Work4All – changing unemployable youth into great staff!

Yamkela Pan, far left, and her learners at the recent Inspiration Awards 2015.

ShowMe East London recently attended the ‘ForGood Awards’ held at Mercedes Benz which was a fantastic event celebrating the many wonderful NPO’s doing fantastic work in our city and the surrounding areas.  One of the guest speakers however grabbed our attention when she stood up and made the claim that …

It is not that there is no employment opportunities in East London, it is that the candidates are unemployable.

Yamkela Pan, who made this comment, works for a NPO called Work4All which takes school leavers and graduates who are struggling to get into the job market, and helps them to gain the attributes and behaviours to make them more employable.  In essence, Work4All is a type of ‘bridging program’ that helps these young adults to understand the attributes and level of professionalism that business requires from it’s employees and helps manage the candidates expectations when entering the job market.  This is their story.

Work4All was originally founded by the Sophumelela Centre with the aim of creating employment for HIV and AIDS affected clients that visited their clinic. The centre created jobs – with people working for the Sophumelela Centre directly – in a number of different areas including gardening, general maintenance and sewing projects etc but, due to a lack of funds, the project came to an end.

A new, more sustainable model – a learner apprenticeship program – was launched in 2013 and is still going strong. Leading this program is 23-year-old Yamkela Pan, a vibrant and enthusiastic young woman who has a passion for people and pours everything she has into helping people better themselves and their lives. Growing up in Queenstown and doing a BComm in Law at the Free State University, Yamkela had every intention of practicing as a lawyer one day… until she relocated to East London and realised that God had other plans for her…

Work4All is an East London-based non-profit organisation and Yamkela works as a Field Operator –  she is very much at the forefront of the organisation, going out to different businesses all over the city and marketing Work4All. She encourages companies to come on board and act as host employers in the apprenticeship program and liaises with them regularly once they take on learners.

The learner apprenticeship program starts with a single CV and a willingness to work.

People between the ages of 18 and 35 (the age sometimes increases and placement availability is dependent on the host employer) drop off their CVs at the offices or are encouraged and submitted via different churches. Once the CVs have been received,  Work4All contacts the candidates and invites them for an interview and orientation. The orientation stage prepares the candidate for possible work placement, a crucial stage of the program where they are given the option to leave if they don’t feel it’s for them, and indeed, many do leave.

It is also during this stage that the candidate is asked – “What do you want to be when you are older? What job would you like to be doing?” Dependent on the response from the candidate, eg. a receptionist, mechanic, Work4All then contacts a suitable business to find out if they would be willing to take them on as a learner.

And so the apprenticeship program begins, with the learner working for the host employer for six months, during which period they also receive training from a training provider at Work4All (two days each month). The host employer pays Work4All R400 per week, R250 of which goes to the learner and R150 to the training provider.

Yamkela explains that the low income is a contributing factor when learners make the decision to join the program or not – unfortunately a percentage tend to think of the here and now rather than what might come after the six initial months. However, that said, Work4All has a successful placement rate with most learners staying on the program and continuing on at the same company as a permanent employee. Yamkela stresses that during the first six months, she stays in constant contact with the host employer and learner. After that period is up, and the decision has been made to take the learner on permanently, she still stays in touch with them periodically. She says this is vital in keeping abreast of news, i.e. if one of her former learners was retrenched due to company downsizing, she can immediately look for another host employer without them having to do the training again.

When it comes to placements with host employers, Yamkela strives to keep learners in the surrounding areas of where they live to keep the cost of travelling to a minimum. She focuses on SME’s (small medium enterprises) as host employers and says that most of her placements are in the automotive trade, for example panel beaters or spray painters. That said, the majority of CVs that she receives are from females and she is always on the lookout for host employers who might take on female learners as telephonists or receptionists.

Yamkela pours her heart and soul into helping the candidates and wants nothing more than to see them thriving in their new placements. She tells me how wonderful it is to be able to make a difference in the lives of an entire family from having guided one member in a better direction and to a better future.

A rewarding job indeed but a tough one. Yamkela explains that it’s difficult to change the mind set and attitude of some people, to let them know that they are not necessarily ‘entitled’ to a job. She confirms that there are indeed, many jobs available in East London but that a percentage of people are simply unemployable because of their mind set. With the right attitude, things can turn around… with the right attitude, one could accept that they might spend some time being a tea lady before they become an accountant… and this right attitude will ultimately come to the attention of the employer.

Yamkela currently has many candidates ready for placements with potential host employers and you can find many of them on the job section of our website. Yamkela posts candidate information and position wanted on a regular basis, so if you are a company looking for employees with the right attitude, look no further… help Yamkela and Work4All help others who will ultimately help you!