From a worker’s perspective…As for a way forward (on training) I think companies’ management need to realise that there is a lot of potential on the shopfloor. They also need to realise that people on the shopfloor have aspirations to develop further. Given these, I argue that people need to be trained and developed so as to enable them to fill upper positions when they become available. I know of many internal posts that are advertised in many companies and are filled by external individuals because of lack of capacity within such companies.
“If an operator wants to become a doctor someday, this we cannot expect an automobile organisation to fund. ”
This is an indication that existing policies do not develop people – or at least the majority. They therefore need to be aligned to a point where if anyone wishes to pursue a career within a company, such person is assisted and of course guided. If I am an operator and wish to become a designer and there is that function in my company, I should be allowed an opportunity to take studies in that direction and based on my progress then be considered for employment in the designing field at a later stage. In this fashion, both the company and an individual would have benefited. The company would yield the fruit of its investment and an individual would be in a better position. I am not in anyway arguing / suggesting that companies should invest in individuals who want to pursue a career which will not benefit such companies. If an operator wants to become a doctor someday, this we cannot expect an automobile organisation to fund.
The existing policies benefit the already developed – people who have a wide range of responsibilities and are in upper positions. And these are people who are financially able to even further their studies without company assistance – people who are capacitated to move from position to position as they wish. Can we call these fair policies? What about the millions of our people that cannot even apply for an internal post because they know they shall not be considered based on the lack of either theoretical or practical experience?
Affirmative action has failed to address inequalities in the workplace, and my view is that training and development policy should be aligned to assist and achieve that. We must recognise that if we achieve these amendments to the existing policies, it is our people who will have to be developed and there is no reason that companies can throw at the unions and the government for failing to put HDI in senior positions, unless they can prove that the HDI do not have any aspirations to move from the shopfloor to senior positions.
Tshepo Mpshe, Bosch
From an employer’s perspective….Our artisan workforce is on average over 50 years old and thinking of retirement. We have lost our experience base through emigration and failure to train. Ten years ago we had over 14000 apprentices; this year learnership numbers increased from a pitiful 2000 to a less pitiful but still dismaying 2600.
Our experienced skills stock is depleted and it will take some years for the new entrants to become fully fledged artisans able to assume leadership roles in our factories and construction sites. Therefore, for the next 10 years or so, we need to allow skilled artisan immigrants to enter and work in South Africa. This will relieve an important bottleneck while we provide for the next artisan generation.
Unless we can provide these new skills quickly, we will not be able to support the accelerated tempo which our economy will feel as the hungry industrialised world and the new economies of China, Russia and India make demands on our national resources. Even 4 percent growth in the US represents a massive growth in demand for the rich resources that we have to offer.
The Merseta, the industry’s sector and education authority, has large cash reserves and a positive cash flow. It should consider paying even more than it does to compensate the employer for his cost of training.
Training a learner costs far more than the best Merseta grant, and the cash flow is unfavourable as the employer/trainer gets the money at the end of the training. Why not compensate an employer for the full cost to company of graduating learners into fully trained competent artisans or operators?
Outgoing president of Seifsa,Henk Duys, talking in October 2004