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.

Since private cannabis use was decriminalised in 2018, it has made it hard for employers to enforce rules based on testing.

A recent Labour Court case shows just how tricky it is: In MHE Electronics v Toffie, a CCMA arbitrator had insisted that two employees (a laser-machine operator and a forklift driver) who were dismissed on the company's zero-tolerance drug policy should be reinstated because of a technicality.

What actually happened

See, the two dismissed employees were not the only ones who tested positive for drugs; an undisclosed number of employees had tested positive for cannabis. So the arbitrator argued that it was unfair not to apply the policy uniformly (i.e. let everyone go), and thus wanted the two employees reinstated.

The difference, however, was in the test results: The two in question had also tested positive for hard drugs (cocaine, amphetamines, heroin), not for cannabis alone, like the other team members.

So, the company had realised they couldn’t do anything about the employees who tested for cannabis only (you’d need to prove impairment first), precisely because of the private use ruling. But the other drugs don’t have that protection.

In the end, the Labour Court set that reinstatement aside, saying the distinction between cannabis and hard drugs was rational, and the two employees could rightfully be let go.

Where does that leave employers?

This isn't a green light for every employee to use cannabis freely on Saturdays, though. The Labour Appeal Court's Barloworld ruling shows that off-duty cannabis use is only protected if the company can’t prove impairment or that the use creates a safety risk.

So, as an employer, your route to enforcing drug policy is quality testing (that can show the distinction between hard drugs and cannabis) and strict control and measurement of impairment and safety-critical roles, with policies you can justify.

South Africa pours billions into skills (SETA levies, learnerships, training budgets) and yet employers still say they can't find people who can do the job. HyperionDev CEO Riaz Moola argues the problem isn't the money; it's what we've been measuring.

For years, "success" in skills development meant counting enrolments (how many people started a programme) rather than how many ended up employable, productive or promoted.

His push is to judge training the way you'd judge any other investment: Does it cut onboarding time, lift retention, build a stronger internal pipeline? (AI sharpens the point; as automation absorbs the simplest entry-level tasks, "workplace-ready" increasingly means judgment and collaboration, not just a completed course.)

The question worth sitting with: Of everything you spend on training and skills levies, how much can you actually tie to someone becoming more useful, staying longer or getting promoted?

47.3%

is the percentage of senior-management roles held by women in South Africa. That’s the highest in the world, versus only about a third globally, and no surveyed local firm reported an all-male senior team in the recent SNG Grant Thornton, via Business Report. Why isn’t this achievement being reported more widely in SA media?

Either way, the useful question for a boss isn't moral: Does your succession pipeline reflect the talent you actually have, and are you losing capable people, of either sex, for reasons you could fix?

Source: SNG Grant Thornton Women in Business 2026

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