Johannesburg, 29 June 2021: National Government has called on all citizens and corporations to participate in Youth Month by recognising the present and future role of the youth in shaping the socio-economic landscape of the country. The recent unemployment statistics pertaining to young people is cause for concern. The 2020 fourth quarter Labour Force Survey found that about 8,6 million young people aged between 15 and 34 years are not educated nor are they employed

Taking its lead from National Government, Twizza has, since 2016, initiated various development and empowerment initiatives to combat youth unemployment. These include among others, the Twizza Graduate Programme (Work Experience), Internships, Learnerships as well as extensive apprenticeship programmes.

Twizza cares about the communities it operates in and has taken the opportunity to give back to these communities. The proudly SA company does this by providing access to formal learning and workplace experience to local unemployed youth. Twizza has partnered with the FoodBev SETA and has maximised on funding offered by the SETA, whilst ensuring compliance to the Skills Development Act, by providing upskilling and skills development opportunities to unemployed youth.

Twizza offers three levels of youth opportunities:

Twizza Graduate Programme:

This is a post-graduate opportunity that aims to expose newly qualified graduates to a working environment for the purpose of offering them on-the-job experience. The duration of the programme is a year.

Internship Programme:

Twizza offers under- graduate students the opportunity to embark on projects which form part of the practical work-related experience required to obtain their qualification. The duration of the programme is between 6 and 12 months.

Learnerships:

Learnerships at Twizza are work-based learning programmes that lead to an NQF registered qualification. In the last 3 years Twizza participated in both Employed and Unemployed learnerships. The focus of the learnerships has been on Generic Management (Supervisory Skills), Food Handling, Stores and Warehousing as well as Food and Beverage Packaging.

To date, Twizza has enrolled 34 Employed Learners into NQF4 (Generic Management), NQF 3 (Stores and Warehousing) as well as NQF4 (Food Packaging Qualification) to enhance employee engagement and increase employee growth and promotion opportunities.

“We have got to start moving to systems that drive apprenticeships and vocational training from school level because the number of young people hitting 25 with the prospect of lifetime unemployment in South Africa is massive,” says Gwen Francis, Chief Human Resources Officer at Twizza. 

Gwen continues: “The internship programme has helped close the skills gaps within the technical department, ensuring effective succession planning for retirees and current employees while enhancing the technical capabilities at Twizza plants. We have also created employment opportunities for unemployed youth.\

”In the last few years Twizza has recruited graduates and interns across the Engineering, Quality Control, HR as well as Finance Functions. Despite the current restrained economic climate, Twizza embarked on a Youth Employment initiative within the Commercial space where Sales Activator roles were created for newly qualified graduates. A total of 9 graduates were employed and spread across various regions through SA.

The new graduates are exposed to an intense induction programme followed by a continuous learning journey through the e-Learning Platform as well as on-the-Job Coaching in order to set them up for success.  At Twizza, our initiatives provide the necessary support for young people to take on their challenges and win.

Creating more opportunities for young people, and supporting young people to access these opportunities is a priority for Twizza. What we do as Twizza contributes towards improving the lives of young people and help build a South Africa we are proud to be a part of.

More about Twizza:

Founded in 2003 by Ken Clark in the Eastern Cape, the carbonated soft drink known as Twizza opened its second factory in 2012 in Middelburg Mpumalanga, and then a third plant opening in 2015 in Cape Town. Today, boasting one of the most sophisticated production lines in the country, Twizza’s extensive distribution network spans South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique.

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.