WorkFit at the 2019 SABPP L&D Conference

WorkFit at the 2019 SABPP L&D Conference

WorkFit’s Chris Vorwerk was invited to speak at SABPP’s (South African Board for People’s Practice) second Learning and Development Conference. The conference took place on Wednesday, 29 May at Birchwood Conferencing centre and was filled with a host of diverse speakers. The conference focused on the role of technology as an enabler for learning and development (see programme here).

Heading up one of the breakaway sessions, Chris was asked to speak about the WorkFit Campaign and specifically, how it plays a role in work-readiness within the context of preparing youth for the fourth industrial revolution (4IR).

 

The room was jam-packed come the 13:40 start time and the audience was immediately captured with the opening lines, “Our young people can’t get employment because they’re not experienced and they can’t get experience because they’re not employed.” Emphasising the need for this to change, Chris went on to discuss how WorkFit is aimed at facilitating these kinds of changes, thereby enabling education institutions, non-profits and corporate organisations to help boost youth employability.

These organisations as well as many other initiatives in the youth employment space were called to action as it was made apparent that work-readiness training needs involvement and engagement across different organisations and levels. Importantly, the fact that there are so many people trying to do something about youth employment was highlighted early on, stressing the need to pull all these initiatives together.

An in-depth conversation regarding the WorkFit Toolkit then ensued, with audience members delighted that this tool is available for free on the WorkFit website. Specifically, the importance of soft skills was highlighted as more and more we’re finding that employers are hiring for hard skills and firing because of a lack of soft skills. Some important soft skills that should be incorporated into any work-readiness programme include grit, determination and resilience as these can help the youth to better cope with the working world.

In closing, the audience was left with a simple message, “South Africa’s talent pool is vast and we as a nation need to be sure we are tapping into the talent that we have available. Why is this important you might ask? Because the youth of today are the work force, employers, customers and competitors of the future.”

To learn more about the WorkFit Campaign and download the WorkFit Toolkit for free, visit: https://workfitcampus.org.za/