Success story – from site cleaner to CEO

Success story – from site cleaner to CEO

Meet Daniel Gibhard, CEO, SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

DESCRIBE THE BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY SDC PRIDES ITSELF ON

The saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – that for us applies now more than ever. Skills development needs to be approached with patience because developing a skill takes time. Our end goal and main focus lie in furthering our learners’ abilities and ensuring that they have a solid foundation from which they can obtain full-time employment. We proudly stand by our slogan: “We are the difference” because we do make a difference in people’s lives.

HOW IS THE DRIVE FOR SUSTAINABILITY CHANGING THE WAY YOU DO BUSINESS?

The constant drive for sustainability will always change the way we do business because people evolve, needs change and to stay ahead, we as a company need to adapt. For us to achieve sustainability, we have focused on delivering new ways of working, widening our service offering and expanding our capabilities to attract new and retain existing clients. We have recently developed SDC Wealth, which is an authorised Financial Service Provider, focused on providing our learners with full-time employment after successful completion of their learnerships.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE KEY CHALLENGE FOR TRANSFORMATION IN YOUR SECTOR?

Skills development is one of the most important parts of sustainable transformation in South Africa. The key challenge for transformation in our sector is the lack of quality education. Another challenge is the disbelief that SETA-accredited training providers can provide free education and training, which will create an opportunity to empower the youth to begin their journey of financial freedom and stability. The biggest challenge we deal with daily is other training providers constantly looking for shortcuts, focusing on quantities rather than quality, and pushing for higher numbers to reach higher turnovers.

WHO DO YOU ADMIRE THE MOST AND WHY?

Our admiration starts with a famous quote by Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world”. We admire the fact that our students are there to empower themselves by gaining an education, but most of all we admire our staff for all their hard work and dedication in making this possible for our learners.

COMPANY VISION AND MISSION

To deliver top quality education and training development services to our clients. To contribute to the success of our clients, enhance their business and create innovative solutions to their challenges – leading to increased productivity and increasing wealth in the economy.

By providing excellent customer services with passion, commitment and expertise, we will ensure that all customer needs and expectations are met.

To treat every person as a special, unique and distinctive individual and to be fully responsive to their interests and needs. To appreciate the diverse cultures of our country.

That all work undertaken is result orientated which will lead to constructive and useful outcomes, successes and achievement.

To learn on a day-to-day basis from all our clients and to take recommendations on board to continuously improve on services to achieve customer satisfaction.

OUR SERVICES

SDC prides itself on being able to offer all our clients innovative solutions and services as per below:

• Accredited Learnership Programmes
• Accredited Skills Programmes
• Enterprise Development Beneficiary
• Supplier Development Beneficiary
• Socio-economic Development Beneficiary
• Learner Sourcing and Placement
• Skills Audit
• WSP/ATR/Pivotal plan
• Application for SETA grants
• Skills Development Workshops
• Human Resource Solutions
• Employment Equity (policy development and reporting)

Skills Development Corporation (SDC) recognises its obligation to raise the profile of education, training and skills development within South Africa. We are an accredited training provider and have aligned all our courses across many different SETAs to fall within the critical skills requirements of South Africa, whilst ensuring we maintain the highest principles, core values and ethical standards.