The Future Skills Platform is a cloud-based learning experience platform powered by Edcast Cornerstone. Future Skills hosts a rich content library with expert curated pathways across top professional skills, digital skills and work readiness training geared for excluded youth pathwaying into the GBS sector. The platform is designed for interoperability with an extensive API library supporting platform integration with many leading Learning Management Systems and other learning tools and products including LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, EdX, Moodle.

The Future Skills team recognizes the high cost and resource intensity of developing quality and business specific training content on an ongoing basis and has responded with a flexible solution. As a shared sector resource, Future Skills is being engaged by GBS companies to access rich curated learning experiences to support digital and professional upskilling of the existing workforce. Not only do our Future Skills partners have the power to curate their own skilling experiences with ease and flexibility leveraging access to over 600 pathways, but our expert content team also collaborates with partners to design content to meet business needs. Partners access quality content at a fraction of the cost.

Our partners are supported with robust reporting and analytics. Our in-house data scientist leverages a powerful analytics engine to gather rich data and build insightful partner specific dashboards to monitor learning adoption, engagement and retention.

The Future Skills platform is designed to support companies of all sizes across the GBS sector enabling micro enterprises through to very large enterprises. Partners with existing platforms can tap into the rich content resource to deliver enhanced learning programmes while partners with no learning platforms can leverage the Future Skills platform as a core learning technology to deliver blended and online learning.

In the BPO/GBS sector Digital upskilling is a priority in both non-ICT and ICT roles.

This is due to the digital transformation of the sector and it’s roles in a fast automating, data reliant. customer experience profession. Digital upskilling is included from work readiness programmes right through to tenured agent, support and leadership teams and roles. Due to the embedded nature of digital skills within the customer service delivery roles, digital skill have become and are hence developed as key competencies across the organisations and all roles. Customer support and customer experience agents and teams use omni channel forms of engaging with their clients and often must navigate between several systems and SAS. This includes the clients’ systems, own outsource operator systems as well and third-party software as a service vendors the likes of CRM systems like Oracle, SAP, financial and procurement systems and the like.

The ability to assist clients in interacting and transacting online is a growing service as well as providing ICT desktop support and digitally led customer services. In addition, the business process reengineering field and the necessary insights that outsourcers are expected to provide clients, are heavily reliant on data and the ability to collect, analyse, interpret and present insights and dashboards to clients, this even from a team leader level.

The BPO sector hence includes the SDF1 style competency level development across roles from pre-entry work readiness candidates throughout the organisation. Specialist roles like Data Analytics, Workforce Management, ICT system support require ongoing upskilling and higher end SFIA style competence development. The sector has designed learning journeys the likes of The Digital Agent, Digital Leadership, that expand from agent to executive. Equipping leaders in the sector with knowledge and competence needed to make key digital transformation decisions is key and ICT specialist are a critical skill for the sector and are developed with internationally recognised certifications and local qualifications frameworks. Digital Skilling is pervasive in the sector and recognised as a building block and foundation for all roles within the fast growing and transforming sector.

Practical Examples of current programmes:

 1. Digital Work Readiness Programme
2. Digital Future of Work Ambassadors
3. Digital Skills Development across organisational levels in the sector
4. 4IR skills embedded in financial services skills programmes in the outsourcing or captive customer service centres or divisions
5. Digital Leadership and transformation learning journeys
6. Emerging Technology learning journeys including, IOT, AI, Data Analytics, Cybersecurity, Design Thinking, 3-D technologies.
7. Project Management a highly digitally led field is also a large role and division in the sector, project management tools and methodologies, most of which include digital technologies are a priority in the sector.

The sector is on a growth trajectory of half a million jobs by 2030 but still faces many challenges with the availability of a suitably skilled local talent pool. Future Skills has been strategically designed to support organisations grow their businesses by upskilling existing staff for the evolving competitive landscape, supporting work readiness and critical ‘close the gap’ training to equip excluded youth successfully secure and maintain jobs in the sector, and to importantly elevate the local skills base to ensure sustainability beyond 2030.

The Future Skills platform has the complete endorsement from key government and sector stakeholders and has been identified in the GBS Sector Master Plan, the Digital Economy Master Plan and has been identified as a high impact project in the Inter Departmental Coordinating Committee on Digital Skills (members including DHET, DCDT, MICT SETA, NEMISA, QCTO). Leveraging the strategic significance of the Future Skills platform, the project endeavours to solve for scalable, affordable and adaptable work readiness training, formalizing sector endorsed micro credentialling and recognition of traditionally non-accredited training, and fast tracking the development of new critical and priority programmes and qualifications for the sector.

Collaboration will be at the core of success moving forward in a fast evolving and digitally transforming world. Future Skills is at the forefront of innovating to solve common challenges faced by South Africa including digital exclusion, high costs of data, a lagging self-learning culture, learning which is not demand-driven and does not support employability, and the weak foundation of critical skills required for the current and future workplace.

Business Partners interested in becoming users of the Future Skills platform for organization training
Demand Stimulation Lead – Keith Rosmarin | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Content Partners interested in collaborating to provide content and learning products and services through the Future Skills platform
Content Architect – Judy Robison | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For all other general queries, please reach out to our Program Manager – Coral Albertse | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.