Education & Training

The latest Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) shows that 74.7% of youth (aged 15-24) in South Africa are unemployed. According to the expanded definition of joblessness, this takes youth unemployment to a 14 year record high in the first quarter of 2021.

When it comes to employee tax, a little training goes a long way towards restoring productivity. Many employees don’t understand the complex tax calculations payroll applies to their earnings each month and often question these deductions.

The normalisation of remote working and increased business adoption of cloud technologies have significantly increased the cyberattack surface putting every company at risk of compromise. With more than 10% of internet user computers worldwide experiencing at least one malware-class attack last year and Kaspersky solutions blocking over 665 million attacks launched from online resources in various countries, cybersecurity skills are now more in demand than ever.

e-Learning has changed, thanks to COVID-19, and there’s no going back to the way we were, however much organisations may want to do so. COVID-19 arrived and new technology came to the fore - like Zoom, Meets, Teams and so on.

With our lives essentially transferred to the digital world since last year, keeping our digital space safe and secure has become more important than ever. Recognition of the importance of online privacy led to the growth of privacy-focused products, yet many people remain confused about what dangers the exposure of personal data may lead to.

During the 6th UN Global Road Safety Week from 17-23 May 2021, I challenge the assumptions about road safety, minibus taxi crashes, and who is responsible. In 2010 a minibus taxi driver lost his arm when a private vehicle hit him. The college-educated taxi driver, for whom driving was just a stop-gap job, was left disabled and unemployed. As his occupational therapist, I decided to take a closer look at minibus taxi crashes in Johannesburg and who is really responsible.

COVID-19 has brought another dynamic in managing the safety of employees on-site and has further complicated the process of onboarding. Clients now need to implement comprehensive back-to-work plans in order to quickly identify high-risk individuals, and those who have recently travelled in so-called ‘hotspots’.

For once, the age-old tale that school life was 'much harder back in my day' could not be further from the truth. The class of 2020/2021 are enduring one of the most difficult global events in recent memory, and they are doing so while juggling concerns over grades, exams, and future employment.

Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) is a prerequisite for doing business in South Africa, and training forms a significant portion of the B-BBEE scorecard. However, training is also critical to help address the skills shortage in the country that is only growing as we move into the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).

Financial institutions are spending, on average, 14% of annual operating costs on change management functions in order to drive greater productivity gains, a new study has shown. According to our report, 'Productivity 2021 and beyond: Upskilling the workforce of the future to create a competitive advantage in financial services', more than one in four firms are spending more than 20% of their operating costs on change programmes.