By SYCORAX  TIYESA NDHLOVU –

ARE all the workers in Zambia rewarded according to their labour input in their respective organisations? The answer is a big No!

This is despite some organisations having sound financial status?

Daven Muchimba, a Lusaka resident, shared the concern with this columnist of how some security firms are exploiting their workers despite raking in ‘millions’ every month.

For example, a named security firm pays its workers K450 as monthly salary, which is far below the minimum wage.

This is a company that receives close to K50,000 per month from one client organisation and it has more than five corporate clients, meaning it receives not less than K250,000 a month.

The security officers from this organisation get the same salary either working night or day shifts.

Otherwise, in an ideal situation, those working at night attract some allowances because of the risks involved during that time.

Naturally, nights are meant for sleeping and the human body is accustomed as such, so working at night shift is not only risky because criminals want to strike when it is dark but also the health aspect due to how nature is designed.

Against this background, that is why reasonable organisations pay night allowances and provide other facilities to make ones jobs easy during that shift.

However, this is just one of the many cases where workers are not rewarded according to their input despite the country having the minimum wage law.

Some house maids, farm workers, garden boys and general workers of various categories are the worst hit where appropriate remuneration is concerned.

These categories have slave wages and pathetic working conditions.

The ministry of labour somehow is to blame because it has failed to improve the situation; however, this is not topic for today.

So after Mr Muchimba lamented and sympathised with the poor working conditions of the security officers, I concluded that the situation is also as a result of the prices people pay for being disobedient to their parents and teachers.

Yes! It is to some greatest extent the levels of laziness displayed and having wrong priorities people make while at school.

When parents tell calls for hard work, some children feel obeying such advice from parents is doing them a favour.

And when teachers encourage pupils to work hard, they seem to be a bother, especially with spoilt children.

Little do you know that not working hard at school, could lead you not to become successful in future.

It is unfortunately for some people, studying in colleges or universities not to realise the important and benefits of hard work, but they resort to playing and doing all sorts of detrimental things to their lives.

Although, there is has been instance where some people did not perform well at school but they have managed to succeed in life, but the bottom line is that people should embracing the spirit of hard work from childhood.

Hard work from childhood has the potential of reducing poverty to negligible levels unlike trying to chance in future.

There are few cases where people who never paid attention to school from childhood but they are genuinely enjoying life because they found some formula to succeed.

Some have used legal formulae to succeed while other have opted for illegal one.

But how sustainable is that wealth created from criminal activities; anyway this is subject for another day.

Some women have opted to become full time housewives because they cannot find a job due to having poor or no academic qualifications while other have venture into business undertakings which they never planned when they were growing at school.

The same goes to young men who have ventured into all sorts of cheap business such as wheelbarrow pushing (Zamcab).

In Chipata and Katete districts of Eastern Province are bicycle riders transport people of different heights and body masses to different places up and downs hills of Eastern Province.

Almost everyone is where the world has put them according to the levels of formal education, hard work and priorities set.

In short, each one pays a certain price for not working hard at school because education is mainly the key to success.

Any form of business requires some level of education for example one needs to know to how sign a cheque, deposit or withdraw money.

In life, people harvest what they sowed in the past. And what one does every day is an input to one’s future rewards or hardships.

Therefore, remember how you responded to your parents’ and teachers’ advice on the need to work hard at school.

Formal education and training have a strongest bearing on what someone would be at his or her later age.

Equipped with such information and analysis, one can argue that employers are just taking advantage of our individual or collective capacities of not having an option to withdraw our labour where and when we feel we are being unfairly treated or exploited in employment.

The cure to the current and future labour exploitation is for individuals to work hard in formal basic education and training; and acquiring relevant experiences and skills which equip one to look for alternative and better jobs.

As long as we remain with the same old basic formal levels of training, experience or skills in a highly competitive labour market, even labour ministry will have little or nothing to do to bail us out of such slave conditions.

This is not to condemn those of us in slavery employment to the rubbish pit; and therefore to celebrate that some workers are going through such inhumane working conditions; but to demonstrate some of the causes and effects of not working hard at school; and in the process to inspire such workers to take corrective actions to improve on their lives.

Mr Muchimba suggested that if one is in a job that doesn’t pay him or her well, one can work for some few months or years to raise some money for career training or for capital to start a business; as opposed to being exploited every month for life.

From such a background, there is nothing wrong with being in a job that isn’t well paying. What is wrong is not taking corrective measures on the causes of not being in a well paying job; or for not using the little monthly salary as savings for capital in a chosen business.

One can argue that a little monthly salary cannot allow one to save part of it in a biting economy where one rents a house, has children who go to school, pays for transport to and fro work, etc.

Again, mentioning all such factors that prevent someone from saving part of his or her monthly salary demonstrates some challenges in prioritizing issues to come out of a negative situation.

How can one who knows that the economy is biting go into marriage and have several children before one is well relatively settled in his or her life?

Set right priorities and strategies to come out of tough conditions in life.

Moreover, don’t look at reward from your labour only as that monthly salary you earn. Consider job satisfaction as part of reward from your employment. Acquired experience and skills constitute part of the reward from your job.

The newly acquired experience and skills can facilitate getting a well paying job in the same organisation or elsewhere in the near future.

Therefore, assess the reward you get from your current employment; and do the correct thing to improve on your life in 2015.

*The author is a trainer and career coach. Contact: Cell: 0976/0977 450151, E-mail: sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk