FASSET ANNUAL REPORT

Servicing our stakeholders FASSET’s activities are under-pinned by a stakeholder inclusive approach. For the SETA to create value for itself, it must be focused on creating value for all its stakeholders to ensure that we nurture long-standing and sustainable partnerships. These form the foundation of FASSET’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long-term. The FASSET Board holds ultimate responsibility for the SETA’s stakeholder management, ensuring that our approach balances the needs, interests and expectations of stakeholders in the best interests of the organisation, and the stakeholder. The implementation and monitoring of stakeholder engagement is entrusted to the management teams across the SETA. We engage with a broad range of stakeholders in the FASSET sector in our quest to make the future count, we engage with a broad range of stakeholders in the FASSET sector, to understand their needs and expectations, and how these can be addressed. Our stakeholders are defined as entities and individuals that are significantly affected by our activities, and those who have the capacity to affect our ability to implement strategies, and achieve strategic objectives. Our different stakeholders all have varying levels of influence and involvement in the day-to-day running of FASSET. Knowing this, FASSET aims to achieve consistency in its approach towards all stakeholders and ensure that they receive the appropriate levels of engagement. Consistency is achieved by delivering on a set of key principles on which we base our stakeholder approach: • Openness and transparency; • Mutual respect; • Supportive and responsive interaction; • Regular and structured engagements that are constructive and co-operative; • Recognition that all stakeholders are also existing or potential employers or skills development partners; and

will also require government assistance to remain relevant and competitive.Similarly, companies will be tasked to invest in remote work capability including infrastructure, tools of trade, digital skills, soft skills, workload distribution, etc. to enable the continuation of remote work and training for personnel, trainees and new entrants in the workplace. In this period, partnerships have become a crucial component of the FASSET’s interventions. Individual projects were monitored throughout the period enabling FASSET to adapt its funding criteria to support the most successful interventions. FASSET participated in the initial surveys for the ERRP that was tabled by government in response to Covid-19. In the coming year, targets will be revised as needed, to align with emerging priorities. In 2020/21 we adjusted our scarce skills identification process to better cluster industry requirements to the top 10 hard-to-fill vacancies. This entailed a different process from previous years and involved formal engagement with the sector, rather than pure reliance on desktop Workplace Skills Plan: (WSP) information alone. In the 2020/21 financial year, FASSET conducted a Learner Tracer Study with specific focus on learners who droped out of the FASSET learnrship programme. This study intended to explore the nuanced reasons that learners drop out of learnerships before completion. In addition, a TVET curriculum study was conducted to investigate the lack of absorption of Business Studies students after completion of their 18-month theory courses. The study on emerging technologies was also conduted to understand the implications for 4IR in skills development and planning. Findings of these studies were shared with our sector. Plans have been made to adopt a more collaborative approach to research in future, with greater involvement of professional bodies and educational institutions, to ensure more effective planning.

FASSET Annual Integrated Report 2020/21

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