By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, March 6, GNA – Entrepreneurs, who benefitted from the government’s Ghana Skill’s Development Fund (GSDF), have commenced capacity building training for their employees.
The training is aimed at addressing skills deficit of employees through grants provided under the GSDF.
Beneficiaries of the fund are required to select which aspect of their enterprises and production processes they needed to improve and select a window that would be suitable.
The windows under the fund include the informal sector, the formal sector, training and innovation, greening grants, science, and technology.
Among the beneficiaries of the GSDF was Mrs.
Sylvia Fafali Orou, the Business Director of Faivich Enterprise, who chose to use the grant accessed to organise a capacity-building programme for her staff.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, she said her decision to engage her staff in a capacity-building programme was conceived due to the skills deficit of her employees.
“When we accessed the grant, we decided to build the capacity of our staff. A lot of people want to work, but they may not have the necessary skills, and we still need to employ them.
“Once you have them on board, as business owners, we need to keep training our employees in order to improve their potential. We think the grant from the GSD fund will help us in that regard,” she said.
She underscored the relevance of capacity building to the success of start-ups, saying the capacity building of employees enabled them to meet the demands of customers and business owners alike.
The GSDF is embedded in the government’s Technical, Vocational, and Educational Training (TVET) policy, which has the objective of creating jobs and increasing the competitiveness of the skilled workforce.
The programme is also aimed at raising the income-earning capacities of people, especially women and low-income groups.
Participants in the capacity-building programme were taken through management and administrative training courses, including time management skills, how to set individual and organisational goals, business etiquette, and emotional intelligence.
The organisation was assigned a service provider who trained the employees of the company.
Mrs. Emma Addo-Owusu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kobdam Image Consultancy and a service provider to Faivich Enterprise under the GSDF, commended the enterprise for choosing a capacity-building programme among other models.
She bemoaned the absence of capacity-building among the staff of many start-ups.
The absence of capacity, she noted, compromised the ability of the staff of start-ups to deliver in their respective roles, which often denied start-ups significant revenue and production losses.
She said capacity building enabled the staff of start-ups to have a better appreciation of the demands of customers and improve the administrative and production processes.
Government has earmarked about $60 million for disbursement over a five-year period with at least 700 entrepreneurs expected to access grants through the fund.
GNA