Providing higher learning without the expense

Skills shortages continue to bedevil the logistics industry which is why companies are increasingly opting to invest in training. According to Charlotte Watson, training manager at Vanguard Logistics, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill positions in the company. Prospective employees also tend to oversell their abilities and once employed will often need to be trained. “This really inspired Vanguard Logistics to set up a training and learnership programme to address the skills gap, but also to attract and entice school leavers to opt for the logistics and freight industries as career choices.” Watson says the programme has been going from strength to strength. “Matriculants normally aspire to become lawyers, accountants, doctors or teachers. Many get a rude awaking when they discover the costs associated with these courses. Learnerships like ours are an opportunity for higher learning without the massive expense.” The course entails 12 months of study, five days a week, every day from 8.00am to 1.00pm with two days a month spent doing theory at an external college, which has been accredited to offer NQF Level 3 and NQF Level 4. “We train six learners per year,” says Watson. “This was funded by Teta for six years, but they withdrew funding two years ago. According to Watson companies are training lower level learnerships ie, NQF Level 3 and not employing the learners or encouraging them to continue onto NQF Level 4, resulting in the market being flooded with NQF Level 3 learners who have graduated but have been unsuccessful in finding employment. “This is one of the reasons why Teta stopped funding NQF Level 3 as the retention rate at companies was very low,” she says. Despite the Teta decision to no longer fund, Vanguard Logistics decided to continue with the programme and have funded it the past two years. “The goal is to ensure we have more employable young people entering the logistics market” She says Vanguard Logistics attempts to employ at least one or two of the learners they train every year