Electricity and Control September 2023

RESKILLING, UPSKILLING + TRAINING

Employed learnerships can support business development Anton Visser, Chief Operations Officer, Alefbet Learning

M any South African corporate organisations spend mil lions of rand on learnerships as a tick-box compliance exercise to gain BBBEE points and without aligning the learnerships to the business strategy. This is a major lost opportunity to leverage the real power of employed learner ships – which can and should be customised for the needs of the business and employees. In this way, learnerships can support the business to achieve a real competitive ad vantage through productive career and skills progression that takes the business – and its people – forward. The foundation of a learning culture Employed learnerships help to meet the specific require ments of the workplace and the career ambitions of em ployees, creating well-rounded candidates who have a good grasp of all the work processes. Having a pool of tal ent coming through and building the skills and succession pipeline is a business success story. Regarding employed learnerships, many employers are not aware that learnerships can and should be custom ised for the needs of the business and its people. With the right partner, every learnership can be customised to the business strategy, as long as it meets the requirements in terms of notional hours and the formative and summative assessments. Employed learnerships benefit the compa ny and the employees’ personal growth and development, and enable the achievement of respective NQF-registered qualifications. Benefits for employers and employees For employees, an employed learnership is an opportunity to earn an income while learning new skills and gaining val uable workplace experience, in order to earn a recognised qualification, adding to their value and employability, and leads to improved morale, self-esteem, personal develop ment and confidence. For employers, employed learnerships raise the skills levels of current employees and heightened skills generally lead to greater productivity and more engaged employees. Skilled employees tend to work more independently and need less supervision, and they develop greater problem solving capabilities. They will also be more engaged and committed to a business and employer that invests in their professional development. The more skilled a business’s employees become, the more meaningful their contribution to the business’s competitiveness and that of the country as a whole. And employers also gain all the added benefits of tax incentives and an improved BBBEE scorecard. Learnerships have evolved One of the challenges with learnerships is the time the em ployees need to take off work to complete the theoretical/ lecture-based component of the learnership, although this is not supposed to impact on their productivity.

SA Business School, part of Alefbet Holdings, has ad dressed this challenge by taking its learnership pro grammes online, revolution ising the way learnerships are delivered in a rapidly changing organisational training and education en vironment. The online learn ership is about interactive, online learning in combina tion with practical work ex

Anton Visser, COO, Alefbet Learning.

perience. A key benefit is for companies that have learners geographically dispersed around the country, as they can now bring them together on one online learning platform where they get to interact with their trainers and content, at their own pace. It also means that employees embarking on learnerships don’t compromise their productivity and can better manage their work and study demands. The flexi bility and modernisation that this brings to the employed learnership process is groundbreaking in South Africa. Learnerships as strategic enablers It is time to abandon the tick-box approach to learnerships and skills development, and to invest in them as the strategic enablers they were intended to be to address critical skills shortages, create jobs, progress careers and deliver a competitive advantage for businesses and our economy. For a business, any efforts to unlock the potential of its workforce start with this being part and parcel of the business strategy, with a clear plan that outlines the skill sets and knowledge needed to meet business goals and objectives. Learnership programmes should receive due credit and more employers need to realise their power and value. Learnerships have been one of the most significant catalysts for long-term employment in South Africa for the past 20 years. They need to be recognised at the boardroom table for the sustainable competitive advantage they can help businesses achieve in a world where the skills needed by the employees and the business are constantly evolving.

For more information visit: www.sabusinessschool.com

SEPTEMBER 2023 Electricity + Control

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