Tag: skills development

Much has been written about the digital skills shortage. This is not a problem that will be solved overnight. As technology evolves, the demand for specific skills outpaces their availability. And as more people gain these sought-after competencies, there may be a temporary oversaturation of the market. Once parity is reached, new advancements shift the landscape again, and so the cycle continues.

The Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) presents a promising foundation for building a skilled workforce in South Africa. However, a vital question remains: how can employers ensure a steady pipeline of talent with the necessary skills, and what responsibility do they hold in achieving this?

Skills development in the form of learnerships is an essential element of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) scorecard, accounting for a significant portion of the score for large enterprises in particular. However, not all businesses have the capacity, availability, or ability to take on sufficient learners to meet their obligations.

Is your company ready to successfully transition from learnerships to occupational certificates? As the deadline of 30th June approaches for the registration of legacy learnerships, companies must ensure they are prepared for the seismic shift in the skills development landscape. This pivotal moment marks the end of an era for historical learnerships and signals the coming-of-age for the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations’ (QCTO) occupational certificates.

As South Africa continues to grapple with its massive youth (15-34 years) unemployment rate of 4.7 million individuals (Q4 2023), there is a critical need for innovative approaches to skills development and employability. I view learnerships as an excellent platform for creative training methodologies thereby, paving the way for a more agile and adaptable workforce.

Samsung has retained its Level-1 B-BBEE status for six (6) years in succession. This is a true testament of Samsung’s 30-year commitment and the positive impact its continuous investment has had, to the country’s transformation agenda.

While the African banking market has seen withdrawal of global banks over the last 5 years, the opportunity for localised banking has seen the opposite, driven by the expansion of African banking groups into the continent, led mostly by South African, West African, and Northern African banks.

Now well over the 20-year milestone mark in my marketing career, one of the key lessons I learned along the way, is that academic ability alone wasn’t going to be enough to cause me to thrive in the workplace. It was through firsthand experience and keen observations that I discovered the profound significance soft skills play in a successful corporate career.

In today’s rapidly evolving market, customer experience (CX) is a battleground for companies vying to secure a competitive edge. Globally, evidence of the unequivocal correlation between CX and a company’s financial performance is widely understood.

The South African skills development landscape is undergoing a significant transformation with the enrolment end-date of “legacy” qualifications “scheduled for 30 June 2024. Employers will no longer be able to registers learners on legacy qualifications not yet aligned to the Occupational Qualifications Sub-Framework (OQSF).