Author: Emma Montocchio, Problem-Solver, Decusatio

The tourism and eco-tourism sectors have been particularly hard hit as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns and border closures. As the economy starts to re-open, organisations can use powerful incentives such as YES to help re-build the sector.

The Youth Employment Service (YES) incentive out of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) rewards organisations who create youth jobs, with the opportunity to move up to 2 full levels on their B-BBEE scorecard. 

What’s great about YES is that the youth that you appoint to your program don’t need to work inside your own organization – if you are passionate about eco-tourism, you can deploy your youth into a series of tourism and eco-tourism jobs where they can gain valuable industry experience. 

With youth unemployment running at nearly 65% in many of the tourism-focused areas, here are examples of some of the YES programs we are currently working on where corporate sponsors can benefit from the B-BBEE incentive and contribute to re-building the sector:

Anti-poaching, drone and wildlife monitoring initiatives

With foreign tourism income being pulled out of the sector, anti-poaching and wildlife monitoring projects quickly became under-funded. As restrictions begin to ease, there is a lot of capacity for funding these kinds of projects and these represent a great way to invest in the sector for the long-haul.

Hospitality and Culinary

Between Limpopo and Mpumalanga roughly 150 000 matriculants graduate each year with only 30% achieving a Bachelors Degree pass. The hospitality sector allows youth without tertiary qualifications or a University level pass to be able to enter the workforce and get valuable work experience.

Equip a Beauty Spa or laundry service

Integrate your Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) with your YES investment and help young women establish either a Spa or an innovative low-water usage laundry service. What’s great about these business models is that your investment will see youth learn to become business owners and contribute to a broader tax base in the country.

Support Community Healthcare and Sanitary Pad manufacturing

COVID-19 has heavily impacted communities in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, particularly on the healthcare front. With access to healthcare infrastructure limited, organisations can partner on novel concepts including equipping Community Healthcare Worker initiatives or investing in sanitary pad manufacturing solutions as part of their ESD or SED spend. This solution allows your investment in a YES program to create new business owners and manufacture sanitary pads which can be donated to the local communities, schools and charities while tackling a very real healthcare challenge for young women.

The YES B-BBEE incentive is a powerful tool for securing recognition on your scorecard and with the right partner, you can build high-impact projects while integrating multiple elements for maximum return.

Cabinet has approved the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan which aims to get the sector back to 2019 levels by 2023. As part of this plan, the inclusion of women and youth are key to re-building the sector and we look forward to engaging with partners on these projects.

For further information: Emma Montocchio, Decusatio

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Author: Samantha Metcalfe, Problem-Solver Decusatio 

The Youth Employment Service (YES) B-BBEE incentive has been one of the most powerful job creation incentives out of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) and apart from helping businesses move a full 1 or 2 levels on their B-BBEE scorecard, I believe it has played a material part in mitigating some of the impact of COVID-19.

This quote from one of our YES youth highlights just how critical this incentive is for the country:

“It feels so good to finally help out at home and give my mom a break from some things. It’s not easy raising 5 kids as an unemployed widow.”

We run YES programs on behalf of clients and we have had some interesting learnings over the last 12 months in terms of how to ensure you get maximum benefit out of these programs.

Tip #1: Understand the rules of the incentive.YES is one of the simplest B-BBEE incentives out there – just understand the rules and how it works so that you don’t invest in a program and then lose the investment because you didn’t set it up correctly.

Tip #2: Recruit carefully.Think about the program you are building and running and recruit for that. It makes no sense to hire an ambitious youth with a degree if they are going to be doing manual tasks. Understand their motivation and home life situations to work out whether they will be a good fit for your program.

Tip #3: Give them meaningful work.It sounds obvious but if the youth don’t have a purpose and feel like you’re inventing a job for them, then they will pick up on this. If you can’t create the work inside of your organization, you can work with a partner who can build a project that will have social impact. Everybody wants to feel valued – don’t simply leave them in a situation where they are unattended with no purpose.

Tip #4: Salaries.Just because you can pay the National Minimum Wage doesn’t mean you should. Drop-offs are a very real challenge amongst youth employment initiatives and while it might be attractive on a spreadsheet to get a youth with a degree working for you for R3760 per month, you will have high drop-offs and replacement costs. We found it worked better when we sourced additional funding for the youth or paid top-ups / commissions on their salaries.

Tip #5: Skills. Skills. Skills.One of the reasons businesses shy away from doing youth employment is the time that it takes to get youth upskilled. Simple things like soft-skills around answering the phone or basic Microsoft skills are often taken for granted. Our youth have been able to do Xero accounting, Sales Skills, Public-speaking programs, 21st century design learning and Udemy courses that they can put on their CVs. 

Don’t lose sight of the fact that you are aiming to give the youth a CV that will make them more employable at the end of the 12-month experience.

Tip #6: Celebrate their successes and gamify the program.You’ll be astounded at how hard the job search is for youth with no employment history. Many of them spend years knocking on doors trying to find a starting point and rejection has become a big part of the job search. Spend a little extra time celebrating their successes and encouraging them to pick up new skills along the way, post their achievements and work output on platforms like LinkedIn – it creates a sense of belonging and achievement.

Tip #7: Data and airtime.It’s a simple cost but giving youth access to data and airtime will be a big drawcard, particularly in environments where Covid-19 restricts access to fixed office environments.

Tip #8: The Supervisor is not necessarily "the Boss".When you are uploading youth into the system, you will be asked to nominate a supervisor for the program. We feel that the supervisor should not be the person who manages them on a day-to-day basis. Rather, the supervisor should be an empathetic ear who will help them navigate their 12-month work experience.

Tip #9: Set milestones for retention.Remember that the goal is to get the youth over the 8-month mark so you don’t need to incur replacement costs.

By setting milestones including the opportunity to do skills programs, get a salary increase or other incentives, you can ensure that you don’t incur replacement costs down the line. While everybody wants to run programs as affordably as possible, longer-term planning means that the youth don’t look around for other opportunities.

Tip #10: Discuss their futures and absorption opportunities.The absorption requirements for YES cohorts is very low at 2.5% or 5% [depending on which level you are looking to achieve] and many organisations treat this as an after-thought. We found youth who couldn’t see a future career path or opportunity were quick to drop off the program. Communicate opportunities and they view it in a different light.

In summary, YES is a very powerful incentive which can be used as part of your B-BBEE strategy if you plan it correctly… but if you fail to plan, you will plan to fail. 

Samantha Metcalfe is a Problem-Solver at Decusatio, a consulting firm established to help entrepreneurs to tackle the twin challenges of Access to Finance and Access To Markets. She can be contacted on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.