Among the stories featured on Biznews this morning is the strange tale of Business Day senior reporter Samuel Mungadze who, in essence, claims his editor jettisoned him to protect a relationship with a major advertiser. Mungadze, who is fighting his former employer in court, certainly hasn’t held back in his affidavit. Neither, for that matter, has the other side.
This is one of those too-tough-to-call cases. So I won’t. But it should serve to remind us of a challenge that old media businesses are poorly positioned to handle. Indeed, it highlights something many companies are grappling with.
Employees everywhere suddenly have very loud voices. Social media makes it impossible to squash embarrassing disclosures with a phone call to mahogany row. For far too long, company management have rabbited on about “people are our biggest asset”, but treated their staff like bags of kilojoules (a term stolen from my old pal Jerry Schuitema). They will have to start walking their talk.
The latest Gallup survey on SA employees showed just 15% are “engaged”. I don’t know the figure for the media sector. But what I do know is Mungadze is proving the point that trouble-making reporters are no longer beholden to an editor’s edict. Neither, for that matter, are those who work anywhere else.
