Treating talent development as part of a company`s corporate social investment strategy will alleviate the South African skills crisis, says Indian development outsourcer ZanSar.
Executive VP of innovative technology solutions V Balasubramanian says the company has worked with several engineering universities across the world to pilot an internship programme that the company plans to introduce in SA.
"Globally, businesses are battling to attract talent that can be ready to work from day one, and they tend to spend vast amounts of money to train new recruits into the work they are doing."
By providing an available and constructive internship programme, while students are still at university, the problem can be dealt with effectively, he notes. "And if you can do it without having to create larger infrastructure, and at a reasonably small cost to universities and companies, all the better."
Outsourced training
ZanSar says it has an internship model that is ideally suited to the South African context and will help businesses grow the much-needed ICT skills pool.
The company is in discussions with several ICT colleges and universities, as well as with government institutions such as the Information Systems, Electronics and Telecommunications Technologies SETA to develop a similar programme in SA.
Balasubramanian says the model is based on the company`s own dual-shore outsourcing model. The company employs staff members in several countries to develop the same project. "We use various technologies to ensure that collaboration between the countries happens in real-time."
In this way, companies need not invest in extra infrastructure to support a large number of students, while adding to the corporate experience that many students lack.
ZanSar country manager Harish Lala says a similar model has been used in the company`s internship idea. "Students use the university infrastructure and our dual-shore outsourcing model to experience the work that we do and how we do it.
The more you train...
"After six years in the country, we are looking to develop our employment equity profile, and a training system like this is closely interlinked, and should be for all organisations in SA, to that process."
The opportunities created by outsourcing the internship programme should be directly linked to the idea of social development, says Lala. "It is about developing the South African economy as a whole and it is about enterprise development."
He says companies also need to forget about the fact that talent may be poached, because the more students trained, the larger the skills pool.
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