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ReConnect Africa is a unique website and online magazine for the African professional in the Diaspora. Packed with essential information about careers, business and jobs, ReConnect Africa keeps you connected to the best of Africa.



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A recent survey by Here is the City, a website for London’s finance sector, showed that despite the big bonuses earned by many workers in London’s lucrative banking and financial services market, most people still felt that they are not paid enough.

The company’s survey, which covered responses from employees at 70 different firms which operate in the financial markets, was analysed across a number of key areas: strategy, leadership, management, teamwork, development, pay and diversity.

The highest scores from the respondents were for teamwork, with people rating working in teams higher than the leadership or strategy of their organisations. Diversity was also rated highly, perhaps reflecting the efforts of companies in the Square Mile to combat negative press and high profile litigation relating to discrimination. Surprisingly though, for a sector renowned for its astronomic levels of pay, and despite the record levels of bonuses paid out to City workers in recent years, the lowest scores from the survey were for pay.

So when is pay ever enough? Once a person’s salary has reached beyond the point needed for their survival, two questions are often key to whether they are satisfied; ‘Am I paid as much as the next person doing the same job?’ and ‘Does my pay show that I am valued by this company?’ A recent career coaching client of mine was offered a job role that would put her in line for the career progression she has worked very hard for. But, when she was told that because of the need to relocate for the new job, her take-home salary would be effectively less than she was currently earning, she turned down the offer. While she could see how the job might potentially benefit her career, the level of salary on offer was a clear indication to her that the company did not value her sufficiently. As a result, she also lost faith that her sought after career progression would ever actually materialize with this company, a realization soon reinforced by learning that a male colleague in a similar role earned far more than the salary offered to her.

When it is equitable, transparent and pitched to motivate, one’s salary can be enough. Perhaps, then, the question that progressive companies should be asking is not so much ‘when is enough ever enough?’ but ‘what message are we sending with the salaries that we pay?’

In this Issue

In this issue, we speak to Marek Effendowicz of the International Organization of Migration about their voluntary assistance scheme for returnees to Africa from the UK and highlight some of the training being undertaken by Interims for Development in Africa to support returnees with small business planning and management. As they launch a new range of courses, we look at the work of the Association of Business Executives (ABE) in Africa and bring you some case studies from some of their African graduates. Leading career coach, Robin Alcock, shares some strategies on how to be more effective in what we do by learning to be our own career coaches, while our resident Coach, Helen Dupigny, tackles the subject of contributing more effectively in meetings. Following the recent launch of her debut novel, ‘Growing Yams in London’, we speak to Sophia Acheampong about her Ghanaian ancestry and the conflict of cultures for young Africans growing up in the West.

Africa Business News brings you a summary of recent business news from the continent and we share some of the Other News from around the world that has caught our eye. Investment banker, Tutu Agyare, shares his thoughts in the ‘5 Minute Interview’ and we bring you a round-up of the many events taking place in September.

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