Skills Development and Training
Businesses who wants to have a competitive advantage train their employees.
Whether you do in-house training or external training, any type of training will improve the quality of work and increase productivity (just to mention 2 benefits).
By taking part in the Skills Development Submission process you can get an additional advantage in the form of a grant paid to your company.
Skills Development Process Explained
All companies who have an annual payroll in excess of R 500 000 and who are registered with SARS, must also register with SARS to pay the Skills Development Levy (SDL), totalling 1% of the value of the company’s monthly salary and wage expenditure.
All registered companies are then allocated a SETA based on the core business undertaking of the company where Companies need to submit an Annual Training Report (ATR) and a Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) annually, Deadline for Submissions is 30th April 2022.
By submitting the ATR and the WSP on time, companies can claim back 20% of their annual skills development levy contribution and another 49% for doing learnerships and other relevant courses with their employees.
FOREIGN NATIONALS
With employment of foreign nationals on the lips of every South African it has to be taken into consideration that, there is major changes coming with regards to the employment of foreign nationals, we would recommend that businesses adhere to current legislation with regards to the employment of foreigners.
With the DoL developing a new National Labour Migration Policy and proposed amendments to the existing Employment Services Act, these changes indicates that it will become more difficult for foreign nationals to get employment within SA but also for employers to employ such foreigners. We will most likely also see a trend of fines for employers who do not adhere to legislation at this stage.
What you need to know now is that any foreign national must have the relevant work permit and passport before they can be employed. And it is important to understand that employers must still act fairly towards foreign employees, regardless of the legality of the employment. The law clearly places the onus on the employer to comply with the relevant legislation and holds the employer liable for non-compliance.