Software development company, Oakwell Solutions, joins the growing number of South African companies involved in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The reality is that HIV/AIDS has affected companies on a far greater scale than previously expected. South African statistics tell the real story: in general, HIV/AIDS infections cost companies anything from 3% to 10% of their wage bill.
An estimated 20% of SA`s adult population is HIV positive and this translates into degraded purchasing power and a fractured economy. Business can wear blinkers for only so long before the impact of HIV/AIDS shatters the myth: `It doesn`t affect me....` HIV/AIDS is eroding the fiscal heath of this country just as surely as it is eroding that of its people.
Oakwell has partnered with Epicentre, a Section 21, non-profit organisation implementing HIV and AIDS workplace programs in SA. Working together, they have designed a comprehensive workplace program that has positive fiscal impact on those organisations where HIV/AIDS is prevalent. "Our focus is to keep people working," says Cherie Zuccarini, Epicentre`s Managing Director. "It is good for business and good for people."
The implemented programs have clear measurable objectives aimed at minimising costs and maximising benefits. Though each workplace program differs, the objectives usually incorporate the following considerations in that they aim to:
1. Prevent further HIV infections within the worker population.
2. Identify, treat and maintain the health of the infected employee without compromising the confidentiality of the patient.
3. Provide management information that enables strategic business planning.
"What we needed from Oakwell was an application enabling us to train and monitor project progress at a plant level. Most of our customers have multiple plants in various locations across the country. By leveraging technology, we are able to achieve this in a sustainable, cost-effective manner," says Zuccarini.
The solution allows Epicentre to train peer educator, occupational health nurses and managers in any location at any time, thereby reducing the cost of running the programme.
"The next phase under development is an HIV and AIDS project database that will track peer education progress, voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) take-up, prevalence and HIV treatment down to a plant level. It will enable Epicentre to provide real-time strategic monitoring of mortality, absenteeism, death and disability. HIV prevalence and treatment thereof linked to the customer`s HIV/AIDS workplace programming," says Craig Neill, Technical Account Manager at Oakwell Solutions.
The new module will be complete by the end of June 2003 and will provide strategic information vital to organisations wanting to manage HIV within the workplace.
"Sponsoring a portion of the solution and keeping our development costs low, we have developed a comprehensive system, using proven Microsoft technologies, to maximise the effectiveness of the training programs on offer," says Morne Pretorius, senior developer at Oakwell Solutions.
Research on HIV/AIDS workplace intervention is conclusive: non-intervention is far more expensive for a company than programmed intervention that has workplace buy-in from stakeholders and managers alike. It is approximately 10 times more costly for an organisation to lose a valued resource than to ignore the reality of HIV/AIDS.
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