An initiative implemented in 2001 by Sandvik Mining and Construction to ensure the company would have the necessary technical skills to support its long term growth plans, has achieved beyond-expectation success, with 365 graduates from its in-house Apprentice Program hard at work within the ranks of its workforce today. Another 200 are still in training and the programme is poised to enroll a further 180 apprentices during 2011, through new intakes occurring every two to three months.
Meanwhile RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium producer, has launched a unique education programme the RUSAL Scholarship-2011, which will provide 100 talented young Guineans aged between 18 and 25 the opportunity to be educated in Russia’s best universities. All accommodation, transportation costs and tuition fees will be covered by UC RUSAL.
The RUSAL Scholarship-2011 program aims to educate highly-qualified staff for the Republic of Guinea and to strengthen the ties between the Russian Federation and Guinea. Guinean students will be able to study for degrees in mining, railroad operations, economics, building and construction, agriculture, water supply, medicine and human resources. After graduation, there is the opportunity for many of the students to work for RUSAL in their subsidiaries in Guinea.
Back in South Africa, “Learning and development have always formed an integral part of the Sandvik Group,” Karin Oosthuysen, Manager of the Sandvik Apprentice Program, says. “In the late 1990s our technical training department and operator/customer training department started to close the competency gap in Sandvik’s technical workforce and within our customer operator workforce. “By the early 2000s a needs analysis revealed that specific action would be required to reduce the impact of the national skills shortage on the company’s future expansion plans. This led to the creation of a dedicated Apprentice Program.
“In 2008 all training activities within Sandvik’s Region Africa were merged into the Sandvik Academy, making it possible to share all learning and development resources and avoiding the duplication of training resources within the organisation. As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, the Sandvik Academy has been awarded MERSETA, MQA and ISO accreditation. The Apprentice Program has thrived beyond expectation within the Sandvik Academy. We believe this success can be attributed primarily to our stringent candidate assessment procedures,” Oosthuysen says.
Candidates, who must have a minimum qualification of Grade 12, are enrolled both from within Sandvik’s workforce and from outside the company. Outside candidates amount to 70% of the intake and are recruited from local communities within Sandvik’s areas of operation. Candidates who successfully pass a vigorous assessment test battery are then interviewed by a panel that includes line managers.
The program has recently been extended to uplift existing workforce assistants. The company offers these assistants study loans to be able to qualify for enrolment into the Apprenticeship Programme. To date, 52 of these assistants have successfully embarked on apprenticeship training.
Sandvik employees who enter the program retain all employee benefits while they are on the course, while recruits from the outside become fully fledged employees of the company and are guaranteed jobs after they qualify.
Sunet Marx, Head of the Sandvik Academy, comments that the “handpicked” approach to selecting candidate apprentices has greatly assisted the company in achieving the required personnel equity ratios. “We are particularly proud of the 25 female apprentices who have qualified to date,” she says. “Without exception, these women have performed with excellence in their chosen areas and several have risen up the ranks to assume greater responsibilities by taking advantage of the career paths we offer our employees.”
Close scrutiny of the candidates’ performance, coupled with support and mentorship, is maintained throughout the 24 month program, which comprises several training modules designed to deliver train candidates holistically. Beyond specific skills and knowledge training associated with underground and surface mining and construction, this learning and development methodology emphasises a spectrum of safety issues and demands a high standard of attitude and behaviour on the job. Thirty percent of skills training takes place in the classroom and the balance in the field.
“Our trainee apprentices are also taught Sandvik-specific skills,” Oosthuysen says. “This ensures that they emerge with skills that align with our business requirements. Dedicated modules are added to the programme to equip trainees to work with our machines, technology and software and we are continually adding new modules as the latest technology is introduced. This also has a very positive impact on employee retention after the trainee has qualified.”
She says the company has already made provision for the next skills development milestone in 2013 by increasing its investment in the Apprentice Programme to reflect the current massive investment into business growth.
Beyond the program, successful candidates have the opportunity to embark on additional training through Sandvik’s Technical Training Academy.
The RUSAL Scholarship-2011 education program is scheduled for the next five years, during which RUSAL estimates that it will spend over $5.5 million on educating Guinean specialists. The admission process is competitive and to date more than 2,700 applications have been submitted. The successful candidates will start their studies in September 2011.
Yakov Itskov, RUSAL Director of International Alumina Division said: “Successful businesses must promote the prosperity of society. RUSAL is making social investments a key priority for the Company in order to achieve sustainable development and social responsibility. High-quality education of local personnel in RUSAL’s subsidiaries will boost the production efficiency and lower the risks. Following that, national personnel development will promote the friendly relations between the two countries and social reconciliation and economic prosperity of Guinea.”