Training and skills development
Developing e-skills for a knowledge based economy
- Published on 16 Jul 2012
- Wikus Van der Merwe
With an e-government readiness rating of just 0.237, Africa lags behind the rest of the world considerably. As mentioned in the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, "African economies must continue to develop economic environments that are based on productivity enhancements. This means keeping a clear focus on strengthening the institutional, physical and human capital prerequisites for a strong and competitive sector-led development."
International learning and development trends identified at the International ASTD Conference
- Published on 25 Jun 2012
- Lydia Cillie-Schmidt
As South African Learning and Development Practitioners, we sometimes feel that other countries are streets ahead of us. After I attended the 2012 American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) conference in Denver Colorado, I can confirm that this is not the case. World-wide everyone seems to be grappling with the same issues.
How the economy helped us to train smarter
- Published on 25 Jun 2012
- Lydia Cillie-Schmidt
Mpho has nearly chewed her pen to a stub this morning. As the Training Manager for a large corporation in South Africa, she has to finalise the training budget for the third time this month. Finance returned the budget each time with the request to cut it more. In terms of Skills Development legislation, as well as the BEE requirements for the organisation, she has to juggle many priorities and train the requisite numbers of employees in different categories. At the same time employee engagement is important and employees expect to get developmental opportunities.
Informal learning - should it be formalised?
- Published on 25 Jun 2012
- Lydia Cillie-Schmidt
Josh Bersin from the leading talent research company, Bersin and Associates, predicted that in 2012 organisations would continue to redesign their learning and development programmes to be social, informal and on-demand. This trend can be ascribed to the increasing availability of technology to facilitate this type of learning, but could also be linked to the whole concept of personalised learning.
Training professionals - collaborative development centre
- Published on 25 Jun 2012
- Sandra Schlebusch
We all know that training is important, but we seldom give training enough attention. However, when things go wrong on the job, lack of training sometimes becomes the scapegoat. In this case study, the training department was blamed for most things that went wrong on the job, even when this was not the case. The company decided to "grab the bull by the horns" and get their house in order anyway.
