Kelly is committed to uplifting South Africans, and one way it achieves this is to provide access to a comprehensive learnership programme.

As the country’s leading people organisation, Kelly is acutely aware of the gap that exists between current education and training provision and the needs of the labour market.

Learnership programmes focus on addressing this gap, providing invaluable skills development and work experience to some of South Africa’s matriculants and unemployed.

Gayleen Baxter, chief operating officer of Kelly says, “Kelly, over the past years has been pro-active in the implementation of the learnership process. We have successfully run internal learnerships, managed and hosted learnerships in various industries and have been successful in meeting the minimum requirements in conversion to gainful employment.”

Kelly has identified the Business Process Outsourcing industry, of which the Contact Centre industry forms part of, as one of its key focus areas, as Baxter explains: “South Africa has become highly prized by international companies seeking to outsource their Contact Centre operations.

"South Africa has developed a reputation for offering world-class service levels supported by strong infrastructure. We would like to help ensure not only that the staffing talent pipeline is sufficient, but that our Contact Centres continue to be staffed by a high quality calibre of Candidates. This is a high-growth industry constantly in need of skilled people."

As a result, Kelly has an opportunity to be actively involved in the enhancement of skills, particularly in the Contact Centre industry through the facilitation of learnerships.

Kelly assists unemployed South Africans enter the world of work by offering learnerships such as, a National Contact Centre Qualification (NQF2), which is done through an accredited training provider.

A NFQ2 provides both the theoretical knowledge as well as the practical experience required to embark in a career within the Contact Centre industry, and provides a good strong point in pursuing lifelong learning.

Career growth options include recognised Team Leader and Supervisory qualifications.

Lebohang Mahlatsi, 21, and Neo Mazibuko, 20, have both benefited from such learnerships. Mahlatsi was unemployed when she registered with Kelly Soweto. She is in full-time employment and said her learnership with Kelly prepared her well for her first exposure to a work environment.

Mazibuko is currently completing her practical work experience and says the experience has been rewarding: “The work is sometimes challenging, but the programme taught us how to treat the customer, and how to think out of the box to assist a customer. I have never done anything like this before and I am enjoying it,” says Mazibuko.