HR Pulse

Protea Hotels Partners with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator to Create Employment Opportunities

News is often dominated by depressing information about job losses and rising unemployment in South Africa. While youth unemployment is a big challenge and can feel insurmountable, every day businesses develop and implement real and pragmatic solutions to move themselves and the country forward. It is particularly uplifting when new work opportunities are being created for young South Africans who would not otherwise be able to secure sustainable employment.

Cheryl Buynak, Group Executive - Human Resources for Protea Hotels, Middle East & Africa, Marriott International, Inc., is involved in a project to source and upskill thousands of people for careers in Marriott International for the Middle East and Africa.

“With this in mind,” she says, “we have started identifying potential candidates for employment in our South African operations – Protea Hotels – and in our two planned Marriott-branded hotels to be opened in the next few years in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg.”

To identify potential candidates for entry-level jobs such as waiters, clerks, cleaning staff, IT interns and kitchen assistants, Protea Hotels has joined forces with Harambee, a youth employment accelerator, that connects employers seeking entry-level talent to high-potential young people who have been locked out of the formal economy.

According to Keith Rosmarin, a key account executive with Harambee: “We recruit candidates where existing corporate recruitment networks do not reach, including young people with a matric but no experience. We assess their competencies and match them to jobs where they are most likely to succeed. We then deliver high quality work readiness programmes that directly address the risks identified by employers in taking on first-time workers.”

The bridging that Rosmarin refers to includes things like customer orientation and English fluency needed for success in a hospitality environment. Harambee’s proven assessment methodology – having conducted nearly 1 million assessments on 200,000 work-seekers – scientifically matches candidates to opportunities where they are most likely to succeed. Buynak comments: “We started working with Harambee recently to recruit new staff for our Protea Hotels, and we like what we’ve seen. By the time candidates actually join the company, they have had so much input from Harambee in terms of testing for their suitability for the job and their ‘fit’ with the organisation, as well as other skills, such as confidence and knowledge of hospitality. The transition into the world of work is much smoother than we’ve previously experienced with first-time employees.”

This approach also improves retention, which is critical for ensuring sustainable employment and improved livelihoods. Since a Harambee candidate undergoes a fit-for-purpose programme before being placed with an employer, the likelihood that the person will succeed is much higher, and so the Harambee record reflects far less attrition among entry-level staff.

To attract more young South Africans to the hospitality industry, which has significant growth opportunities for the future, Protea Hotels and Harambee have joined forces with local NGO Project Playground, for a careers advice day scheduled for Thursday, 17 March. The initiative targets teenagers from Langa, Cape Town, and is geared to help them understand the career opportunities available in the local and global hospitality industry.

Project Playground, founded by Frida Vesterberg and Princess Sofia of Sweden, arranges after-school activities for children, geared to improve their self-esteem through meaningful programmes. Project Playground’s main focus is the rights of children and their long-term development.

Protea Hotels, a proud member of Marriott International, seeks to continue to develop the future stars of Langa in the field of hospitality. “We saw the opportunity to add value in collaborating with Project Playground to enhance the great work that they do by offering these young men and woman who successfully complete high school an opportunity to enter the hospitality industry,“ Buynak explains. “Young adults interested in our industry have the opportunity to study through Protea via its in-house hospitality programme either to become a chef or to specialise in various disciplines in the hospitality field once they have completed the 3-year training programme.”