Getting to grips with wholesale/retail skills shortages

"After scrutinising the latest Services SETA five-year Sector Skills Plan and consulting the challenges extensively with wholesale and retail industry leaders, we have designed the Inkanyezi Development Project to create core scarce and critical skills for the industry," continues Cagnacci.

Maximise resources

Cagnacci stresses how important it is to use to the maximum the limited resources available for training in areas which had been specifically identified as key by the Sector Skills Plan. "It is unfortunate, but true, that too many companies are implementing unaccredited courses for skills which do not fall into these categories," he says. "So it is vital that we cooperate as industry leaders to ensure that we concentrate our capabilities on the right focus."

The project team for the Inkanyezi Development Project consists Lankon Consulting, the ADvTECH Group and the CGCSA. The project will be based at the ADvTECH offices in Randburg and will seek to build capacity for store, marketing and supply chain managers, buyers/planners, industrial safety and HIV/AIDS education officers and supervisors.

"There will also be courses on loss control management, interpersonal relations, customer service, negotiation, communication, business ethics and basic IT skills," continues Cagnacci.

National footprint

The ADvTECH group has a national footprint, with learning centres in Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape, which will be the major centres of instruction. Expansion into peri-urban and rural areas is planned within a year of the inception of the programme.

"Learning interventions are based on national and international best practices which are available thanks to the local and international network already entrenched by ECR and the CGCSA," explains Cagnacci. NQF levels of programmes will range between levels one and six. Seven skills programmes are envisaged to lead to the final qualification. A special feature of the proposed qualification is the range of unit standards selected for the elective phase, which promotes a degree of specialisation in terms of management streams.

"This means there will not be a proliferation of qualifications based on similar fundamental and core unit standards," Cagnacci says.

Practical and hands-on

A learnership model will be applied involving both classroom- and workplace-based learning, ensuring that theory is backed up by practical, hands-on experience.

Both those already employed in the consumer goods industry, as well as the unemployed, will be channelled into the project. "The idea is not only to build capacity but to facilitate career pathing and succession planning," he says.

The ECR Board counts among the largest and most influential members of the Services SETA and the project aims to facilitate closer ties between industry and the SETA so that vital needs can be addressed effectively.

"There is little doubt that without the intervention of such a project, the Services SETA will not meet its sector skills targets and will thus fail to contribute meaningfully to Government programmes like the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition which in turn should promote the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative," concludes Cagnacci.