Tim Modise unpacks Microsoft’s new skills initiative for job seekers
With the unemployment rate officially at 30.1%, the third quarter of the year has been a tough pill to swallow for the millions who have been laid off due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. As job seekers look for opportunities to earn an income, Microsoft has launched a skills-based initiative to offer digital certification at learning centres in conjunction with private companies and non-governmental organisations. Veteran broadcaster Tim Modise speaks to Microsoft's Siya Madyibi to ascertain exactly how this will work – Bernice Maune.
Developing fresh skills for a changed world
Tim Modise: With the number of job losses mounting in South Africa and elsewhere in the world, different multinationals and even domestic corporations are stepping up and trying to intervene in their various economies. The same is applying here in South Africa and Microsoft South Africa recently launched the Global Skills Initiative, which is part of their global effort to improve the economies and access to opportunities for especially young people.
I caught up with Siya Madyibi, who is the corporate, external and legal affairs executive for Microsoft South Africa, to tell me a bit more about this global skills initiative of Microsoft. And Siya thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me. Just broadly, tell me what the global Microsoft Global Skills Initiative is all about.
SM: So hi, Tim, and good morning to you and thank you for this opportunity.
So the new Global Initiative is an initiative by Microsoft that is aimed at bringing crucial skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year. The global announcement was made on the 30th of June. South Africa has been handpicked as one of the first pilot countries to participate in this initiative.
The Global Skills Initiative was formed to the global economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Tim, we believe that expanded access to digital skills is an important step in its early and economic recovery, especially for the people hardest hit by job losses. So this initiative includes three immediate steps that look at reskilling across the spectrum of job seekers that we have in different countries. It brings together three Microsoft companies, which is LinkedIn, Deed Hub and Microsoft itself. And it is really predicated on three important steps. And those steps are as follows.
What Microsoft has done is we have used the data and analytics that we have to identify in-demand jobs and skills that are needed to fill those jobs. We have then a step number two created to free access to learning parts and to have video-rich content that people can then use to develop skills that these positions require.
And finally, a step number three, what we've done is we've created a low-cost industry-based certifications and free job-seeking tools, very powerful tools that will effectively enable jobseekers to use the skills that they have that they've gained to showcase their industry specifications that they have acquired and use a combination of those certificates using those skills to be linked to employers that are looking for and jobseekers that have particular skills and certification and using that combination.
Then we create, I think, a powerful network that combines the job seekers and employers and ultimately creating job opportunities.
Dealing with job losses: Finding new skills
I also notice that you are working with other partners. Tell me how you put the whole ecosystem together and how that is going to work?
Well, in terms of dealing with with the proportions that we've seen, from a job loss perspective that the country has suffered from this pandemic are huge and there's no single company that can really deal with the recovery process that is necessary. So this initiative is also predicated, therefore, on creating a broad coalition that will bring together various other partners within the market that will then help us address them, the job loss, a pandemic that we are currently faced with. We are looking at working with NGOs and NPOs.
The view there is to bring in those organisations because we know that they are closest to the jobseekers to people that are really out there and trying to find content, trying to find platforms trying to get access to devices that can enable them to have access to this kind of content, that would enable them to acquire the skills that we are talking about. So the NGOs would play that role and there will be that gap between content and the immediate communities and jobseekers that reside within those immediate communities.
And if you're a job seeker right now, if you're sitting at home, if if you're looking at getting back into the job market and this phase one is intended to target those people
We are also looking at partnering up with the private sector, with commercial enterprises. And because part of the exercise here is to ensure that when the certification requires some sort of financial commitment and as a payment, for instance, of about fifteen dollars for some of the certifications, your more advanced certifications will be covered by that.
And we're partnering with private sector players to ensure that they come to the party in ensuring that they not only risking their own employees but that the immediate communities and the deed and support are given the muscle. Whether that be financial support muscle from a certification perspective or from simply creating platforms that private sector companies can indeed create to enable jobseekers to come in either into certain learning labs that some of the private sector companies support and allow people to come into those learning labs for free to be able to access this content and ultimately get the certification.
We're also looking at government as a partner and because there are quite a few levers that the government controls, you would know that one of the biggest challenges that we have in our country is access to data. The cost of communications is definitely way too high. And a lot of job seekers will find it difficult using their own resources, their own money, to have access to this content. So we're looking at government to come in and particularly in the area where they can help us to better rate access this kind of learning content and venerating. What we mean is the government issuing policies that effectively encourage mobile operators and fixed-line operators to be able to give free access to jobseekers when they're looking to access the specific sites. Where this information is held. Where the skills can be acquired and where ultimately this institution can then be the issued.
So are we looking at a broad coalition of those partners where NGOs will come in, where private sector companies will come in, where government will come in, creating a big ecosystem that will help us drive scaling and numbers to make sure that we address the pandemic and the deep loss of jobs that you are seeing in the market right now.
It sounds to me that in the main, the point is to upskill people or just provide them with relevant skills that can make them marketable, so to speak, in the job market. But what about these people who have been unemployed? And do they have to belong to be part of any demographic view for older people, or is it confined to any particular people? And what are the numbers that we're talking about here that to your mind, would give you a sense that indeed you are making the relevant impact that you intended to make?
So, Tim, the program is divided into various phases or phase one, which which was announced at the end of June, is targeting job seekers. So so this is across all demographics. This is across society. So what we're really doing, the phase one is we're looking at anybody who has been affected negatively by the Covid-19 pandemic. Anybody who has lost a job by and as a result of that Covid-19 pandemic.
And if you're a job seeker right now, if you're sitting at home, if if you're looking at getting back into the job market and this phase one is intended to targeted those people.
So job seekers across society, across the market, and we're going to be driving phase one up until the end of the year, which is December. Of course, we will continue beyond December. But the initial period is just phase one up until the end of December. From a numbers perspective, Tim, I mean, I think a lot of variables that would come into effect to tell us what sort of numbers are going to be able to grow. The biggest among those is our oneness and what we're trying to do. And by talking to people like you it is to create an awareness as much as possible that Microsoft has launched this initiative. It's mainly an initiative that is based on analytics that has looked at what jobs are in demand in the market and what skills can we, therefore, drive to fill those jobs. And so that's the driving up until the end of the year.
Phase Two of the program will then be looking at targeting people that are already in jobs but need to reskill or upskill, because one of the things that Covid-19 has done is that it has accelerated design transformation. What would have been a two-year process of just a transformation has literally happened over three months. And by that we mean a lot of the online change where movement for manual processing of information has moved to digitizing of information. Where it should have taken two years, it has literally taken three months. So you are going to see instances where people in their current jobs will find that the skill that's needed to drive that job will go up before the pandemic starts. And therefore, there is a necessity to upskill people who are already in job placements situations. So phase two will be then targeting those people.
How do people access these opportunities if they want to find out more, including, let's start first with the partners. How did they get on board and become part of your initiative and their beneficiaries
So, Tim, what partners simply need to do is if you use LinkedIn as an example. I mean, a lot of people have got access to LinkedIn. If you go to LinkedIn and you type in search Microsoft Job Skills Initiative. It will immediately connect you to the many paths that we have created that will take into different streams. And depending on what you are looking for, it will guide you in terms of what you need as the right sort of continuum from the past perspective in terms of what you need to be following.
It's mainly an initiative that is based on analytics that has looked at what jobs are in demand in the market and what skills can we, therefore, drive to fill those jobs
It's an online-based process. I have to access LinkedIn or, you know, have to access Microsoft Learn. And these are sites that you simply access by typing on Google, whether it's on Bing or by accessing Microsoft, by accessing LinkedIn, you simply just type the Global Skills Initiative, and that will create a path that will take you into some of the things that we have created, depending on where your interest is, there's proper guidance there that will then tell you what are other next steps and what sort of content you should be looking at and what ultimately is the certification that will come at the end and what sort of jobs can then be linked to that particular certification?
Re-skill or up-skill?
What do you say to people who may be demoralised at this time when they look at the economic indicators that suggest that the economy is in dire trouble? It's not going to grow anytime soon and therefore have got no confidence that they can make it, whether they start their own businesses or re-skill themselves or up-skill, obviously, with the new with the tools and the approach that you are coming up with.
You're doing so from a position of confidence that things will get better. But there are people out there who, when they look all around themselves and read the information that is available, then get demoralised thinking that it's not going to happen, that things get better.
Look, Tim, I think you're spot on the reality of this pandemic is that one of the things it has done in a country like ours is that it has served to reinforce the economic inequality that we already had in the country and how that plays itself out.
And in our environment is the gap. The reality is that before the pandemic started, we had a different economy. And after the pandemic and going forward, we are going to have a completely different economy.
I did mention earlier on that part of the difference that we're going to be seeing is the digitisation of our economy and a lot of what was manual. A lot of the stuff that we used to go out and do manually and has now been transformed can be done online. And that's a feature of our economy that's going to increase. So whether you are a consumer, whether you're an employed person, in the reality that you're going to be dealing with different economies and in order to be able to cope and to coexist and to prosper going forward, acquiring new skills is going to be part of the game. It is no longer negotiable. It's no longer a nice to have. It's simply something that's going to be mandatory that people must do and must have going forward.
And our economy is going online. A lot of things that we were doing before manually will no longer do manually. We will go online, for those services and you'll see people right now. And they don't go out to do groceries themselves. They do those things online.
But right now, because of the risk that you have and you have transformed how we approach doing those kinds of activities. And that's a feature that's going to stay with us. That's the system that we can't run away from. And the best we can do for ourselves is to acquire the new skills that are necessary going forward. And part of what you're doing, a part of this program is to try and reinforce that narrative and ensure that communities, individuals and government and we all embrace and become part of this ecosystem because that is our new reality going forward.
Final question. All of this is for free or will people have to pay any fees to have access or to acquire the certifications that you spoke about?
The access to these learning parts is all going to be for free. What Microsoft is trying to do here is a literally what we call democratising technology and doing that by ensuring that we create a wider pool of digital skills that become available freely to our people. And that's the part we are creating. And from your entry-level digital literacy skills, that is going to be for free. But what is going to happen as you move up towards the value chain and you go towards your more advanced certification that is necessary for your more high-value jobs there are fees for certification that are going to have to be paid there.
And I think we're looking at about fifteen dollars for your certification. But that is going to be for people that have gone to the continuum of the information that is there. And then to get your high-end certification, then you're looking at about 15 US dollars. So it's not all for free, hence we are partnering with private sector enterprises that can help to subsidise or even pay for some of those certifications for a set of job seekers that they are able to to work with.
We've also made an investment to local NGOs and that will create an online learning path and present their facilities for free for people, for job seekers to come in and use those facilities to access the fresh content. And in some instances also subsidise the certification that is necessary for them to complete the process and get their industry certification.
Thank you very much for talking to me, because obviously this gives us optimism that even in these difficult days, opportunities abound and Microsoft is coming to the party to help you reskill or upskill in the digital age so that you can access the opportunities that are bound to come about. And some are already emerging. This is Siya Madyibi speaking on behalf of Microsoft South Africa. Thank you once again, Siya.
Thank you Tim, and thank you for the opportunity.
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