Protasius Ndauendapo was appointed CEO of the Namibian weekly New Era in 2002. Since taking over the government-owned paper, one of his top priorities has been training and development of the staff members. In the same time period, the newspaper’s sales have more than doubled. RAP 21 spoke to Ndauendapo about the importance of personnel management.
RAP 21: It has been said that good personnel management is one that puts team members in the organisation as people first, and employees second. Is this something you have tried to put into practice within your organisation?
Ndauendapo: I am a great believer in using the potential of my personnel. I strongly believe in teamwork whatever decisions are being taken, they must be made as a team and for the team. I think this is my biggest strength, I recognise the power of teamwork, and realise this is the best style of management. People must get involved, from the cleaner upwards. It is very democratic at the New Era. Training, for example, is something we invest heavily in. We ensure that our staff get the right skills and properly understand what is expected of them.
RAP 21: What kind of initiatives have you undertaken to train your
Ndauendapo: We combine both in-house and external training initiatives. I provide on the job coaching, workshops and team building exercises. In the past two years there have been a number of initiatives. In addition to in-house training, we wanted to get exposure to other organisations, so we have arranged for exchange programmes, where staff members spend some time at other newspapers in the region. Most recently, three staff members including myself spent two weeks at the Cape Times in South Africa. I targeted this publication because they had a very good supplement sections, and this was a division I wanted to launch within ³New Era. Most recently, we spent a week at a newspaper in Botswana. Exchanges such as these are very effective.
An example of in-house training is this. We recently had a retired German journalist, who had worked for some of the best German newspapers, spend a month with our staff to help transfer writing, editing and research skills to our editorial staff. We didn’t have the money to pay for this consultant ourselves, so I went to the German embassy and presented a detailed plan of our training objectives, needs and financial limitations. In return, the embassy covered most of the journalist’s expenses while here. They’ve been very helpful. We are planning on setting up a business reporting division, and are currently in talks with the embassy about how to achieve this. We also try to provide training that is topical for our journalists. This year, for example, Namibia will have four separate elections, and I want my staff members to be prepared. In February we invited a number of political parties, media experts and academics to New Era to meet for one day and discuss mutual expectations and issues such as the importance of impartiality, fairness and balance when covering elections. I now want to run a week-long training session, that includes other newspapers, as well as radio and TV, and I am speaking with a Finnish organisation to see if we can make this happen.
RAP 21: How do you determine your staff’s training needs?
Ndauendapo: I have initiated a ’Training Assessment Programme’, to help us gage their training needs. We ask questions such as what the staff wants whether technical or editorial training. We then compare this to the priorities of New Era and then set up a training agenda, which usually extends over a few years. This of course depends on our resources!
RAP 21: Many newspapers cite poor financial resources as a reason for not investing in personnel management. How has your newspaper dealt with this? Ndauendapo: We put a great emphasis on training, so for us, personnel management is a priority. We have taken a business decision to train. We budget for it, and put resources into it. And if we donıt have the resources, we look for help elsewhere. We also have a training officer she makes sure our training programmes are ongoing. In our organisation there is no excuse not to have skills. We expect in return for the training, loyalty and professionalism of staff. And we receive it.
I took over New Era in 2002. At the time, it was not doing very well. Today, the newspaper has greatly improved both financially and editorially. It is more professional, and it now has more readers.
In concrete numbers we have witnessed a 120 per cent increase in sales. We have witnessed a 47 per cent increase in advertising revenue. And we have seen an increase of 15 per cent in total revenue. Altogether we spend 0.5 per cent of our total revenue on training initiatives.
I believe this corporate improvement has come directly from an improvement in the level of professionalism in the quality of our stories, the balance and fairness of our stories. People have noticed a higher quality of journalism.
RAP 21: What specific efforts have you made to instil staff loyalty?
Ndauendapo: I have launched a number of teambuilding initiatives, including practical exercises, to help staff understand that they are part of an organisation. I aim to teach my staff that if one part doesn’t pull its weight, the whole organisation suffers. New Era also has monthly competitions for best editorial staff, with a token cash reward or a certificate.
RAP 21: What measures have you taken to be a good manager to your staff?
Ndauendapo: I’ve always believed that a good manager hinges on having a mixture of many skills management, advertising, business, diplomacy, etc. I have been very fortunate. Iıve received a good education and training myself. And I am still studying today! I am constantly working to improve my own management skills. This is key.
RAP 21: How do you encourage cooperation (both on an inter-personal and professional level) between staff members?
Ndauendapo: We have a specific system in place. New Era has weekly editorial meetings where information such as stories are shared, but we also share information about sales figures and advertising revenue. We also produce monthly reports from each departments to keep every team up-to-date. In addition, we have divisional meetings to discuss internal issues, along with monthly staff meetings. To complement this, we also have an intranet, in which relevant information is passed between staff members to keep everyone informed of new developments. We also have a human resource officer to help deal with inter-personal issues, and make sure people are working well together. Finally, and perhaps one of the best way of solidifying inter-personal relationships is our social club. This is a daily thing, where people take tea or snack breaks. Each staff member keeps the social club running by donating a small portion of money to the club (to buy the tea and snacks). In addition, we have money raising initiatives to generate money for the social club.
RAP 21: What have been the greatest challenges in developing your personnel management?
Ndauendapo: Being sure that all my staff is well empowered. We have come from a system of apartheid. Not many of my staff were fortunate enough to have received such a good education like me. This is why empowerment is such a priority, and will be a challenge for many years to come.
RAP 21: Finally, in what areas do you feel you can improve personnel management within your newspaper?
Ndauendapo: I want my staff to have more specialisation in the areas they cover. I donıt want them to just have skills, but also knowledge. I want them to understand the issues they are covering in a broader way, and I want to expand their knowledge. This is the direction we are heading in training, I call it "content training". Unfortunately it needs a lot of money.