The Skills Development Act (SDA) requires all employers to spend 6% of their annual payroll on education and training, but how can you maximise the benefit of your compliance spend?
Skills development grants
Further to the compliance spend there is also the Skills Development Levy (SDL); a levy imposed to encourage learning and development in South Africa that is determined by an employer’s salary bill. Employers who have an annual payroll of more than R500,000 is liable to pay the 1% SDL to the South African Revenue Services (SARS). The levies are then distributed to the various industry SETAs that are responsible for making the money available to companies within each sector for education and training in the form of grants.
Levy payments can be recovered when an employer submits its Workplace Skills Plans (WSP) and Workplace Skills Implementation Plans (WSIP). If an employer submits the application correctly and on time, the appropriate SETA must pay the mandatory grant. Discretionary grants may be disbursed by a SETA based on the extent to which providers are facilitating the implementation of the skills plan for the sector.
The role of the accredited training service provider
Because Triple E Training is an accredited service provider it means that our clients can use the learning programmes we offer as part of their Employment Equity (EE) Plan, Workplace Skills Plan (WSP), Annual Training Report (ATR), the skills development and preferential procurement elements of the BEE Scorecard, and to claim tax grants and SETA rebates. To enable our clients, we supply them with all the necessary documentation that include our accreditation letter and BBBEE certificate (Level 2), invoices and statements, attendance registers, progress reports, learner statements of results, and certificates of completion.
How you can maximise the benefits of your compliance spend
But we are not only your compliance partner, we are also a leader in skills development which means we help you to maximise the benefit of your compliance spend. How do we do that? By ensuring that the training we offer our clients fulfils both the matter of compliance and the skills gap within the organisation.
At Triple E Training we make sure that the employees need training before we embark on the project with our clients. Our learner placement assessment determines the current skills and abilities of the employees. It is a pen and paper assessment and the results also indicate the pace at which the employee can be expected to learn. Below are two examples of individual performance graphs drawn up from the results of the placement assessment.
Because we are thorough in our placement assessment, and because we conduct training awareness sessions with the selected staff and their union representatives, our learning programme not only helps your organisation meet the criteria of the skills development element of the BEE scorecard and the relevant tax rebates and grants, but also assures the success rate of the programme.
If you want to maximise the benefits of your compliance spend, contact one of our skills development experts on 010 597 7611 or send an e-mail to [email protected]. You can also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
