Old Mutual Insure is proud to announce its partnership with the Graduate Institute of Financial Sciences (GIFS) to foster youth development and job sustainability. In line with the theme of Mandela Month ‘doing what we can with what we have, where we are’ Old Mutual Insure in partnership with GIFS have afforded 258 South African youth the opportunity to participate in an exciting 12-month accredited insurance focused learnership programme.
Participants will gain valuable workplace experience while completing the programmes which include short-term insurance, general management, and contact centre operations.
“Old Mutual Insure understands that a holistic and collaborative approach is necessary to address the skills shortage in our country and avoid further brain drain. Aside from this learnership partnership with GIFS, we also sponsor industry initiatives, like the Insurance Apprentice, to support youth development,” explained Mrs Sungeetha Sewpersad, Old Mutual Insure’s Human Capital Executive. She added their ‘Curate Your Career’ skills initiative allows employees access to over 5 000 accredited online courses to bolster future-fit development and capitalise on 4IR opportunities.
Youth skills’ development is a key priority for GIFS which is a specialist, private, financial services education powerhouse. “We empower those in the financial services industry to take their careers from good to great,” explained CEO Dr Kershen Pillay. He added both Old Mutual Insure and GIFS’ commitment to empowering young South Africans is what makes the collaboration successful, “At GIFS, we’re leaders in what we do so we leverage that knowledge to cascade information to a new generation of South Africa’s workforce. We are mindful of the lived reality of many young people which is why this learnership is aimed at both out-of-work and employed youth.”
The intention is to build a youth skills’ base while ensuring more experienced employees also have an opportunity to share institutional knowledge. It is all part of the broad effort to professionalise the financial services industry.
