We ended 2023 with a few good news stories that we didn’t get around to sharing, like Siyabulela Silekwa’s.
Siya successfully completed 2 learnerships with one of our clients, a global medical technology company, before being offered a permanent position as a customer service representative at the end of 2023.
Prior to enrolling at Progression, Siya had briefly worked as an administrator and also participated in a generic learnership through another institution. In October 2021, via Progression, Siya was selected for a Wholesale and Retail Operations NQF3 qualification and he was subsequently advanced onto a Supply Chain Management NQF5 learnership in 2022.
During the Wholesale and Retail learnership, he started out working as an administrator with duties that included filing, stock counting and extracting reports. However only a few months later, he was assigned more responsibilities including doing presentations and workshops as well as training his team on company procedures and systems.
Towards the end of 2022, the company’s Head of Operations left and Siya was really thrown into the deep end as he had to step up and assist his supervisor with many of the tasks that she was previously responsible for. “The challenges that came with these new responsibilities made me really grow as an individual. I also started getting a deeper understanding of my job and how it relates to what the company does and the industry as a whole,” Siya explains.
He credits much of his learning and growth to his mentors who provided meaningful challenges but were always there to answer his questions and offer support. Despite all the pressure he felt, both his mentors constantly motivated him to keep going in order to reap the rewards of successfully completing the programme.
Siya couldn’t be happier about his new role as a permanent employee and he feels sure that the opportunity is going to change his life completely. “I’ve gained a lot during my learnership journey, both personally and professionally and I’m really grateful to the entire team that never gave up on me!” he concludes.
Congratulations and well done to Siya! we wish him everything of the best and have no doubt that he will go from strength to strength in his career.
