12 Aug 2019

The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) has expressed concern about organisations’ failure to submit annual employee training plans. 

The manager for workplace learning at HRDC, Ms Doreen Kokorwe, said organisations were expected to develop training plans and submit them to HRDC at the end of the government financial year. “Currently the submission rate is still very low. Companies are not heeding our call asking them to submit training plans,” she said during a HRDC business seminar in Lobatse recently.

Ms Kokorwe said HRDC encouraged organisations to embark on skills development to increase productivity, pointing out that organisations, which took skills development seriously usually progressed better and experience increased productivity compared to the ones that did not develop their employees.

“Work place skills training or development ensures that employees have the skills and knowledge that are needed to take the company forward. It provides critical competences needed for a particular workplace,” she said.

Ms Kokorwe said HRDC usually conducted workshops and support visits to assist organisations embark on work place planning.  She said the process entailed taking organisations through the process of developing skills development plans and conducting follow up visits to make sure organisations submitted to HRDC.

“The plans should show the skills needs of an organisation and the skills development interventions that are required in order to close skills gaps in an organisation.  They are a useful strategy to promote professional growth since they support and promote acquisition of relevant skills for organisations,” she said.

She said HRDC needed to have those training plans to know what organisations were doing in terms of skills development.

The HRDC manager for claims, Ms Kebabonye Molosiwa, encouraged companies to finance training of their employees and later claim training expenses from the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF), which was established to assist companies develop the employees’ skills. 

Ms Molosiwa said training programmes should be accredited with Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA).

She said over 100 000 employees had thus far benefitted from the fund, mostly on soft skills training and apprenticeship programmes.

She, however, expressed concern about its low uptake by the Small, Micro and Macro Enterprises, which have been reserved five percent of the fund and allowed to train employees and make claims even when they are not paying the training levy.

Ms Molosiwa said they still faced the challenge of low commitment to employee training by many companies. Ends