Graduate forwarding qualification breaks new ground

The changing face of training has seen Metro Minds reinvent itself time and time again.

Earlier this year the company made history when it launched a graduate qualification in conjunction with business school, the Da Vinci Institute, granting industry access to a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Freight Forwarding and Customs Compliance.

According to Juliette Fourie, Metro Minds founder and MD, this has been well received by industry.

The training academy has also introduced an interactive online learning platform known as Smart Minds. “It is designed to empower individuals to build knowledge, skills, and experiences,” explains Fourie. “All courses are impactful and practical, with quizzes, videos, and exciting articles to expand and test one’s knowledge.”

She says the main aim of Smart Minds is to optimise learning in the shortest amount of time, cost-effectively, with a memorable and fun experience.

Another ongoing development is that of workplace simulation to enable work readiness and talent development in the industry. “This is aligned to cater for the skills of the future in the form of digital literacy, communication, creativity, innovation, problem-solving, and critical thinking,” says Fourie. In line with this Metro Minds recently launched the pilot Supply Chain Simulation in Cape Town.

“The pandemic has changed the way we think about training as well as the way we present learning,” she told Freight News. “Micro-learning and virtual classes have become more popular, although humans need humans and the contact sessions remain popular. We are going back to the basics – communication and customer service… the way we do business post-Covid has changed and we must remind ourselves that the past is the past and we need to reframe again. Technical industry skills will always be in demand – but life skills are organic and will always need attention.”

Her advice to companies is clear. Invest long term. “Start with an assessment of the realities of the current state of skills per department in your organisation. Link this to the larger intention and picture. What is the intention for talent? Then create an integrated approach to measure the correct skills improvement.

What does talent look like? Are you using a benchmark per job function? Start to build the ideal talent pipeline through skills projects that could give your business a competitive edge as well as receive all your directives.”

This way, she says, a skilled workforce is built, with talent being nurtured through coaching and mentoring.

Read more at Freight News here.

Lockdown underscores vital role of virtual training

Virtual classrooms are here to stay. So says Juliette Fourie, founder and CEO of Metro Minds, who believes that accelerated learning programmes like simulations and virtual classrooms provide massive opportunity for the training sector.

“We can reach so many more people and have a huge target-focused approach. Skills analysis, career coaching, and training according to purpose – not compliance,” she says. “The focus on innovation is extremely important. The opportunities are endless when you change your thinking and leadership vision to an innovating, integrated approach.” The company, recently awarded second place in the SA Innovation League of 2019/2020, has invested significantly into virtual classes, professional videos and more online and digital learning platforms and simulation activities in recent months. “Given the past few months’ disruptions due to Covid-19 and lockdown, this made practical sense,” says Fourie, who is also a big supporter of the power of emotional intelligence.

“Understanding habits, behaviour and personalities is an important aspect of the learning environment and we are investing more and more into these profiling tools prior to learning taking place. The next step is the launch of the Metro Minds Mentoring Hub where students, managers and any person invested in their self development can join for career coaching, business mentoring and health and wellness coaching. Having a meaningful life starts with having positive and healthy relationships, a satisfactory career, a well-balanced and loving household, and a healthy body and mind. It doesn’t matter which industry. Our learning programmes have evolved into more than just ‘soft’ skills and technical skills,” she says. “The launch of eMinds lite is also a very exciting product. Aimed at development in all spheres of a career, its powerful online programmes are reasonably priced. This links into our webinars where we are introducing these topics.”

According to Fourie, while the trend is to move training online there is still a need for contact learning and coaching sessions. It is often dependent on the sector. “Sales programmes, for example, require more field coaching as does management training where there are more in-depth leadership case studies and practical methodologies to handle.” She says the challenges in the training sector are connectivity and funding. “Not everyone has the equipment and data connectivity tools to attend virtual classes and online interventions. Due to this, we decided to provide each new registered learner on our 12-month courses with a tablet loaded with data for the year.”

Her overall outlook, however, is extremely positive. “We are forever changed by what we have experienced in lockdown and with Covid-19 in the past few months. We work smarter, we are more productive, we live different lives, we learn differently, we innovate more, and we are able to customise almost everything.”

Hire slow and train to stay

A successful talent pipeline that keeps a company moving forward requires a minimum of three years to achieve, says Juliette Fourie, CEO and founder of Metro Minds. Such a pipeline allows not only for talented prospects to be identified early, but also to be retained and aligned to a business strategy.

“The recruitment for the first year of talent is therefore extremely important,” says Fourie, indicating these are the employees identified to keep, grow and develop the company. Training, she says, plays a critical role in such a pipeline, ensuring that staff are aligned to the business strategy. “Strategies are often focused on compliance rather than what the business needs. There are wonderful vehicles like learnerships, internship, graduate programmes and simulations which can assist in such a strategy.”

Fourie is a firm believer in the ‘hire slow and train to stay’ principle. “People are far more productive and perform much better when they are invested in. ”Recruiting and then training staff, however, is not always an easy task for any business. “There are numerous challenges,” explains Fourie. “The numeracy and literacy proficiencies from school leavers certainly is one. It is not great and really has an impact on basic calculation and communication skills. Secondly, graduates entering the workplace with no experience but with a perception of quick and instant growth into an organisation can also be difficult to manage.”

Studies indicate that more than 50% of new, inexperienced job entrants lack critical thinking, 46% lack industry experience and 45% don’t have enough general business acumen. Without a formal talent pipeline that is actively recruiting and training new staff, companies can find themselves dealing with serious skills gaps. “The majority of new hires require extra coaching and training to get them up to speed,” says Fourie. “One of our big challenges, however, is funding models versus strategy for development,” says Fourie.

“A lot of drive for training comes from whether an organisation has received Seta funding or not. The BBBEE scores are also important to them and training is determined dependent on how many points are gained.” Whilst this is completely understandable, it does however make planning an academic year extremely difficult – especially to transfer skills from one year to the next into new qualifications. According to Fourie, Metro Minds continues to focus on its digital platform as well as virtual reality learning methodologies, a growing industry trend.

Supply chain simulation programme set for launch

Metro Minds is set to launch a supply chain simulation programme within the next few months following increased demand from the industry for training and skills development. According to Lynne Shale, the company’s senior logistics facilitator, this comes as the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market continues to grow, develop and change in line with heightened consumer expectations.

“Consumers are applying more pressure on the retail stores to be able to order globally as well as online, and are demanding more variety at a faster-moving pace. This puts pressure on the industry for constant, effective timeous deliveries.” She said this demand along with the highly competitive retail market was having an effect throughout the supply chain. “Distribution centres are having to constantly adapt operationally as well as logistically. Communication, real-time visibility, improved technology, location of facilities, route and load planning are of paramount importance,” said Shale. “Skills development in logistics is critical as this part of the supply chain is key to delivering customer satisfaction to all role players within the FMCG supply chain.”

Metro Minds CEO Juliette Fourie said the company was continuously launching new programmes to assist with supply chain optimisation.“Accelerated learning programmes like simulation are very valuable in this environment making it imperative to use training providers that can customise according to your environment,” she said.

Digital learning platform launched

Metro Minds has launched a new digital learning platform that takes e-learning to the next level. According to company CEO Juliette Fourie, eMinds aims to give students a far richer experience than just delivering content and assessments. “All our programmes are available on this platform and also align with the regulatory processes required from accredited training,” she told FTW. “Our simulated training is becoming more and more technologically driven with a lot of focus on systems, practice and imitation of the real world.

As a WiseTech partner, Metro Minds is working alongside Nomad Partners to assist companies with their support and training on the Cargo Wise System. We have also teamed up with innovation organisation Innocentrix and are hosting their high-end technology tool called the Thinkubator.” According to Fourie education technology is developing fast with digital learning platforms now the norm. Virtual reality and simulation are increasingly being used, with ongoing development in this field.

“The changing environments and drive for accelerated learning methodologies are enabling higher performance and better productivity,” she said. “Considering the laws of frequency as captured by Aristotle, namely the more things are experienced together, the better the memory or recall of them, it is easy to understand why simulation is such a powerful educational tool. Although it is not the exact real-time environment, the simulated one can be as successful as a real-life scenario.”

Fourie said, due to the nature of the logistics industry, it was always recommended to focus on simulators that emphasised specified tasks and activities. “A range of skills can be taught in the simulated environment and would be a good start to experience the broader range of skills needed in this industry to perform well and be productive,” she said. “There are significant benefits around workplace simulators – for individuals and new job entrants, employers and society, in addition to financial advantages.”

Don’t let compliance issues overshadow strategic objectives

Training should be the number one priority for businesses in the current skills-deficient environment. It’s an area that has become extremely complicated in recent years, according to Juliette Fourie, CEO of Metro Minds. “Even though some organisations have well-defined talent pipelines and methodologies to improve skills development, it is very much guided by funding models from Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), B-BBEE compliance targets, employment equity and the reality of cash flow and profit margins,” she said. But when the focus became too heavily reliant on meeting compliance targets rather than following a long-term business strategy, the skills in demand were driven by a false sense of direction, she added.

“Skills are still in massive demand. We urge organisations to look at their skills and talent pipelines and rather start with their business strategy because the rest will fall into place when the strategy is implemented correctly,” she said. Metro Minds operations director Samantha Dorrington agrees. She believes that looking at the calibre of talent and education levels coming through the system, the responsibility has shifted to the private sector to look after the skills demand. “Organisational culture plays a large role in the drive towards filling the skills demand and we are directly experiencing the difference between “compliance-driven” students and “well thought-through business strategy” students.”

At the same time, skills development had become a huge compliance tick for businesses for various reasons, said Fourie. “Training providers are regulated by inconsistent processes that hinder the learning process rather than advancing it. Due to the compliance laundry list, the need for training is expressed in financial targets, rather than a long-term invested education and development plan. This makes it difficult to plan and have sustainability in the business.”

GAP programme exposes school leavers to logistics

In a bid to address the logistics industry skills deficit and attract more school leavers to the industry, Gauteng-based specialist freight and logistics training company, Metro Minds, has launched a new GAP year programme. “The programme focuses on exposing school leavers to the different disciplines of any business, aiming to ignite a new thinking process with exposure to problem-solving, decision-making and serving the larger society – the soft skills that school leavers are not exposed to during their secondary education,” says Metro Minds CEO, Juliette Fourie.

The GAP year was designed to provide school leavers with a choice of careers in the freight and logistics industry, as well as expose them to the realities of the workplace, and highlight opportunities in new venture development, says Fourie.“The GAP year is followed by a simulated industry-related qualification which focuses on industry-specific qualifications.” She says the simulation portion of the course is completed within a consecutive three-month period following direct exposure to the workplace.

Fourie points out that Metro Minds has been encouraging companies to look at simulation solutions for graduates entering their workplace to fill the gap between the academic and theoretical knowledge they have and the lack of industry knowledge, decision-making, problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Largely based on its simulation programmes, Metro Minds has, to date, won three innovation awards. “We continue to invest in new and innovative ways to implement better learning solutions,” says Fourie, noting that its new offering includes an interactive digital learning experience which incudes simulation.

“We recognise that people want to be exposed to self-taught processes but still experience something practical with valuable human engagement.” Fourie adds that the online and digital experiences are an extension of Metro Minds’ learning methodologies. “It does not replace our popular contact sessions but, instead, becomes part of our accelerated learning process,” she says.

‘Sweet spot’ for trainers in new tech work world

As the industry braces for a brave new world of automation, robotics, wearable technology and autonomous vehicles, the world of work is set for dramatic change.“With the increased use of technology – soft, medium and high – a number of jobs and functions may become redundant,” says Juliette Fourie, CEO of training provider Metro Minds.

“That doesn’t speak to our National Skills Plan targets at all and could be seen as a barrier against technology,” she says. “The use of technology could also possibly impact the thinking process and result in a lack of critical thinking. If processes are so automated that the person cannot think out of the box or solve a complex problem, it could be to the detriment of a business.” On the up side, however, in the education space digital learning and simulation have helped to develop people who are more work ready and more productive, says Fourie.

She points out that while technology can assist in many processes, it cannot replace customer engagement and the managing of relationships between stakeholders. “This will become a more scarce skill due to the different way in which we communicate. This remains an area where coaching, mentoring and skills development has a sweet spot in the evolution of technology.” And Fourie believes that technology and innovation should work together. “We have been able to identify many innovations in our business – using soft, medium and hard technology – to optimise education. “In addition to our “Act it Out Customs Simulator” and Workplace Simulators – which have already achieved great success – new products are in the pipeline … watch this space.”

Junior to senior gap needs to be bridged

There is a “huge disparity” in skills between junior entrants to the freight and logistics industry and their more experienced senior counterparts, which contributes significantly to the dearth of skills in the sector. Unfortunately, career paths and talent pipelines were not given the proper attention – and while executives wanted skilled people, they were also not willing to invest in a long-term plan, said CEO of Metro Minds, Juliette Fourie. Education was not part of a “quick fix”, she added.

“As a private sector, we have inherited the poor education system of our country and we need to be realistic about how we will generate talent for the future. It is vital to include talent management as part of an overall business strategy,” she said, adding that training and education stakeholders in the industry were still pursuing the need to formalise and professionalise specialised skills in the freight sector. Fourie pointed to “extensive research” which showed that critical skills, problem-solving, decision-making and leadership were all the qualities needed to elevate a staff member from operational to strategic level.

“However, due to the fact that many skills are not recognised as “professional”, companies have depended on learnership programmes to develop talent. “What many don’t recognise is that a learnership can also only be successful if it is linked to mentoring, coaching and successful workplace guidance. Learnerships are still a fantastic way to start a pathway of talent, but these programmes need to continue for a three-to five-year cycle in order to properly bridge the junior to senior gap,” explained Fourie.