ShiftMate · Skills Development

Academy

Turn contact-centre

potential into

job readiness.

ShiftMate Academy uses assessment results and AI-assisted learning to help candidates build the exact skills contact-centre employers require — and helps employers use their Skills Development Levies to develop the teams they already have.

Explore our programmesPartner With Us
Assessment-first entry·Multiple structured programmes·SDL-eligible employer training·Employment-first design
Assessment-based entry◆Inbound Service · Outbound Sales · Collections · Technical Support◆BPO Learnership · SAQA 93997 · NQF Level 3◆Digital & System Readiness · Contact-centre work◆SDL Employer Training◆Work Integrated Learning · up to 6-month placement◆B-BBEE Skills Development evidence◆Employment-first design◆Candidate pipeline from ShiftMate assessments◆SETA-aligned · Mobile-first◆Assessment-based entry◆Inbound Service · Outbound Sales · Collections · Technical Support◆BPO Learnership · SAQA 93997 · NQF Level 3◆Digital & System Readiness · Contact-centre work◆SDL Employer Training◆Work Integrated Learning · up to 6-month placement◆B-BBEE Skills Development evidence◆Employment-first design◆Candidate pipeline from ShiftMate assessments◆SETA-aligned · Mobile-first◆

Why the Academy exists

No experience, no job.
No job, no experience.

That's the trap millions of capable young South Africans are stuck in. They can do the work — they've just never been given the chance to prove it. The Academy is built to break that loop.

ShiftMate does three things: we assess people to find who has the potential, we train the ones who do until they're genuinely ready, and we help employers place them. Training is the hard middle step most platforms skip — and the placement that follows gives that first real work experience, the one thing that breaks the trap.

Assess, Train, Place — how ShiftMate Academy works

How we do it

Real coaching, for one person at a time — at the scale of thousands.

Every Academy programme is delivered online and coached by AI. After each answer, the learner gets told what they got right, what they got wrong, and why — the kind of feedback that usually needs a human tutor sitting next to them. That's what makes the rest possible.

Accessible

It runs on a phone. No campus, no laptop, no travel. A person in any town in South Africa can do the whole thing from where they are.

Affordable

Online delivery and AI coaching keep the cost low — low enough that most routes into the Academy are free to the learner.

At scale

The AI coaches every learner personally, so the quality of feedback doesn't drop as the numbers grow. One learner or ten thousand — same support.

Quality one-on-one coaching has always been too expensive to give everyone. Putting it online and letting AI do the coaching is what finally makes it cheap enough to reach the people who need it — at the scale a country with South Africa's unemployment actually needs.

What we train

Built for contact-centre careers.

Contact centres are the largest entry-level employer in South Africa — inbound service, outbound sales, collections, technical support. Every programme we run is designed to get people genuinely ready for one of those roles.

LIVE NOWFree modules

Contact centre & customer service

Inbound service, outbound sales, collections, and technical support — the four role types contact centres actually hire on. We cover the phone skills, the customer-handling, and the system work that gets someone through probation and into a permanent seat.

Already training candidates for teams like Rewardsco, one of South Africa's largest contact-centre employers.
Free, self-paced modules — open to anyone
Coached by AI after every answer
Works on a phone, start to finish
Explore the contact centre programme
System readinessFree to learner

Digital & system readiness for contact-centre work

Modern contact centres run on CRM systems, ticketing platforms, and cloud tools. This programme builds the digital literacy and system-navigation skills that support agents need from day one — and it ends in a real Work Integrated Learning placement.

Ends in a Work Integrated Learning placement — real work with a real employer, where performance is the proof.
No matric required — entry is assessment-based
Coached by AI, online from anywhere
Up to a 6-month placement with a real employer
Explore the digital readiness programme

How it fits together

One loop, not three separate things.

Step 1
Assess

Find out who has potential, and exactly what's standing between them and a job.

The Academy
Step 2
Train

Close that exact gap with coached, online training until they're genuinely ready.

Step 3
Place

A real placement with an employer — their first work experience, which is the exact thing the trap denies them.

And it keeps going — a placed candidate's results feed straight back into the next round.

Which one are you?

I want to get hired

Turn your potential into proof.

If you've got the ability but not the experience yet, this is built for you. Start with the contact centre programme for free — inbound service, outbound sales, collections, or technical support. Need to build up your digital and system skills first? The digital readiness programme has you covered before you step on the floor.

I'm an employer

Hire contact-centre agents who are genuinely ready to perform.

Every candidate we send you has been assessed, trained for a specific contact-centre role type, and coached through the customer-handling and system skills your team actually needs. No CV guesswork — you know exactly what they can do before they start.

Put your Skills Development Levy to work. We structure programmes as B-BBEE Skills Development spend, so training your future agents reduces your SDL liability.

Already in a programme — candidate, host employer, or reviewer? Sign in to your portal →