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Those in the role of managing workplace transformation operate under a mandate that is simultaneously one of the most important things your organisation could do for this country and one of the most administratively taxing exercises in the corporate calendar. They are expected to close a skills gap that took decades to create, meet Employment Equity (EE) targets that require systemic change, navigate Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) codes that update without warning, and prepare numerous time-intensive reports while executing day-to-day responsibilities.

Then when targets fall short, the accountability is placed on them which isn’t fair and misses the real picture.

The Gap in EE Training Outcomes

While the framework governing Employment Equity training was designed with the right intentions, it was implemented in a manner that made genuine transformation extremely difficult to achieve.

The B-BBEE Skills Development (SD) scorecard rewards spend, enrolments and paperwork submitted on time. On the other hand, it has never been good at measuring whether any of that activity resulted in a real person getting a real promotion into a role where they can make a real difference.

The result is that organisations tend to optimise for what gets measured. Training spend goes up, Workplace Skills Planning (WSP) submissions go in on time and the scorecard moves, but still the demographics of leadership change slower than intended, skills gaps persists, and the HR team that has been pushed to capacity feels like they are making very little actual progress.

The good news is that nothing here points to a lack of intent or commitment, but rather to a failure of design, where systems need to deliver outcomes that they were never structured to achieve.

Meet Gabriel: The One Holding It Together

Gabriel is your Skills Development Facilitator (SDF) or someone very much like him i.e. talented, committed, and perpetually underwater.

Between January and March, he is consumed by WSP submissions. From April onwards he is chasing Annual Training Report (ATR) evidence including certificates, attendance registers, and proof of payments from training providers who are sometimes accredited, sometimes less so and occasionally impossible to reach. He is managing Sector Education Training Authority (SETA) discretionary grant applications with one hand and responding to Employment Equity (EE) reporting queries with the other.

By the time he has a moment to think strategically, to ask what scarce and critical skills the workforce actually needs, and to build a training plan that creates a real promotion pipeline, the next compliance deadline is already looming.

The uncomfortable reality is that much of an SDF’s year is consumed by administration of documenting that people are being developed rather than by actually developing people.

The Path Forward Is Simpler Than the System Suggests

Making headway does not require reinventing your HR department, but simply having someone in your corner who actually knows how to make the system work for you rather than against you. It takes shape through three practical interventions:

• Connect your WSP to your EE targets explicitly: Your WSP should be answering a single driving question: What training do we need so that our designated employees are genuinely ready for the senior roles that we need to fill in the next one to three years? If your WSP isn’t answering that, it is a compliance document rather than a transformation tool.
• Get serious about SETA funding: Employers are leaving significant money on the table during every funding cycle. The R80,000 per learner tax rebate on qualifying programmes is real, as is the SD levy recovery available through well-structured WSP submissions. With the right guidance, that money starts flowing into the business.
• Measure what actually matters: Looks at promotions and retention instead of spend or enrolments. The moment your CFO can see a direct line between your SD investment and a promotion, a productivity improvement, or a vacancy filled internally rather than expensively from outside, training is no longer questioned as grudge spend, but recognised as investment.

Achieving this requires having someone with deep knowledge of the South African compliance landscape sit with your team, map your workforce, and build a strategy that connects your EE targets to your training plan to your people’s actual careers.

People Problems need the Right People

EE is not achieved by legislation alone but by employers who decide – despite the admin burden, imperfect framework, and endless committee meetings – to make their SD investment work for their people instead of for a scorecard.

That decision starts with having the right people around you. The right partner looks beyond templates, reports and training schedules, and focuses instead on understanding what your organisation is trying to achieve, recognising that EE delivers impact that lasts.

 Written by René Deysel