Free Training & Career Tips... Subscribe to Get Weekly Career Tips
By Subscribing You are Agreeing to Terms and Conditions
Load shedding courses help teams keep working, serving customers and protecting equipment and data when the power goes off. BOTI’s two-day Load Shedding Training covers alternative power options, planning around schedules, staying connected, and managing stress and morale during outages. It sits within BOTI’s workplace essentials and personal effectiveness courses.
This course at BOTI todayLoad Shedding Training: Staying Productive During Power Outages (2 days)
The current course runs at your offices anywhere in South Africa, live online or at a BOTI venue. The course page has the up-to-date outline and group prices.
See the current courseGet a quote for your teamSee all Workplace Essentials and Personal Effectiveness courses
Learning on your own? Self-paced e-learning from R595 (excl. VAT) · Ask your employer to pay
Beating the dark and staying productive during load shedding
Load shedding has been a recurring disruption for South African businesses for years. Schedules change at short notice, outages can come more than once a day, and each one interrupts systems, meetings, customer calls and planning. Even when the grid is more stable, many organisations want a plan in place so the next round of outages does not catch them unprepared.
In a workplace that depends on technology, regular loss of power makes it hard to get work done. But a power cut does not have to mean a total loss of productivity, or that a business has to close its doors. Alternatives can be put in place to get through the hours without electricity, and downtime can be used constructively.
What load shedding training covers
A load shedding course is practical. It looks at the decisions a team or business has to make before, during and after an outage: which systems must stay on, how people keep communicating, how work is scheduled, and how staff cope with the frustration that repeated disruption brings. Delegates leave with a plan they can apply in their own department, rather than general tips.
The course combines two areas. The first is operational: backup power options, connectivity, data backups and protecting equipment from power surges. The second is people-focused: time management, stress and anger management, and keeping morale up when the working day keeps being interrupted.
Course outline
Day 1
Alternative power supplies
- Inverter
- Gas
- Solar Power
- UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) devices
Staying up and running
- Planning around the load shedding schedules
- Staying connected: keeping the Internet running during load shedding
- Keeping your WiFi running during load shedding
- Using a mobile WiFi dongle (MiFi)
- Implementing cloud-based technologies
- Backing up your data
- Working remotely during load shedding
- ‘Load shedding hopping’: moving work to locations that are not in the same outage block
- Employee shift work around the load shedding schedules
Day 2
Managing and adapting to change
- Stress Management
- Time Management
- Anger Management
- Plan your work – work your plan
- Keeping people motivated and keeping employee morale high during load shedding
- Mental health tips for keeping calm during load shedding
Trouble Shooting
- Dealing with loss of planning when load shedding schedules keep changing
- Preventing damage to equipment due to power surges
- Dealing with security issues: digital security systems and firewalls
- Keeping batteries charged
- Dealing with heavy traffic
Course duration
2 days
Who is this course suitable for?
This course suits managers, supervisors, office and operations staff, and anyone responsible for keeping work moving during power outages. It is especially useful for small businesses, customer-facing teams and departments that rely on computers, phones and internet access to serve clients.
Serving customers during load shedding
Customer service is often the first thing to suffer when the power goes off. Phones drop, systems go down and customers are left waiting without an explanation. A few habits make a clear difference:
- Tell customers in advance when service may be slower, and give them another way to reach you.
- Keep the systems customer-facing staff need on backup power first, and agree which tasks can wait.
- Give staff a short script for explaining delays calmly and honestly.
- Record queries taken on paper or mobile devices so they can be captured once the power returns.
- Follow up on anything left open, so an outage does not turn into a complaint.
Teams that want to go further can combine this course with BOTI’s Customer Service Excellence and Complaint Handling Course, which focuses on handling frustrated customers and resolving complaints.
Practical steps to plan around outages
Start by checking the schedule for every site your team works from and building meetings, deadlines and customer appointments around the expected outage times. Because schedules can change at short notice, keep a fallback plan for the work that cannot move, such as payroll runs, client presentations or month-end reporting.
Next, look at data and equipment. Save work to cloud storage regularly, back up important files, and protect computers and network equipment from surges when the power comes back on. A power cut can also affect alarms, access control and firewalls, so check how your security systems behave during an outage. BOTI’s Cyber Security Awareness Training helps staff keep data safe when they work remotely or on mobile connections.
Finally, look after people. Repeated outages, traffic delays and broken routines wear staff down. Short check-ins, realistic targets and flexible shifts help, and BOTI’s Stress Management Training and Essential Time Management Skills courses build on the people topics covered on day 2. For more ideas, read our guides on staying productive during load shedding and managing stress and anxiety during load shedding.
Frequently asked questions
What does a load shedding course cover?
BOTI’s load shedding course covers alternative power supplies such as inverters, gas, solar and UPS devices, planning around schedules, keeping internet and WiFi running, backing up data, remote and shift work, protecting equipment from power surges, and managing stress, time and morale during outages.
How long is the load shedding training?
The course runs over 2 days. Day 1 focuses on power, connectivity and staying up and running. Day 2 focuses on managing change, people and troubleshooting.
How can customer service teams cope during load shedding?
Customer service teams cope better when they warn customers in advance, keep customer-facing systems on backup power, use a short script to explain delays, record queries manually during outages and follow up once power returns.
Can the course be run at our premises or online?
Yes. BOTI runs the course in-house at your premises, at its venue in Sunningdale, Johannesburg, or live online.
Is the load shedding course accredited?
No. It is a professional skills programme, and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance.
Book load shedding training for your team
To help your team stay productive and keep customers served through power outages, book Load Shedding Training: Staying Productive During Power Outages. Training runs in-house at your premises, at BOTI’s venue in Sunningdale, Johannesburg, or live online. Call BOTI on 011 882 8853 or email [email protected], or request a quote.
This course is not accredited. It is delivered as a professional skills programme, and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance.