Businesses should seriously consider the importance of Category B courses in annual skills development programmes, particularly as skills development comprises the highest levels of spend on the BEE scorecard.
These customised Degree-, Diploma- or Certificate-aligned training programmes apply an approach to learnerships which incorporate local context and imperatives, and practical learning or a stimulated work environment.
As Bert van Zyl, Group Sales Manager at BEE and Human Capital Specialist Gestalt explains, “The focus needs to fall on ensuring that employees are learning the right skills, and not merely just gaining generic skills.”
He adds, “We customise programmes for clients, applying both our understanding of transformation levels, the legal requirements within the Codes and the complexity in the training. It is possible to unlock so much more potential within your people and drop your scorecard level at the same time.”
Gestalt has many examples of cases in which it is proven that there is no ‘either-or’ but rather a real win-win through investing in employees and communities through relevant training as well as leadership and people development.
For example, bespoke managerial development programmes (Category B Programme) were developed by Gestalt in partnership with a long-standing university in the country. These programmes are particularly popular with companies looking at ways to develop the skills and competence of their management teams across the board.
Comparatively in the case of a renowned multinational operating in the Automotive sector, Gestalt localised the company’s overseas skills development programmes and secured local accreditation for this course material.
Over 40 suppliers were reached through this Category B Programme that included key local Project Management course content, which was core to making the training applicable to candidates’ jobs.
Within the Gestalt Group, its Human Capital specialist team known as Proud Afrique has developed more than 450 leveraged Category B and C training programmes. As such, the firm adds credibility and viability to the case of approaching skills development with relevance.
In the wise words of van Zyl, “There is great good – socially, economically and commercially – that emerges from doing BEE the right way.”