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In her current capacity as Talent Development Manager for the Western Cape Contact Centre Industry Association – CallingtheCape, Sonja has assisted in providing learning and employability opportunities for more than 450 learners in the BPO&O industry over the last three years. Her passion for continuous growth and skills development of the youth has attributed to the development of the CADET programme where unemployed youth first participate in World of Work skills programme and then continue their learning toward achieving a NQF L2 Contact Centre Support National Certificate and gainful employment via SSETA Learnerships.
Her passion for talent development stems from her progression as contact centre agent to team leader and coach at the Shell Priority Action Line Contact Centre. Here Sonja cultured a burning passion for customer service. She then continued her career path by being appointed to Contact Centre Agent User Support Interface and Technical Trainer within the same organization. After working at sea for two years and achieving her UNISA Centre for Business Management: Business Communication and Human Resource Management qualifications, she consulted back to the industry providing skills programmes in the essentials of customer service, communication, telephone handling skills, core value profiling and industrial relations.
She was head hunted to fill the position of certification partner for the Contact Centre Industry and managed this portfolio for 18 months within the Western Cape region. She is a registered constituent assessor for Contact Centre. Sonja has assisted the Services SETA Standards Generating Body in reviewing and redeveloping NQF unit standards in contact centre support and operations qualifications on levels 2, 3, 4 & 6. She is dedicated to achieving the aims and objectives of the National Skills Strategy and bases her business philosophy in learner development. Sonja has further co-authored two distance learning programmes for the International Colleges Group (Damelin & Intec) in Customer Relationship Management and Contact Centre Management at a level 5. She tutored both programmes and sits on the Contact Centre advisory board for Damelin. She has assisted in the up-skilling of the ABSA Western Cape internal assessors where she facilitated their learning as well as assessed them for competency.
During 2006/7 Sonja has been voted onto the Regional Council of the SSETA and represents the Western Cape on the SSETA National Council Board. Sonja is also a member of the SSETA Contact Centre Chamber. She has recently been elected as a Community of Expert Practices (CEP) member for the Contact Centre Industry and has assisted the CEP in developing the new unique occupations for the Contact Centre Industry on the OFO.
Sonja has worked in both South Africa and the European Union, where she assisted the Marine industry in providing skills for the Merchant Navy Senior Officers’ on-board applications.
