[contextly_sidebar id=”j1RghsAJfzwWUzA6HUU2GBZjZcwxk1Bt”]The latest Ghana Labour Force Survey Report by the Ghana Statistical Service said the men in the urban localities of the region demand as much as 1,604 cedis a month as pay.

According to the report, women in the Ashanti region, demand the highest minimum wage per month.

The survey, which adopts the relaxed definition of unemployment in Ghana, puts Ghana’s unemployment rate at 11.9 percent as at 2015.

It noted that, on the average, the unemployed want a monthly salary of 297.25 cedis. This represents about thirteen percent more compared to the national daily minimum wage of 264 cedis.

Men in the urban locality of the Upper West region were the second highest quoting 687.63 cedis.

The third, fourth and fifth, are quoted by men in Brong Ahafo, Volta and Central regions at 573.29, 573.08 and 507.45 cedis respectively.

Shockingly, men in the urban areas of the Greater Accra region quoted the 6^th highest figure of 225.91 cedis.

However, men in the urban areas of the Eastern Region demand the lowest monthly minimum wage of 128.32 cedis.

This is immediately preceded by Northern region, Upper East region and Ashanti region at 160.19, 164.55 and 213. 59 cedis respectively.

Meanwhile unemployed women in the Ashanti Region quoted the highest monthly minimum wage of 407.53 cedis.

The second highest was quoted by women in the Volta Region at 268.54 cedis.

The third, fourth and fifth, were quoted by women in the Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Eastern regions with 215.08, 206.17 and 198.76 cedis respectively.

In sharp contrast, women in urban areas of the Western region demand the lowest monthly minimum wage of 132. 34 cedis.

They are immediately preceded by women in the Upper West, Northern and Central regions with 183. 35, 187.03 and 188 cedis respectively.

Like their male counterparts, women in urban areas of the Greater Accra region emerged at the eighth position with 183.43 cedis.

According to the coordinators of the project, the differences in economic conditions partly accounted for the wage quotations for the respective areas.

Commenting on the development, Labour Analyst, Austin Gammey, cautioned that it will be challenging for employers as Ghana’s economy compels businesses to offer lower wages due to high cost of operations.

“How much an employer afford to pay is based upon his or her income; that will have to be considered, and that is why I mentioned trade unions, employers, and government would have to take a look at the way we negotiate and engage with one another.”

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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

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Uber’s current classification of drivers as contractors means the company isn’t responsible for many costs, including Social Security (in the US), health insurance, paid sick days, gas, car maintenance and much more. If all drivers are eventually deemed employees, Uber will have to pay for all of this, as well as manage a workforce of more than one million.

“This is a groundbreaking decision,” Annie Powell, a lawyer for the firm Leigh Day that represented UK Uber drivers, said in a statement. “It will impact not just on the thousands of Uber drivers working in this country, but on all workers in the so-called gig economy whose employers wrongly classify them as self-employed and deny them the rights to which they are entitled.”

Gig economy is a term given to the workforce in which someone is hired, usually through a digital marketplace, to work on demand, for a short-term engagement.

Founded in 2009, Uber offers a mobile app that lets passengers hail a ride from their phone. The company began operations in San Francisco and is now one of the world’s biggest ride-hailing services, operating in more than 450 cities in more than 70 countries.

Uber is also the highest-valued venture-backed company in the world with a valuation of $68 billion. Much of this valuation, however, is based on Uber’s ability to be profitable by running its ride-hailing platform. If the company has to pay for its drivers’ expenses, profits could diminish or costs could be transferred to passengers.

As discussions of driver classification arose over the past couple of years, Uber has always said that it classifies drivers as contractors because that’s what drivers want.

“Tens of thousands of people in London drive with Uber precisely because they want to be self-employed and their own boss,” wrote Jo Bertram, Uber UK’s regional general manager, in an email to CNET. “The overwhelming majority of drivers who use the Uber app want to keep the freedom and flexibility of being able to drive when and where they want.”

In the US, Uber settled two similar lawsuits in April over the classification of drivers. The class action suits were brought in California and Massachusetts and involved roughly 385,000 drivers. Under the settlement agreement, Uber was allowed to continue classifying its drivers as independent contractors but had to pay $100 million to the drivers involved in the suit. The ride-hailing company also agreed to certain concessions, including giving drivers more information when they’re banned from the service, not terminating drivers at will and creating a “Driver Association” to address drivers’ concerns.

The London Central Employment Tribunal on Friday took these decisions a step further. The court said Uber drivers should be classified as employees, earn at least the national minimum wage and get paid vacations. The tribunal will hold another hearing to determine the amount of pay drivers should receive.

Uber said it is appealing the decision.

While this preliminary decision threatens Uber’s business model, it’s currently limited to only two drivers. Uber has more than 40,000 drivers in the UK. Lawyers for the two drivers said they intend to open the case up to those thousands of other drivers.

In the wake of Uber’s worker classification battles, several other on-demand companies have begun to rethink employee classification. The grocery-delivery startup Instacart said in June 2015 that it’s switching hundreds of its personal shoppers from contract workers to part-time employees. House-cleaning startup Homejoy said in July 2015 that it was permanently shutting down after being sued over the classification of its workers. Several similar lawsuits have also popped up against other on-demand companies, including Postmates, Handy, Shyp and Washio.

“The Uber ruling will demystify much rhetoric on the ‘gig economy’ being inherently liberating,” said Guglielmo Meardi, industrial relations professor at Warwick Business School in the UK. “Over recent years self-employment has increased, but often coming with very bad conditions, prompting fears that it was being used to bypass employment legislation.”

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Source: CNET

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I’m no fair maiden. Still, in my time, I’ve had the luck of getting close to many magical unicorns … in the form of “unicorn” employees. Not to be confused with unicorn companies—startups valued at $1 billion or more—“unicorn” employees, for me, are staff who possess a unique set of qualities that make them extremely rare and valuable. Like actual unicorns, they’re hard to find, but once hired, offer up enormous benefits in the workplace. To name a few, they shatter expectations, raise the bar for everyone and are simply a joy to be around. Unicorn employees can literally take your business to the next level.

Whether you’re looking to build a unicorn army, or hoping to boost your own value in the workplace, here are the five key qualities of unicorn employees:

You aren’t limited by your job title.
In the span of about 5 years, my company, Hootsuite, went from a 100-person tech startup to a 1000-person global company. Through this stage of “hyper growth,” employees who truly flourished were flexible and intellectually curious.

Earlier on in the business, this meant having the ability to wear many hats and excel at varied tasks, critical at a fast-growing startup. For example, just because somebody’s job title was “Office Administrator,” didn’t mean she would shy away from pitching in on a major marketing campaign by helping brainstorm some catchy tweets.

Later, as the company grew, unicorn employees jumped at the chance to dive deeper into specific, growing areas of business, which needed good people. Some even decided to move across several departments. I saw unicorn employees make surprising leaps—one even went from financial specialist to software engineer. I think this is so important to employee growth that we recently launched a new pilot initiative, called the “stretch program,” to help people expand their knowledge and expertise across the business … and grow their unicorn horns.

You think big and small.
Exceptional employees are able to think strategically. This means having the ability to take a step back and see the overall company goals, or the industry as a whole, then apply it to your work. To be effective in business, you must be able to see the big picture.

On the flipside, while big-picture thinking is critical, I’ve also found that the best employees also know the devil is in the details. Running a business requires meticulous attention. A minor copyright issue, improperly executed email campaign, or even what seems like a small technical glitch can end up being catastrophic, affecting a lot of clients in a short period of time. The best employees are those who take the time to read the fine print. These are the types of people I know I can entrust with serious responsibility.

You have true grit.
The concept of “grit” has made its way into popular culture recently, perhaps sparked by psychologist Angela Duckworth’s popular TED talk and book, on the subject. She defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals,” and says it’s a crucial factor to achieving success.

I couldn’t agree more. Being an entrepreneur since I was a teenager, I’ve learned that the business world is like being on a boat in the open sea. Whether it’s a patch of rough waves or an unexpected storm, unexpected obstacles are inevitable. During these turbulent times, having grit—a dogged persistence—can help you keep focused on the destination. In fact, that very outlook helped my billion-dollar company weather the storm and get to the next level. Unicorn employees have true grit, and are able stay calm and focused on the task at hand, even on choppy seas.

You’re respectful by nature.
The ability to work well with others is a skill that benefits any workplace. It seems simple enough, but you’d be surprised.

A few years ago, I put out a job posting for a high-level sales role. Many people applied, and after a series of interviews, I had some top candidates in mind. However, when I checked in with my executive assistant at the time, I was shocked to find out how many of those people who had been personable and courteous to me, had been downright rude to her.

Unicorn employees are respectful by nature, and would never treat someone—regardless of title —in this way. It’s something that absolutely sets a stellar employee apart from an average one. In fact, this is so important to the well-being of our staff, it’s been built into two of our four core company values: “Respect the individual,” and “lead with humility.”

You get sh#t done.
A few years back, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner sent out a short status update on his platform: “In simplest terms possible, the people I most enjoy working with dream big, get sh*t done, and know how to have fun.”

The update blew up, striking a chord with the tens of thousands of people who commented and liked it. (Weiner followed up by writing a full post on the topic.) Like him, I too am a huge proponent of having fun at work and believe it’s crucial to success. However, I can’t stress how important it is for people on the job to be able to get shit done. After all, no matter how great a co-worker is to be around, if he can’t produce actual results, his presence is isn’t ultimately helpful and may even be damaging to others. Great teams can be shattered by a single member who can’t get shit done.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that top performers contribute to a business 10 times more than their average counterparts. In fact, some firms, including Microsoft, claim that figure to be 100 times.

The bottom line: At the end of the day, you can be respectful, multi-talented, tenacious, detail-oriented and a big thinker. But if you don’t produce real results and move the needle, all those traits are wasted. You must be able to execute. It’s an essential unicorn quality.

For companies and business leaders, it’s probably worthwhile to put some extra time and effort into chasing unicorns. Unlike their mythical counterparts, they’re very real and they can change your company. And for unicorn employees in the making, it’s never too late to grow your strengths and make yourself more rare and valuable than ever.

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Source: Ryan Holmes

Hootsuite CEO

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