Learnerships critical to addressing skills scarcity

Learnerships are not simply a financial benefit for an organisation, they are critical to addressing the skills dearth in the freight industry and making new entrants more “employable”. This was the view expressed by panelists at FTW Online’s third live webinar held last week, focusing on training and skills development for the freight industry. “Because of the nature of the industry, most employers prefer to place people with vocational experience into a job versus the new graduates who have no hands-on training,” said Tony d’Almeida who heads the South African Freight Forwarders’ Association’s (Saaff) training portfolio. Charlotte Watson, training and claims manager at International Liner Agencies (ILA), concurred. “When we’re hiring, I often find that there are huge gaps in what candidates maintain they can do versus what they can actually do, particularly because many enter the freight industry by default,” she said. Learnerships can be beneficial to those with experience and assist those with no experience to obtain valuable vocational experience, says Juliette Fourie, director Metrominds. “Learnerships not only show employees the bigger picture of the freight industry, instead of just the realities of their own job framework, they allow candidates to specialise and grow while they follow a specific career path,” Fourie commented. She added that to obtain the best value from learnerships, companies should understand the various skills sets within their organisation, link them to what is scarce and critical and analyse where the training and development gaps lie for staff members. Watson added: “We need people with the skills, know-how and passion to make the freight sector a professionally recognised, reputable industry and the right learnerships go a long way to making that a reality.” INSERT & CAPTION Understand the skills sets in your company and link them to what is scarce and critical. – Juliette Fourie