The UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) will this June launch a landmark programme that will guide organisations on how to effectively tackle HIV/AIDS in the workplace.
The new programme, HIV/AIDS in the Workplace, is a fusion of the expertise of the UCT GSB Executive Education unit and HIV/AIDS Coordination UCT (HAICU).
According to Puleng Phooko, Projects Manager of HAICU and a designer of the programme, “there remain great challenges in dealing with HIV/AIDS in the workplace and low attendance with internal HIV/AIDS programmes in particular is a major concern that many organisations are grappling with.”
“Businesses need to understand that HIV/AIDS has an impact on the economic growth and stability of the country and is devastating to all sectors. There are a number of areas where HIV/AIDS affects business, but essentially it impacts profitability and productivity (with an increase in absenteeism, costs and staff turnover),” said Phooko.
The role of business in fighting HIV/AIDS has been brought to the forefront of global attention in the last few months with the release of the World Economic Forum’s Global Review of Business Response to HIV/AIDS 2005 - 2006.
The report, released by the WEF’s Global Health Initiative in December 2006, shows that concern over the growing threat of HIV/AIDS is rising in the global business community.
Nearly half (46%) of the business leaders surveyed in the report say they expect HIV/AIDS to impact their operations over the next five years. This is an increase of 9 percentage points in 12 months since the last WEF report.
The challenge now facing companies throughout the world, the report indicated, is to convert this concern into programmes that are strong enough to control the impact of HIV/AIDS on their business.
"Business is becoming increasingly aware of the positive impact it can make in tackling HIV/AIDS, but the devil is in the detail,” said Francesca Boldrini, Director of the WEF Global Health Initiative.
“In order to successfully scale up efforts against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, firms need to develop increasingly robust workplace programmes.”
The report polls the views of almost 11 000 business leaders in 117 countries and shows that: Concern is rising about the expected impact of HIV/AIDS on firms’ operations over the next five years (46% compared to 37% last year). Very few firms have conducted a quantitative HIV/AIDS risk assessment (9%); The majority of firms where national HIV prevalence exceeds 1 in 5 have formal HIV/AIDS policies (58%); Where prevalence drops below 1 in 5, very few firms have a policy (20%) and these are likely to be informal; and Policies addressing the issues of discrimination in promotion, pay or benefits based on HIV status are rare (18%).
That South African businesses are expecting the impact of HIV/AIDS to hit hard is left in no doubt in the study. In response to the question “How serious do you consider the future impact of HIV/AIDS on your company in the next five years?” 76% said they expect a serious impact, and 94% said it would make some impact. Some 73% of SA companies reported that they already have a written HIV/AIDS policy, 91% said they have a prevention programme that provides information about the risks of infection, 72% said they provide voluntary, confidential, anonymous HIV testing, 72% said they provide free condoms, and 41% reported they supply anti-retrovirals.
In response to the question “To what extent do you believe your programmes will be sufficient to effectively manage the impact of HIV/AIDS on your business in the next five years?” only 45% were “strongly confident” and a marginally higher 67% were “confident”.
The four-day HIV/AIDS in the Workplace course at the UCT GSB aims to address the WEF report’s call for increasingly robust workplace strategies, and will provide a detailed analysis of successful approaches adopted by a variety of organisations.
“This course will respond to concerns that have been raised, assisting practitioners to develop competency in instituting and running relevant and effective HIV/AIDS education programmes. The course will refresh and update participants’ understanding of the latest theories of workplace health promotion and behaviour change, biomedical HIV/AIDS information (treatment, vaccines, microbicides), labour law and policy updates from leaders in the field,” said Phooko.
The programme is designed specifically for managers and officers dealing with Human Resources, HIV/AIDS, Social Responsibility, and Transformation. Participants will also explore the use of social marketing tools that successfully combat HIV fatigue, and revitalise skills of facilitation for the training of trainers in workplace peer education.
For more information on the course, running from 11 - 14 June 2007, contact Iona Gutuza (021) 406 1368 or iogutuza@gsb.uct.ac.za. The course website is www.gsb.uct.ac.za/aids.
