Company Announcement - Waterboard continues to leverage its CAPEX programme to accelerate water sector skills development for a second year. On 23 January 2014, Magalies Water launched the pilot of the innovative Magalies Water Capacity Building Programme. The programme is designed to address the need for skilled and employable workers that Magalies Water and the broader water sector have identified, including engineers, technologists, technicians, artisans, scientists, process controllers, and plant operators, amongst others. Due to the resounding success of the pilot in 2014, the programme has been extended for a second year.

Magalies Water, which supplies water across parts of North West Province, Limpopo, and Gauteng, has a long-running internship programme to build capacity in its own organisation, in the municipalities in their area of supply, and in South Africa as a whole. However, exciting new opportunities for accelerated capacity building were found in the water board’s extensive programme to upgrade existing and develop new water infrastructure to meet growing demand over its 42 000 km2 area of supply. Some of these capital expenditure projects are part of the Strategic Integrated Projects co-ordinated by the Presidency.
Infrastructure development is well known to be a powerful catalyst in job creation and skills development. However, the Magalies Water Capacity Building Programme goes far beyond the standard approach to on-the-job training: the engineering companies and contractors in the CAPEX programme were approached to participate and provide day-to-day supervision, as well as mentorship in civil, electrical, and mechanical work.

South Africa’s dire scarcity of skills, from artisans, to technicians and technologists, through to engineers, is of major concern to all parties in the water sector, including government, parastatal, private, and educational role players. The Magalies Water Capacity Building Programme is unique in the way that it allows all of these role players to actively derive benefit from supporting the selected interns in their intensive year-long programme.

In addition to technical in-service training that the interns receive, the Magalies Water Capacity Building Programme draws on international mentoring best practices to allow for open channels of communication between the interns, their educational institutions, the contractors and professional service providers overseeing the interns, and Magalies Water itself. This dynamic aspect of the programme allows for skills transfer to take place, not merely on a technical level between contractor and intern, but also between the contractors, educational institutions, and Magalies Water, all the while providing participants with sought after soft skills. Magalies Water continues to be supported by ONYXX Human Capital in the development and implementation of this unique capacity building mentorship programme.

The pilot launched on 23 January 2014, saw seven students across disciplines offered internships for the whole of 2014, comprising four TUT students/graduates and three FET students. Towards the end of 2014 the pilot of the programme was evaluated, the feedback and commitment from the contractors to continue with the programme and with their respective interns was unanimous. This feedback, coupled with the positive developmental results and personal feedback from the interns further reinforced that the programme was fulfilling Magalies Water’s commitment to skills development and capacity building, and it was evident that continuing with the programme was key.

Magalies Water took the strategic decision to not only extend the number of internships offered in 2015 to ten, but committed to retain all the 2014 interns for a second year  if they weren’t snapped up through this programme and evaluate it against a two year programme.
Subsequently due to the outstanding success of the programme, of the seven 2014 students, the two civil engineering artisans have found permanent employment within Magalies Water and the two electrical technologists and a civil technician student have found permanent employment outside of Magalies Water, two of them with their respective professional services providers. The remaining 2 students are continuing on the extended second year of the internship programme, and will continue being mentored by their respective professional services providers/contractors.

The programme sees the addition of ten new students/graduates offered internships for the whole of 2015, comprising one UP graduate and nine TUT students/graduates. Nine of the new interns will be mentored by new professional service providers to the Capacity Building Mentorship Programme and the one will be taken on by one of the 2014 contractors. Magalies Water hosted a Graduation and Inauguration Ceremony on 2 February 2015 at their Cullinan Treatment Plant, where their CE, Mr Mboniseni Dlamini thanked all the professional services providers for their support and commitment to the programme and the students. After a research phase, three learning institutions were selected by Magalies Water to build strategic partnerships with to start the programme, including Further Education and Training in Brits (artisan level); Tshwane University of Technology (technician, technologist level); and University of Pretoria (engineer level).

The recruitment process for the candidates was designed not only to select the best candidates for the job description but also to educate all candidates about recruitment processes in the job market. Apart from two interview rounds, the candidates went through psychometric tests to find the best candidates that fitted the job criteria at three levels: who are they, what drives them, and what do they do?

The selected candidates were chosen to benefit from the programme and training initiatives in preparation for the job market, and it was identified in which areas they will need support. Once the students start, they and their mentors drawn from the Magalies Water infrastructure programme contractors will be guided by psychologists specialised in mentorship programmes, to enhance their relationship and make it effective for learning. The mentees’ soft skills training focuses on team dynamics, relationship building, conflict management, stress management, diversity management, and time management skills. Those who later on will have to register for their profession (technicians, technologists, ‘engineers) will be prepared for this registration process.

Not only will the interns be trained, but also the mentors. The mentor training focuses on how to transfer skills, in terms of both technical skills and soft skills. Contractors and professional service providers on contracts for Magalies Water will be involved in the programme and in this way be capacitated. With this ground-breaking programme, Magalies Water is living its vision of being an organisation that plays a key role in capacity building and in the water sector and in job creation in South Africa.