Last month, we chatted about empowering your staff in the workplace, by offering them training options to better themselves and your business as a whole (if you missed it, you can read this article here). We agree that training your staff is a pretty cool thing to do right? Now, what if training your staff meant a higher BEE score? Well, it does, and it’s a great thing to strive for. Let’s have a look at how this can be achieved.
Well, let’s start by saying what it’s not. It’s not one of those annoying little things that fly around, ready to sting you at any moment that you bother it. Although, the lack of BEE in your company can leave somewhat of a sting if you are not complying with the correct BEE codes.
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) or broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) as it is more technically known, was implemented as a means to right the wrongs of Apartheid, by giving previously disadvantaged groups in South Africa, economic privileges that were once not available to them. In other words – providing them with jobs in the workplace that would previously have been given to the advantaged in South Africa.
Let’s just say, that having a high ranking score on the BEE compliance ranking is more beneficial to your business in South Africa than having Bill Gate as your CEO. It is crucial for South African businesses, in order for the country to integrate its people and grow the economy.
For each individual business, being BEE compliant will help with getting bigger and better contracts; it provides credibility for the company – thus making you outshine your competitors; it helps to develop lasting business relationships and it forces you to upskill your employees, which is beneficial for the company.
Skills Development is seen as a priority element under the Revised Codes of Good Practice with the BEE gods. Upskilling employees benefits your business in that it helps to keep your staff for a longer period of time; training as a benefit will assist in recruiting new staff and it helps to make you more competitive as a company.
Besides these facts, skills development will help your company to earn more B-BBEE points as skills development earns 20 points on the BEE scorecard as opposed to 15 points for other developments. Companies can also claim up to 40% back on any staff training costs – that’s a great incentive!
So we’ve seen how important it is to train staff for BEE purposes, but how and where do we do it effectively? The important thing in this instance is being able to capture your training in one place, so it can be easily submitted for your BEE audit. Online training has become a popular way to train staff, because of its flexibility and easy access (read more about online training, here). It also makes it really easily accessible for reporting on what training has been done – especially when done in one central hub.
With OnRamp training, all your information is stored in one place, online. We will be releasing a new feature next month, which has been created particularly to log any external training activities, for ease of use when submitting your BEE audit. Pretty cool of us right?
The important thing to realise when training your staff is that you are essentially paving your own future for the company and providing a means for better business on all accounts.