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Midlands Correspondent
REDCLIFF-based steel manufacturer, Steelmakers, has introduced performance and productivity based contracts for its employees as part of measures to contain costs.

Operations director Mr Upendra Alamwar told Chronicle Business that under the performance-based contracts, employees will have their basic salary and be rewarded according to performance.

“We want to ensure that the employees also become part and parcel of the company so that they appreciate that their bread is buttered here.

“So this is to make them more involved and we will give incentives to hardworking employees,” said Mr Alamwar.

“This comes after a realisation that some companies are paying workers for idle hours.

“This is not fair to both parties as the worker may be working hard and the company is not rewarding him/her for the efforts.

“In some cases the workers are spending most of their time on social media therefore performance-based contracts gives room for the employees to be rewarded based on their output.”

Mr Alamwar said the company had not resorted to traditional methods of reducing labour costs such as the slashing of salaries as “this has a negative impact on the strategic objectives of the firm”.

The local foundry employs more than 500 workers and manufactures close to 36,000 tonnes of steel per annum, which is converted to various shapes to cater for the engineering, agriculture, motoring, mining, construction and manufacturing industries.

The latest development comes as the Redcliff-based company resumed exports into the region and the move is part of the various strategies the company is implementing to reduce its overheads.

Steelmakers abandoned exports at the beginning of the year owing to the firming of the greenback against regional currencies, which has made local manufacturers uncompetitive.