Skills development and Corporate Social Investment

Building a robust internal skills pipeline

We recognise that skilled people offer the business a powerful competitive advantage, particularly in a global environment of critical skills shortages, and skills development is therefore a key business driver across Imperial’s many diverse operations.

Among the many new initiatives launched is the expansion of our automotive artisan and technician training centres to include two new facilities, which increases our annual training capacity to 1 400 artisans.

The Imperial Technical Training Academy (ITTA) brand is becoming a recognised and reliable service provider to the industry and is now acknowledged as an industry benchmark.

ITTA promoted “The Year of the Artisan” in line with a call by Minister Blade Nzimande for closer collaboration between industry, education, Further Education and Training Colleges (FETs) and government. It established a number of critical initiatives signifying promising cooperation between the role players.

Investing in education

The development of a sustainable skills pipeline in South Africa requires investment in the education of the next generation.

To assist in achieving this objective, Imperial Holdings together with its empowerment partner Ukhamba, has made a strategic investment in the upliftment of education facilities and teaching in nine schools in the greater Gauteng area in which we operate.

The Trust has assisted in establishing libraries at some of these schools. In addition, learners are exposed to a range of cultural, sporting and extracurricular activities. The Trust touches the lives of approximately 10 000 children.

Leading corporate citizenship initiatives

Imperial also places strategic emphasis on establishing itself as a leading corporate citizen. The IMPERIAL I-Pledge campaign has recorded 135 000 pledges from individuals in South Africa, pledging to improve their driving behaviour. We also recognise the clear business case for responsible environmental stewardship, and continually seek ways to reduce our carbon footprint and consumption of scarce natural resources. These include a range of initiatives to reduce the energy and carbon footprint, extensive water and waste recycling projects and the implementation of green, sustainable building practices in our dealerships and other sites throughout our business.