What Plays a Role in the Skills Audit

National Skills Trends

Before starting with the company skills audit, the SDF must understand state of the national skills trends. This will assist the company in decisions regarding where the emphasis lies nationally and would further enable to company to maximise benefits with regards to discretionary grants.

All information needed in this regard, would be on the SETA websites, communicated through SETA road shows as well as in the SAQA website. Sources of information could include documents such as:

• Employment Equity Targets.
• SETA skills plan (updated annually and published on their website).
• The Cabinet Memorandum No.53 of 2012: Directive on the Utilisation of Training Budgets in the Public Service.
• The Human Resources Development Strategy (HRDS).
• The National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) III.
• The Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP).
• The New Growth Path (NGP).
• The National Skills Accord.
• The Green Paper for Post-School Education and Training (GP).
• The Strategic Infrastructure Projects (SIPS).

Company Strategy

Strategic planning helps you to pull back the lens - get the big picture and consider future scenarios. It gives you the best opportunities to maintain control, avoid serious pitfalls and capture opportunities. Thinking strategically about your company involves creating a vision for where you want to be in 2, 5, or 10 years. Strategic planning is not just for big companies and has benefits no matter what your scale or goals.

A company strategy consists of:

Vision:

It is like a beacon in the night – people can see where they are heading. It gives shape and direction to your organisation’s future and it helps people in setting goals which lead that way. When you review your company vision, get answers to the following questions:

• Where do our company want to go?
• When will it be there?
• What will things be like when we get there?

Mission:

A clear, agreed-upon mission statement communicates the essence of your organisation to your stakeholders and to the public. It states what you are doing and who you are.

• What are we busy with?
• What is the problem or need we are trying to address?
• What makes our organisation unique?
• Who are the beneficiaries of what we do?
• How do we do things?

Values:

Values are deeply held views about what we find worthwhile. Values answer the question: “What is important to us?”

Questions to ask when analysing your company values, include:

• How we want to behave towards team members.
• How we want to behave with customers.
• How we like to spend our time.

Operational Plan:

Operational planning focus tightly on the day-to-day operations, typically within a 12-month cycle. Depending on the company’s activities, the manager might want to further break things down to daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal activity segments. Operational planning focus on adjusting and developing controls, increasing efficiencies and reducing time and costs. The purpose of an operational plan is to effectively execute the goals identified in the strategic plan. Operational planning will determine where to focus attention and where you can take a step back. In addition to informing human resource decisions (such as hiring additional help), operational planning can identify areas where you should look at outside professional assistance (accountant, technical advisor or shared administrative assistant).

Operational plans answer key questions such as “Who is doing what?”, “What are the day to day activities?”, “How will the suppliers and vendors be used?”, “What are the labour requirements?” and “What are the sources of raw materials?” Specific plans can be developed for human resources, production, facilities, logistics and distribution. The figure below shows how an organisation’s units can be distinguished but needs to work together to achieve the company strategy.

The key to developing both strategic and operational plans is for the higher-level management to step back from the daily activities, and allow business units to manage their own performance, obviously with agreed upon and controlled targets. It requires the allocation of time and a mental shift to ensure objectivity.

Many of the gaps identified both strategic and operational plans, and can be overcome by training. This is where the role of the SDF (together with the training committee) becomes imperative.