In tandem with the Employment Equity Act, the group has again fully complied with all of the requirements of the Skills Development Act. Skills development fora within our trading and service divisions are held to review and monitor progress against the workplace skills plans.
Full disclosure of the amount spent on skills development is contained in the sustainability report
As a result of full compliance, we have qualified for all applicable grants due from the Wholesale and Retail SETA (in the case of our trading divisions) and the Services SETA (in the case of our financial services divisions). In all cases, the SETA grants received are earmarked for further investment into training. All spending of grants is reported at operating board level to ensure that these funds are exclusively applied towards further training.
In addition to these grants, we have continued to participate in the SETA Learnership and ABET projects.
Foschini is a fully-accredited training provider, enabling us to provide our staff with the opportunity to achieve qualifications that are registered on the National Qualifications Framework via internal training. This training is delivered and assessed internally using methodology that is approved by the Wholesale and Retail SETA Education and Training Quality Assurance bodies and in line with SAQA principles
We are represented on the Wholesale and Retail Standards Generating Body and represent the group at all relevant SETA fora.
Learners are sourced from within the group as well as externally and represent a combination of currently employed staff as well as participants who were unemployed or pre-employed. The learners are drawn from the trading divisions as well as the Foschinidata division and distribution centres.
Foschini is committed to the ongoing training of all staff, both to improve productivity as well as the staff skills base. A variety of comprehensive, tailored training interventions within all trading and service divisions are conducted. Current training statistics are disclosed below:
| Number of staff trained | |
| Total number trained | 14 835 |
| Total number of women trained | 11 621 |
| Percentage of women trained | 78,3% |
| Total number of black staff trained | 12 209 |
| Percentage of black staff trained | 82,3% |
During the year under review, 14 835 members of staff participated in at least one training programme, in many instances at least one a month. These consisted of a variety of comprehensive, tailored training programmes within all trading and service divisions. The demographic breakdown is as follows:
The Adult Basic Education and Training programme concentrates on providing numeracy and literacy skills for staff up to ABET level 4 (equivalent to grade 12).
Store staff across the country are evaluated to identify their current level of literacy and numeric ability and then placed on appropriate ABET training programmes,presented by registered ABET providers.
