But workplace skills and training can alleviate the threat and at the same time earn you a grant payback and BEE points
Last year the Financial Mail reported that “two-thirds of jobs in South Africa (SA) could be lost to robots”. It is a concerning claim in a country facing economic woes, ever-looming downgrades, company closures and retrenchments.
It should be sufficient reason for procurement professionals to develop their skills and corporate SA to conducting training within their organisations and among their suppliers. This will help make companies more sustainable and impact positively on the local economy.
“There is no doubt that employee development is vital for optimum efficiency, productivity and growth of a business. However, when left un-nurtured, it may dissipate into unproductive channels,” said Dr Nischal S Khandai, COO at New Generation Mindset (NGM) and Director of the NGM Business Academy.
“As an organisation focused on human capital and skills development, we urge all corporates to support government and the respective industry bodies in complying with legislation such as the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) skills requirements.”
SETA, which focuses to a large extent on workplace training, realised the need to enforce effective corporate training and skills development and therefore implemented the Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) and Annual Training Report (ATR).
“WSP provides a structured approach to specific training required, based on the current and future skills needs of the organisation. The ATR follows WSP and provides an accurate account of all the planned training that has taken place in the reporting period within the organisation” explained Khandai.
Procurement professionals can also benefit from New Generation Mindset’s customised supplier-focused training and incubation programmes, which ensure the growth and success of enterprises providing services to their companies. Not only does this result in improved supplier service delivery, but there is the added benefit of increased BEE scoring.
“We work with humans and it would be a sad day to see jobs lost to robots owed to lack of competence. Training and skills development is key” concluded Khandai.
