Introduction By The Managing Member - Puma

Unfortunately, we have been subject to another industry trend: the failure to attract younger employees to our
production team.
With an age distribution favouring employees between the age of 30 and 49, the total number of employees
who are younger than 30 is roughly 17% of our workforce. While we don’t believe that this is a particular risk at
this time, it nonetheless reminds us of an ongoing need to consider alternative strategies to attract and retain
employees, particularly in the younger age brackets. We believe that the promotion of our policy of freedom to
communicate is at the core of our ability to attract and retain critical staff members.
2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
New Recruits 229 94 146 83 132
Failed Probation Period 28 11 42 12 24
Net New Recruits 201 83 104 71 108
Terminations
Deceased 1 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 1 2.9% 2 5.4%
Discharged 4 3.3% 3 4.9% 3 3.9% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%
Early Retirement 1 1.1% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%
End Of Contract 13 10.9% 3 4.9% 33 42.9% 4 11.4% 3 8.1%
Ill Health 6 5.4% 5 8.2% 5 6.5% 1 2.9% 1 2.7%
Left Without Reason 17 15.2% 3 4.9% 4 5.2% 5 14.3% 7 18.9%
Maternity 8 6.5% 13 21.3% 6 7.8% 9 25.7% 7 18.9%
Normal Retirement 2 2.2% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 1 2.7%
Resignation 63 47.8% 33 54.1% 20 26.0% 13 37.1% 16 43.2%
Retrenchment 4 4.3% 0 0.0% 6 7.8% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%
Voluntary Retrenchment 3 3.3% 1 1.6% 0 0.0% 2 5.7% 0 0.0%
Total Terminations 122 23.2% 61 13.6% 77 18.1% 35 8.8% 37 10.2%
Net Turnover 79 15.0% 22 4.9% 27 6.4% 36 9.0% 71 19.6%
Employees at Year End 526 447 425 398 362
Accumulated Growth 55.0% 39.9% 35.0% 28.7% 19.6%
In the past 5 years, our employee turnover rate has remained in positive figures, thus leading to the growth
of our total employee pool. However, we continue to struggle with the number of terminations we must deal
with.
In 2007, we had a termination rate of 23.2%, with resignations representing 47.8% of our total number of employee
losses. While this is due in large part to our move to new premises in an area that was not convenient
for some employees, we are nonetheless concerned by the overall trend towards an increase in employee
terminations.
Thankfully, our need to discharge employees for poor
performance or behaviour that is inconsistent with our
core values has been limited. In the past five years
we’ve only been forced to terminate the employment
of 10 workers for unsatisfactory behaviour, with four
of these terminations occurring in 2007.
In our 26 year history, only one termination case has
been taken to the National Bargaining Council (Textiles)
for arbitration. Although the termination was
ruled to be merited by Vimal, we nonetheless found
the process useful in confirming that our compensation
procedures adhere to NBC expectations.
17
Having worked with
Kali at another
Fabric company
prior to the
development of
Vimal, Ramesh left
his job and, having
faith in Kali, became
one of our first
employees.