Training at Work College

rning solutions that meet specific needs of individuals, government, private and non profit organisations. A range of these solutions are aimed at developing the competencies of young people, local communities, unemployed, corporate agencies, officials in local government and local development agencies. The company’s flexible approach is customer/client centric and modelled around a four staged process centred on Training at Work quality management system as indicated in the figure below. Since inception Training at Work operated as a mobile training provider using various facilities as training venues across the country. This method is highly dependent on third party training facilities as part of our delivery channel. To minimise this dependency and contribute to social uplift, Training at Work deployed a forward integration strategy by directly getting involved in training facilities activities. To realise this strategic direction, Training at Work established Training at Work Further Education and Training (FET) College in 2011. The FET business arm is registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training and is incorporated as a Not- for-profit company (Non-Government Organisation – NGO). Our goal was to reflect on social entrepreneurship and scale up the growth of Training at Work learning solutions. This necessitated Training at Work business model to be a Hybrid Business Model combining non-profit and for-profit goals that strives to strike a balance between social and commercial objectives. The hybrid business model operations are integrated and driven by the training and development cycle as depicted in the figure above. Training at Work College manages and operates training centres. An initial training centre located is at Arthurseat Acornhoek 27 kilometres from Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga Province. The attributes of Training at Work College are:
• Social mission: To provide an accessible education and training centre that delivers priority and relevant learning solutions in order to contribute employment creation, alleviation of inequalities and poverty for the targeted communities.
• Finance: Start up and expansion funded through grants and government schemes, and reinvested income generated through training tuition and other revenue streams such as venue hire, ICT business centre, etc).
• Operations: Operating costs covered by training fees and other income.
• Governance: A board of directors amongst others including government, private sector and Training at Work (Pty) Ltd
• Partnership: Support and alliances with local and provincially based education and training institutions, state agencies and employers. Whereas Training at Work for-profit operations are covered by sales generated through providing targeted mobile training, material design and development and consulting services. The business social responsibility includes providing programmes design and development services, programmes impact evaluations, and management capacity and technical support to the college at cost.