Author(s): Eustache TanzalaKikasu, Nirmala Dorasamy
Capacity development programmes in the workplace, whether in the public or private sectors play a strategic role by increasing the ability of people, organisation and society to cope with or adapt to challenging and adverse situations that affect organisations or systems societies depend upon. This paper explores the challenges affecting the best practice of capacity development programmes in the South African petroleum industry. The political, economic and social factors of the PESTIE environment were examined to addressing and identifying barriers affecting the best practice of capacity development programmes in the South African petroleum industry. The heart of the phenomenon challenging the South African petroleum industry is that the petroleum industry is experiencing a critical deficit of technical skilled employees in areas that include Electrician; Boiler maker; Mechanical engineer; Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHE&Q) practitioner; Programme or Project Manager; Mechanical Fitter; Electrical Engineer; Retail Pharmacist and Chemist, etc. These technical skills are not sufficiently developed, as there are still critical issues aligned to technical skills shortages, as well as a strong demand of these categories of technical skills in the South African petroleum industry. Furthermore, in general, organisations whether in the public or private sectors of the national economy are also challenged by the deficit of positive human capital capacity and skills waste, which are obstructing the attempt to organisational/institutional vision, mission, goals and objectives achievement. In other words, the lack of capacity development best practice in the petroleum industry, associated with the aforementioned challenges are preventing organisations members of the South African Petroleum Industry Association (SAPIA) to gain competitive advantages, to improve productivity, performance and contribute to socio-economic transformation process in the country. The triangulation methods facilitated the gathering of quantitative and qualitative data from four petroleum organisations, which were part of the investigations in order to identify the challenges affecting the best practice of capacity development programmes in the South African petroleum industry. Results revealed that challenges impacting negatively the petroleum industry are related to the political, economic and social factors. For example, respondents revealed that the lack of policies best practice (83.4%),the lack of capacity development programmes best practice (90.5%) and the lack of fully addressing and supporting capacity development programmes as a tool that can stimulate human capital capacity development in the workplace (91.7%) are amongst the key barriers affecting technical skills development in the petroleum industry. Thus, capacity development programmes best practice in the petroleum industry is assumed to be the locomotive of scarce skills development in the South African petroleum industry.