April webinar round-up: Automotive sector

YES update

Over 2,000 businesses such as Volkswagen SA, Toyota SA, Ford SA, and more have signed on to YES and committed to co-create a new, sustainable and thriving future. These powerful partnerships have already created more than 80,000 work experiences, equating to R4.5 billion injected into the economy through youth salaries alone.

YES is an effective vehicle to help drive business SA to contribute to the South African economy and boost their B-BBEE scorecards at the same time (read more here (B-BEE)). YES also looks beyond traditional B-BBEE programmes for alignment with environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies.

YES recently hosted a webinar presenting a case study on how our youth employment partner, Lulaway, contributes to fighting the youth unemployment crisis through the automotive sector. The webinar hosted industry leaders, B-BBEE partners and aggregators, as well as some of SA’s business influencers. Here’s a roundup of what was discussed.

The YES quality work experience

The YES 12-month quality work experience provides youth with a CV, reference letter and certificate of completion at the end of their YES year –increasing the employment and employability of the YES Youth. Corporate partners hire youth either internally or pay for them to be hosted externally (through YES-vetted host partners), and receive up to two levels on their B-BBEE scorecard in return, or integrate into ESG/SDG strategies.

In the context of South Africa’s dire unemployment statistics and knock-on effects of the global pandemic, YES aims to address what we call the experience trap: “I can’t get a job without experience, and I can’t get experience without a job”. The experience trap makes it especially difficult for youth to break into the economy, even with skills and educational qualifications that should ordinarily help them get a foot in the door.

Research shows that experience on a CV triples the chance of a jobseeker getting a call-back in their first three months of a job search. For women, a reference letter doubles the chance of them winning the job.

Read here for more details on YES, its inception, its legislation, and its purpose.

The YES turnkey solution

The YES turnkey solution was designed for corporate partners who want to make an impact, but cannot place youth internally. A company can place youth in YES vetted non-profit organisations (NPOs) or small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs), using job creation in high-impact sectors (such as healthcare, conservation, digital, and education) to help fulfil a company’s ESG and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) strategies, and other corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives.

Case Study: Lulaway & YES

The challenge

Lulaway was approached by a delivery platform to help with the growing demand for such services - exacerbated by Covid-19 lockdowns, which pushed consumers to rely on e-commerce. The demand for this exciting sector was growing faster than what the industry had the capacity for. In a nutshell, there was a massive need for scooter riders, and lots of them, but there were very few South African scooter drivers.

All one needed to apply for this was a scooter licence and some additional high-level training. This meant that the opportunity was accessible to a much wider population, and they could hire and train at scale. What was even more enticing was that the scooter delivery drivers could earn between R10,000 – R15,000 per month, which far exceeded the entry-level paycheque of minimum wage.

However, payment for the training of scooter drivers posed a big challenge to Lulaway, the potential drivers, as well as the platform that needed them.

The solution

Corporate partners from other sectors which have specific mandates to uplift and empower communities, such as the mining sector, were helped to the obtaining of licences and training for drivers all over the country. YES helped connect Lulaway to these corporate partners looking to sponsor and enable work experiences for young South Africans. Both the big metros and remote towns benefitted from these work opportunities. Sometimes these youth would be relocated to the metros where there is great demand, enabling them to send money back home, and other times they would stay and work in their own communities.

Lulaway says they’ve already placed over 1,500 youth in these opportunities, but the demand keeps growing all over, even in remote areas, and they are struggling to keep up.

Understanding the innovation

It is vital that practical solutions are enabled to ensure that young people can contribute to the economy. This means creating and implementing programmes that meet the youth where they are and set them up for continued participation in the workforce.

YES’s development of programmes beyond B-BBEE reflects the market’s need for more innovative, integrated, holistic, and sustainable activities that can help solve multiple wicked problems at once.