Case Study: Overcoming a Skills Development Dilemma to drive Transformation Meaningfully
Client
Our client is a mid-sized national manufacturing business with ±250 employees.
Client Challenges
Our client had always invested in training and assumed that this would translate directly into Skills Development (SD) points. For years, they scraped through verification with frantic last-minute work.
Their verification agency flagged a serious issue: A large portion of their claimed SD could not be properly verified.
While their spend looked good on paper, our client faced three big issues:
1. Scattered evidence:
Attendance registers lived with line managers, with providers and with branches.
Some apprenticeships were not registered at all.
Proof of learning was inconsistent or missing.
2. Unplanned, last-minute training:
A significant share of spend was approved in February as “quick fixes” recommended by various providers.
Many of these interventions did not meet the technical requirements to count as claimable SD.
3. No clear SD narrative:
Training was not clearly linked to Employment Equity (EE) targets, future leaders or scarce roles.
From an EE inspection point of view, it looked like random training, rather than as a transformation lever.
Despite spending R2 million on initiatives, the client gained only just above the minimum of eight points for SD on their scorecard.
The verification agency indicated that if evidence could not be cleaned up, the client stood to lose even more of their SD points – enough to drop their overall Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) level.
Partnership Objectives
The client partnered with us towards the end of their financial year in 2024 to support them in overcoming their issues as flagged by the verification agency and to help them shift from “once-a-year rescue” to a structured training management approach.
Solutions Provided
We partnered with the team to uncover a fuller, more nuanced view of their needs, going beyond the challenges they initially identified. Doing so highlighted four key areas requiring focus:
| Key Focus Area | Labournet’s Involvement |
|---|---|
| Formalise SD initiatives |
− Created a 12-month SD plan linked to B-BBEE targets, EE gaps and real business roles − Took both compliance and pipeline training into account |
| Standardise evidence requirements and storage |
− Developed a unified yet simple checklist for every intervention that included attendance registers, Portfolios of Evidence, in voices and outcomes − Created a central electronic storage repository with strong accountabilities in place to ensure that updates are made after each intervention |
| Control unplanned training |
- Implemented a quick approval process for ad-hoc training that considers: o Does it support the EE & B-BBEE plan? o Is it a reputable provider who will ensure all the required evi dence will be received? o Is the provider B-BBEE compliant? If the answer is “no” to any of these, the intervention is reworked or postponed |
| Build a clear SD story |
− Mapped key interventions to future supervisory, management and scarce-skilled roles. − Connected SD to succession and EE plans |
| Formalise apprenticeships |
- Registered active apprenticeships (even though late in the programme) which supported: o Helping the client to get the due B-BBEE recognition o Ensuring that the individuals were able to successfully offload and obtain their trade qualifications – impossible without the registration |
The Outcome
At the next verification, the client:
- Could provide clean, complete evidence packs for each SD intervention.
- Had reduced risky, non-compliant providers and replaced them with properly vetted providers who also met all of the B-BBEE criteria.
- Improved from eight SD points to more than 16 and strengthened their EE and Management Control story in the process.
Most importantly, SD shifted from “panic and paperwork” to an organised, strategic part of their transformation agenda.
