Skills development ensures logistics capacity

The 2018 World Bank Logistics Performance Index ranked South Africa at number 33 of the 160 countries assessed. While this sounds like good news, the country’s overall ranking was at 20 out of 160 just two years ago.

Improving competence and quality in logistics is one way of improving. Bidvest Panalpina Logistics (BPL) believes a path to success lies in developing a robust, quality workforce through top-notch skills development.

Sudashini Gounden, national learning and development manager at BPL, says: “Since a company is the sum total of what employees achieve individually, organisations should do everything in their power to ensure that employees perform at their peak.”

Harry Dimo, human relations director at BPL, adds: “Training and development interventions enable employees to acquire new skills, sharpen existing ones, perform better, increase productivity and be better leaders.

“We offer school leavers the opportunity to undertake a fixed-period of learnership during which they’re enrolled on a course of study.” Many learners go on to work for the company.

Fortunate Mboweni started her journey as a learner from Tembisa and is now a professional logistics consultant at BPL. She also won the Young International Freight Forwarder of the Year award, in 2014.

The alumni of graduated learners from the BPL Academy Learnership programme assist with the of mentoring of incoming learners.

“The impact from on-the-job training and mentorship is almost immediate, and this type of training can play a key role in quickly creating additional capacity within a business,” says Gounden.