With the takeover of BoE, Nedcor now has about 26 000 employees. Nedcor Foundation head Kevin Dunne says it's impossible to gauge how many might be HIV-positive, though he expects between 5% and 10% to be "vulnerable" and about 200 to be ill.
The problem in the workforce, Dunne explains, has been denial, though he says that's changing. The focus of Nedcor's internal campaign is to banish the stigma of Aids. Establishing who is HIV-positive is not easy, since most of the bank's employees are on medical aid and want to keep their status secret.
"We want our people to know there's no stigma attached - they won't be fired and they won't be discriminated against. In fact, we'd like to help them."
There's a special unit in Nedcor's human resources (HR) department called Employee Wellbeing, which Dunne says is establishing structures and services to help staff. They may not be HIV-positive themselves, but a member of their families could be. "Pressure is placed on that family - it's a hell of a thing to go through."
The Nedcor Foundation had R43m of the bank's profits this year to spend on good works. Dispensing this money is a pressured and responsible job. Dunne works long hours and midnight may find him looking at a soup kitchen in downtown Johannesburg. The job is not without its hazards: once a testy street child stabbed him in the chin .
He says much of SA's social development work is done by ordinary people, unsung heroes. "Our own staff are the same; people are always ready to step forward and help."
This year R5m of the foundation's R43m went to Aids projects. Next year, says Dunne, the Aids-spend in the community will be much higher.
Nedcor Foundation tends to use its money to "put muscle" behind large well-established organisations such as the Salvation Army (more than R1m) and Child Welfare.
This year R400 000 went to Sinikithemba, a project for 350 HIV-positive women in Durban. The women receive their antiretrovirals and learn job skills.
"They look a lot better and when you speak to them and they say they're not sick," says Dunne. "They're on chronic medication for the rest of their lives. Providing you create the right structure and the right discipline, you can prolong these people's lives. We don't know yet for how long, hopefully years."
But you must have the discipline. "Once you're on antiretrovirals, you can't deviate from the game plan. If you mess around with your cocktail, for example, taking it one day then stopping, the virus mutates fast."
Dunne has a lot of sympathy for government, and says he understands President Thabo Mbeki when he says poverty causes Aids. "Ultimately, he's right. When we address the cause and not the symptoms, we should look at addressing poverty. One of the quickest ways to eradicate Aids is to eradicate poverty.
"Government is trying to do what it can. Deputy president Jacob Zuma, especially, is doing a lot. There needs to be more dialogue and working together between the private sector, government and nongovernmental organisations, instead of criticising government and using it as a scapegoat."
Next year, the Nedcor Foundation will increase its funding to hospices. "I was shocked to see how underfunded they were," says Dunne.
The foundation also plans programmes with service providers for out-of-school youth. "That's your biggest risk area, the guys who have dropped out of school - kids from 15 and those up to 35 who have dropped out of formal education and can't get a job. You put in structure aimed at teaching job skills, such as welding, woodwork and bricklaying. Things that allow them to become an employee or work for themselves.
"From now on, every project we fund must, within reason, have an HIV/Aids policy - and be doing something about HIV/Aids. They must teach people not to be in denial and remove the stigma. Aids is not necessarily a death sentence. Once you have the proper structures and the antiretrovirals, you can live for another 15-20 years."
Dunne is critical of companies that make money out of Aids. "We had a marketing company that came to us and wanted R14m to put us on TV - advertising and marketing on the back of HIV/Aids," he says.
"Aids has become an industry where much of the money is unnecessarily going to marketing and communications companies. It would be interesting to quantify how much goes to the victims and how much to these guys.
"Much donor-spend that should have gone to structures, antiretrovirals and addressing the plight of the victims of HIV has gone to communications, marketing and advertising companies.
"It's difficult; you're caught between a rock and a hard place. Aids awareness must take place. And it does cost. But there's a delicate balance and at the moment I'd say too much is going to the wrong place. These marketing companies don't do pro bono work. Where are their corporate social investment programmes?
"Structures aimed at poverty alleviation will do more to stamp out the terrible scourge of Aids than spending millions on marketing."
Standard Bank
Standard Bank has focused on education and awareness about HIV/Aids among its 27 000 employees. The bank, in partnership with outside consultants Wits Health Consortium, conducted a knowledge, attitudes and perceptions survey in May, in which staff spoke about their fears of managing HIV/Aids at work.
HIV Management Solutions conducted another survey on the effect of HIV/Aids on the bank's employees - and also on the business.
Comedian Pieter Dirk Uys was brought in to star in a staff video, his brief: to put humour into Aids. "Don't be shy about it" and "Your condom or mine?" are among his messages.
There's an employee wellbeing programme provided by Independent Counselling & Advisory Service (ICAS) now being implemented throughout the country. It offers confidential support and advice to staff (and those who live with them) on issues ranging from HIV/Aids to trauma and alcohol and drug abuse.
"We came to the realisation that the effect of Aids may not be that devastating, given our employee profile, but it's something we should not ignore," says group HR director Sipho Ngidi.
The bank is launching a three-pronged Aids strategy: what to do for employees; assessing the effect of Aids on the business; and what role the bank should play in the community.
Most Standard Bank employees are members of Bankmed medical aid, which offers its own HIV programme that carries benefits of R30 000/year. This, Ngidi says, includes antiretrovirals and is almost double the industry standard annual Aids benefit of R16 000.
"The cover also extends to beneficiaries. My wife and children would be covered to the same extent as I am in respect of HIV/Aids," says Ngidi.
"You have to make sure people know there is hope after finding out what their status is; you're not encouraging them to go through a blind discovery of doom."
Standard Bank has the slogan: It's about people'. It's aimed at instituting proper behaviour by management and co-workers towards those who declare their HIV-positive status.
"No-one should be discriminated against," says Ngidi. "Being HIV-positive doesn't necessarily make you a poor performer suddenly.
"Our managers know now that an HIV-positive employee is not necessarily sick. They have learnt to treat them as ordinary people.
"If you know your status and can tap into the various wellness programmes, you can actually live a normal life, with the same dignity as if you had not declared your status."
Ngidi went live on air for 40 minutes, declaring the bank's HIV/Aids message on the internal TV network. "We made people aware of the education programme we're embarking on," he says.
Workforce "champions" are being trained to hand out an HIV/Aids toolkit and pass on the thinking coming out of corporate headquarters in Johannesburg's Simmonds Street. "We were looking for 100 champions - and we got 400," says Ngidi.
Standard Bank corporate health head Peter Philip says there was a good deal of debate over whether champions should be HIV-positive themselves. "I believe those people are good, but my take on the subject was that a person who is HIV-positive is normal, so why not have normal people doing the training?"
Philip says: "We've moved beyond the Alcoholics Anonymous line of having someone stand up and say: I'm HIV-positive and I'm still alive.' "
This year the Standard Bank Foundation spent R36m on corporate social responsibility projects in the community, of which R1,3m went to HIV/Aids initiatives. A focus area is Aids orphans, and R500 000 went to the KwaZulu Natal-based Aids Orphans Trust.
Standard Bank executive responsible for the foundation Ricky Naidoo says employees are involved in a range of community projects. "In KwaZulu Natal they collected 3 t of peanut butter, a solid source of protein, for Aids projects in the province."
There's an innovative staff-matching scheme. If an employee raises R5 000 for a worthy Aids or upliftment project, the foundation will match it. "It's to encourage employees to become more involved in the communities around where they work and live," says Naidoo.
The bank, he says, is involved with all the provincial governments "to see what the priorities are concerning HIV/Aids and what the bank can contribute".
There's involvement also with national government through the Banking Council.
