Effective Skills Transfer through a Learning Management System: a Case of Eleckom Corporate Services

Africa in general is said to still be lagging behind the developed nations in terms of workforce skills, and South Africa is not an exception. The problem of skills inadequacy, it is argued, has a negative effect on enterprises as it presents hurdles to the country’s economic development objectives. Small, medium and large organizations tend to suffer from the said issue. In the context of South Africa, parastatals, as vital enterprises to the growth of the economy are also exposed to the adverse effects of relevant skills shortage. To this point, parastatals have to continual find ways to curb the inadequacy of relevant skills. This paper aimed to show how relevant skills, in a large South African parastatal, could be transferred among employees through a Learning Management System. This is done by following a case study method on the ways in which ElecKom corporate services promotes and facilitates relevant skills transfer through its adopted learning management system. Following the interpretivist research paradigm, Activity Theory underpinned the study. The paper concludes that the issues of relevant skills shortage may be curbed through knowledge and skills transfer using learning management systems as enabling tools, so long as the systems are contextualized sensitive to the organizational culture and the background of employees.