Liberty Life steps up ‘jobs conveyor-belt’
Liberty Life learnerships for “wannebe” entrants to the life insurance industry are about to move up a gear as Liberty Life’s Learnership programme offers tangible job opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The assurance was given today (Thursday, December 6) at the third annual Liberty Life Learnership graduation ceremony at the group’s Braamfontein head office when 85 learners received the coveted Liberty Life certificates.
This takes the number of graduates to 251 since the company gave a life insurance industry lead by launching its first Financial Sector Charter Learnership Programme back in 2004.
Mandisa Xorile, Head of Talent Management at Liberty Life noted: “For Liberty Life, learnerships have never been about putting a tick in the box marked ‘Financial Sector Charter compliance’.
“Learnerships were conceived as a conduit to employment. The challenge therefore is to create a programme that imparts relevant knowledge and gives the intake a grounding that makes them employable assets capable of adding value from Day One.
“This isn’t training for training’s sake, but for the sake of these young people and, on a strategic level, for the sake of our industry’s long-term future.”
In the first two years of the Liberty Life programme, 166 learners graduated. Of these, 112 were offered jobs at Liberty Life business units. The ratio of two out of three is believed to be one of the highest learner-to-worker conversion rates in the country.
Mandisa added: “A conversion rate around 66% reflects great credit on everyone connected with the process – learners, business unit coordinators, trainers, mentors and coaches.
“But we think we can do even better. The conversion rate at the end of the current programme will move closer to 80% as we believe the vast majority of today’s graduates will be offered employment.
“No one can second-guess the macro-economic climate and the dynamics of the life industry, but our strategic intention is to maintain the learner-to-worker conversion rate at a high level in the coming year and beyond.”
Liberty Life is planning to integrate the learnership scheme into its talent retention strategy by identifying top learners as future participants in talent and leadership programmes.
The successful leadership model adopted by Liberty Life makes use of external trainers who give focused training in specific disciplines such as marketing and distribution, group risk packages, real estate and property industry skills, information management and human resource management.
Business coordinators, mentors and coaches receive intense preparation at workshops to help them impart on-the-job knowledge, improve a newcomer’s familiarity with group systems and ease the assimilation into the corporate culture.
During the 2007 programme, learners obtained the following qualifications from Boston City Campus and Business College and Intec College of Insurance:
* NQF Level 4 Long Term Insurance
* NQF Level 4 Wealth Management (Retirement fund administrator)
* NQF Level 4 Business Administration
* NQF Level 4 Contact Centre Operations
* NQF Level 4 Marketing Communications
* NQF Level 4 Human Resource Management
* NQF Level 4 Real Estate and Property management
* Registered Bookkeeping
The 85 graduates were addressed by Inseta chief executive officer Mike Abel.
The 2008 Liberty Life learnership programme begins on January 14 and will prepare 75 learners for employment across six business units.
