and that the disciplinary hearings took too long to finalise. Finally, this study recommended further research on the subject, especially utilising different methodologies such as in depth case studies and unstructured interviews in order to gain insights into the reasons why Ward Managers hold the views that they hold or to refine some of the concepts in order to understand what exactly they understand by concepts such as ‘unfairness’.