Welcome to The People Insider — a weekly brief for anyone who employs people in South Africa.
Every Wednesday: one headline, one tool, one leadership story, one stat and one question. Under five minutes. No fluff. Let's get into it.
01 — THE HEADLINE
The same SA judge reinstated one fired worker and upheld another’s dismissal — here's the difference
In October, the same Labour Court judge, Acting Judge Motshekga, ruled on two dismissals in the same week. One employer lost, the other won. The difference between the two cases had very little to do with how bad the behaviour was.
The popcorn
At Ster-Kinekor's The Zone cinema in Rosebank, Yvonne Mogano was fired in 2023 for eating popcorn while producing it for the cinema. She was charged with misappropriating company assets, dishonesty and breaking company policy.
Her version: she tasted a few kernels to check the salt, because after a customer complained about salty popcorn, her manager had told her to taste it. The manager admitted he had tasted it himself and given her some to taste. And the company's procedures said nothing specifically about tasting popcorn while producing it.
Wait, let us grab a snack quickly. OK, go…
The CCMA reinstated her, and on 23 October the Labour Court agreed with the reinstatement. An employer relying on a rule, the court said, has to prove the rule exists and that the employee knew about it.
The shouting
At leading cable manufacturer, South Ocean Electric Wire, operator Manase Ntsoana wanted to leave an overtime shift early to buy groceries and do his laundry. Early passes were for emergencies only, and he was refused. According to three company witnesses, he then shouted at his team leader and pointed his finger at her on the shop floor in front of other operators. They claim he said he would leave with or without permission, and kept it up for up to an hour.
His production manager let him go just to calm things down, and dealt with the issue the next day. He was charged with gross insubordination and eventually dismissed.
An arbitrator wanted him reinstated, but the Labour Court overturned that and found the dismissal fair. The witnesses' evidence had gone unchallenged, and letting him leave to defuse things did not mean the company had accepted what he did.
What actually decided it
In both cases, the outcome turned on what the managers did. At Ster-Kinekor, the manager's own behaviour had made tasting normal, so there was no rule to break. At South Ocean, managers had a clear rule, applied it, kept calm in the moment and had witnesses.
Whatever your handbook says, know that your managers set the rules your business actually runs on — and authorities will look to their behaviour and application of rules to judge what is true process and procedure at your business.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Check what your managers do, not just what the policy says. If a supervisor does something, or tells staff to do it, you can't discipline someone else for it.
Write down the few rules that really matter, and make sure staff have seen them. A rule you can't point to won't hold up at the CCMA.
When it blows up, calm it first and deal with it properly later. South Ocean let the worker go home, followed proper process the next day, and the court backed it.
02 — TOOL OF THE WEEK
One tool shaping how people work
E-COMMERCE / MARKETPLACES
Sell on six SA marketplaces from one dashboard
To be seen online in South Africa, a brand has to be on Takealot, Amazon, Makro, Leroy Merlin, Loot and Bob Shop, and each one wants its product data done its own way. Wherehouse is a South African platform that pulls your stock from wherever it lives (your store, your ERP or even a spreadsheet) and pushes it to all of them in the format each one needs.
It also reprices automatically to win the buy box, and flags stock the marketplaces lose so you can claim it back. Brands like Edgars and Kitchenique already use it, and it says it syncs more than R1.7 billion in marketplace sales a year.
03 — LEADERSHIP STORY
Steve Jobs' handover advice to Tim Cook: "Never ask what I would do"
When Steve Jobs asked Tim Cook to take over as Apple's CEO in 2011, he didn't leave him a rulebook. He told him never to ask what Jobs would do, and to just do the right thing.
"It was such a gift for me, because he took off my shoulder this question of 'What would Steve do?'"
Cook ran Apple for 15 years. When he handed over to John Ternus on 1 September, he said he would pass on the same advice.
Most owners do the opposite. They hand over a client, a team or a branch, then keep stepping back in, or the new person keeps checking what the boss would want. Either way, the job never really changes hands. The person can't grow into it, and the owner never gets the time back.
Telling someone to do it their way, not yours, is how you actually let go.
The question worth sitting with: The last time you handed something over, did you tell the person to do it their way, or are they still asking what you'd do?
04 — THE STAT
27%
is the share of South African workers who are fully engaged at work, according to ADP Research's People at Work 2026 survey. It's still the second-highest of 36 markets, behind Brazil, but down from 31% a year earlier, when South Africa led the world. The biggest lever ADP found is one any boss controls: among workers who strongly agree their employer invests in their development, 53% are fully engaged. Where that's missing, it's 12%.
Source: ADP Research, People at Work 2026
05 — EVENTS
What’s coming up
11—13 NOVEMBER – ONLINE COURSE
Management and Leadership Skills
A three-day course for first-time and frontline managers on delegation, leading a team, giving feedback and managing poor performance.
12 NOVEMBER – CAPE TOWN
An Evening at BMW Cape Town with Oscar Chalupsky
The Lekker Network and BMW Cape Town's last big night of the year. Surfski legend and 12-time Molokai world champion Oscar Chalupsky on staying at the front for decades, plus networking matched to what you need.
12 NOVEMBER – CAPE TOWN
The Open Letter: What It Takes to Scale and Exit
The final Open Letter gathering of 2026. Andrew Hardie, CEO of Pay@, on building to a R1bn valuation, then a panel with Quona Capital, Capitec Ventures and Katapult Ocean.
19 NOVEMBER – SANDTON
Deskless Pulse 2026: Executive Launch
From our sponsor. Jem brings together leaders of large deskless workforces to launch its Deskless Pulse 2026 report on what working on the frontline is really like, with talks, good food and conversation with fellow executives. Attendance is by approval.
Got an event SA employers should know about? Reply and tell us.
06 — QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Is there something your managers do every day that you would discipline a staff member for doing?
07 — BROUGHT TO YOU BY
PREMIUM SPONSOR
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A typical Marshall Security employee works on the customer’s site with just the essentials and their phone…
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This space is reserved for a small handful of partners we're glad to stand behind, and we've kept 4 more spots open. If your product belongs in front of South African business owners, hit reply and let's talk.
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