BROAD BASED BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
In accordance with the Revised Codes of Good Practice issued in terms of Section 9(1) of the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, 2003 (act 53 of 2003 Gazetted 11 OCTOBER 2013)
MacRobert Incorporated received a recommended overall B-BBEE-status Level 1 (one), overall recommended B-BBEE Procurement Recognition level is 135%.
Skills Development
The legal profession needs to reflect the society in which we live in and in which MacRobert currently conducts its practice, more accurately. MacRobert can provide assistance for the empowerment of previously disadvantaged fellow practitioners and trainee lawyers. MacRobert is mindful of the fact that the Company is a highly specialised legal practice that renders superior quality legal services to demanding clients.
MacRobert is pro-active in its transformation goals and only appoints Candidate Attorneys according to the demographics of South Africa and with a preference to previously disadvantaged groups. MacRobert trains the Candidate Attorneys with a view to retaining their services as professional assistants, associates and as directors.
Candidate Attorneys are required to complete a full two year programme to ensure that they are exposed to diverse areas of law. Candidate Attorneys are rotated through different legal departments every 6 months where they are coached by more Senior Attorneys who are professionals in their area of law. During the two year period of articles at MacRobert, each Candidate Attorney will be mentored by a Director. During these two years, we ensure that Candidate Attorneys attend Law School for a period of 6 months. MacRobert also offers additional classes to Candidate Attorneys for the two most demanding admission exams. These classes are run by knowledgeable professors who have vast experience in the legal industry. In our experience, the opportunity to attend Law School coupled with the aforementioned in-house classes, is of great assistance to Candidate Attorneys when preparing for their admission exams. In addition, MacRobert covers the cost of all Candidate Attorneys’ Law School (288 hours per individual), extra classes (36 hours per individual) and admission exams. We also provide 18 additional internal training sessions to our Candidate Attorneys, called MacPrac, which are presented by our Directors on the different aspects of law, as well as, ethics, conflict resolution and time-management.
During the past 12 months, MacRobert has invested a significant amount of time and financial resources on both informal and formal training, including 6 Business Administration Learnerships and 3 Debt Collection Learnerships - all exclusively for previously disadvantages individuals and including 6 Disabled staff members. Extensive POPI, FICA and AJS systems training was also done throughout the Firm with all staff members of which 64% are previously disadvantaged individuals. This amounts to well over 900 hours of informal training delivered within the business, in addition to general on-going job-specific task training.
MacRobert also appointed a full-time Senior Quality Manager as a Trainer, as well as, two Junior Quality Assessors who support the Senior Trainer in order to broaden the skills of the Firm’s staff. Besides supporting and training our Financial Recoveries staff on a full-time basis every day, they also present formal training sessions to the staff on a daily basis.
Over and above the skills development focus on the MacRobert staff and Candidate Attorneys, MacRobert supports internships for unemployed previously disadvantaged people. This enables them to further their education in order for them to find suitable employment at the end of their internships. In order to facilitate these internships, MacRobert works with the Good Work Foundation (GWF) and Sabi Sand Pfunanani Trust.
Since 2015, MacRobert funded the training, both theoretical and practical workplace, of 18 GWF facilitators. All 18 of these facilitators were employed by GWF on successful completion of their training. In addition 3 Field Rangers (specialising in counter-poaching) were trained and subsequently employed by Sabie Sand Pfunanani Trust.
In 2019 10 x GWF facilitators are being trained as well as 1 x Control Room Operater, 1 x Field Ranger, 1 x Health and Safety Assistant and 6 x Fire Fighters are being trained to join the Sabie Sand Pfunanani Trust.
