Decision Inc. South Africa recently celebrated our 2022 Talent Lab graduation, where we saw our 22 learners ready to take on the working world. “The Decision Inc. Talent Lab was launched in 2021 to empower youth to learn critical technology and career skills so they can confidently enter the consulting market,” explains Tarryn Swemmer, Group Chief of Staff at Decision Inc.
After the huge success of the pilot programme in 2021 we expanded this year taking on a group of 22 learners from across South Africa. Leveraging the learnings of the pilot programme we were able to grow the number of learners four-fold and many have continued their careers with Decision Inc.
“The 2021 programme was such a success that we focused on increasing both our numbers and our commitment to providing students with opportunities within the company,” says Allan Saffy, Managing Executive at Decision Inc. South Africa “We’re proud to have taken 12 candidates from this cohort and put them into permanent technical positions and the remaining 10 have all walked away with richer skillsets and improved insights into building their careers.”
The participants of the 2022 Talent Lab programme came from Limpopo, Polokwane, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban and from learnership programmes across the country. The programme is designed to cover the four pillars of the consulting business across technical, project, client, and personal growth and is an immersive training experience that gives learners an extra edge. It is run by internal staff members and provides skills development across consulting, technology, project management, and other specialist areas within the organisation. Learners are mentored and guided throughout the training process with hands-on access to senior staff and educational tools.
“The students were involved in mock projects designed to emulate real-world scenarios one can experience while working in the consulting environment. They were able to learn essential technical skills and they could see how they would operate under demanding situations that required the use of more interpersonal skills,” says Stephanie Marran, Talent Lab Programme Manager at Decision Inc. South Africa “The students were provided with training in soft skills like problem solving, client management, career development, communication, and internal engagement. This provided a holistic skills development approach that can be translated into any working environment.”
As a company that prides itself on our value of “community” and knows the immense value of education and sharing knowledge, we have a strong vision to create opportunities for talented young professionals and to drive growth in our industry.
Decision Inc. aims to provide permanent positions to learners participating in the Talent Lab Programme each year and hopes to expand the programme absorption through partners and customers in the coming years. Students walk away from the Talent Lab experience with skills in SQL, .NET, power platforms, analytics, cloud, customer engagement, presentations, consulting, problem solving, time management, and in their personal and career development areas. Every aspect of the programme has been curated to help address the scarcity of skills in the country and to provide young, aspirational learners with the tools they need to thrive.
“We are proud to have grown this programme four-fold in only a year and would like to thank all the faculty members who made this possible. Congratulations to our exceptional graduates of the 2022 programme – we are extremely proud of their dedication and eagerness to learn and wish them very bright and prosperous careers in the technology consulting sector in South Africa and beyond. We look forward to seeing them achieve amazing success and running another successful programme next year,” concludes Allan Saffy, Managing Executive at Decision Inc. South Africa
View our talent lab highlight video to hear directly from our team: Decision Inc. Talent Lab 2022 If you want to be part of our exciting global team.
