The Journey Started!: SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: TURNING GRUDGES INTO VALUE

The mere thought of skills development is enough to reinforce every possible objection against the topic. Typical objections to skill development are:

· The cost of some programs outstrip its content

· There is no real-world application

· Learners have a good time at the company’s expense and return just to fall back in old habits

· There is no use for skills development

Companies take a view that they have to offer skills development programs because it is required by law or by best practice to do so. Often skills development programs are just a means to gain sufficient points so that a company can maintain a certain Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment score for the next financial year.

Thus, skills development programs are seen a grudge purchases by industry. This means that industry is not able to see the actual value of a skills development program in their organisations. Certainly, from a sustainability perspective, skills development programs are, in our view, one of the most underrated career management tools that companies have in their possession.

Putting the tax breaks (R 60 000-00 per learner per year) and the SETA grants aside, one of the main benefits of a skills development program is that is generates a pool of candidates that could be promoted to more senior positions within a company. Skills development can be a valuable road marker on an employee’s career path.

There are a number of reasons why skills development programs should be taken more seriously than is usually the case.

· The days, that employees and employers can be satisfied with no qualifications or outdated qualifications, are over.

· Clearly, a degree that was obtained in 1990 could be based on a theoretical framework that may no longer be applicable to industry

o Employees could be promoted or moved into a role where previous qualifications may not be sufficient

o A Human Resources practitioner could move into a labour relations role and needs to obtain a new set of skills

o A Bookkeeper may move into the role of Financial Manager

o A good artisan may move into a first line management role or into a middle management role

· Organisations transform and are faced with new operational requirements

· Recruiting from a known pools of resources, flattens learning curves

· Recruiting from known pools of resources reduces time to socialise into the organisation

Today’s reality is that freshly-ground graduates from universities have theoretical knowledge and no practical aptitude to apply that knowledge. Observations over the past thirty years have shown that the freshly-ground graduate may not always the answer to a company’s staffing needs. Like Henry Mintzberg, we believe that employees that gain experience before they enrol into an academic program add significant more value that the freshly-grounds.

Certainly, in the case of business management, bookkeeping, office management, there is no reason why employees can gain qualifications through a skills development program. They already know the intricate workings of their organisations and there are no better opportunity to educate those veterans through a skills development program to become tomorrow’s leaders.

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