In today’s competitive job market with double digit youth unemployment rate of over 45% on a rise in South Africa, one of the leading business process outsourcing companies, Merchants has introduced an innovative way of enhancing youth employability.

 

Merchants, which has been creating and managing contact centre operations worldwide for blue-chip clients since 1981, has embarked on a sustainable skills development strategy setting up and operating the Merchants Academy, which was launched in October 2021. The Academy has triple accreditation and has since 2021 trained 10 000 youth in skills ranging from contact centre support to leadership, management, digital and work-readiness.

 

These corporate pioneers have also made strong strides towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4, which focuses on quality education, SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 13 (climate action).

 

Dr Sydwell Shikweni, vice-president for transformation at Merchants, says the team conceptualised the academy to provide skills to learners beyond our business requirements, and more importantly digital skills and green skills for the future world of work: “We needed to build a talent pipeline to bring the right skills to the organisation, while externally we also recognised that a massive chunk of South African youth are unemployed and they need the private sector to bridge the gap and provide solutions.”

The Merchants Academy offers both nationally and internationally accredited training programmes, giving learners and unemployed youth a chance to step up, become part of the workforce and ultimately contribute to the South African economy. The academy offers seven flagship formal qualifications, including technical support, IT operational, management, business administration, basic computer skills, sales and the fundamentals of contact centre work, as well as more than 200 short courses across several key industries.

Merchants has also built a Township Hub in Soweto where youth are introduced to the world of technology servicing multichannel and complex customer solutions, with another such hub planned for later this year in Alexandra. The company is set to establish 10 such operational hubs in townships throughout South Africa, creating thousands of direct jobs and creating small and medium enterprises to stimulate the circular economy  – this will ultimately help the company achieve its goal of 40% impact sourcing and training 50,000 youth by 2026. Merchants are co-signatories to the Department of Trade Industry and Competition Global Business Services (DTIC GBS) master plan, which aims to create 500,000 jobs by 2030.

 

Shikweni says that through the guidance of the United Nations Global Compact Network South Africa (GCNSA), Merchants has gained valuable insights into the SDGs and how to build sustainable strategies to outlast its leaders.

 

In addition to focusing on enhancing quality education (SDG 4), Merchants has taken a keen interest in SDG 5, which relates to improving gender equality.

 

“Achieving gender equality requires embedding it as a fundamental pillar throughout an organisation, rather than doing just enough to comply with broad-based black economic empowerment legislation,” says Shikweni.

 

“My chief task was to fully integrate gender equality into every division in the organisation, and it worked.” Today, women make up nearly 70% of the workforce at Merchants – an impressive feat for a company of over 6 000.

 

Shikweni says joining the GCNSA has also helped Merchants shape its sustainability strategy and achieve these impressive results.

 

Of his personal experience, he says, “Since joining the sustainability space, I have enrolled in the United Nations University’s Global Leadership Training Programme for Sustainable Development in Africa, and have gained valuable insights that continue to challenge my thinking. I am constantly learning from the UN Global Compact Academy’s resources, which often come in handy in keeping me sharp in implementing our new and improved sustainability strategy.”

 

And there’s more: Merchants is working hard to realise SDG 13 – “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.

 

Says Shikweni, “Our journey started with the basics: we’ve switched to energy-efficient lighting; we’re reducing paper usage by digitising documentation and communications; we’re engaging our landlords about using renewable energy; and we’ve also planted trees outside the office. These are steps that might seem modest at first glance, but their importance becomes clear when considering the broader impact on combating climate change.”

 

The company has also invested in developing eco-warriors in high schools. “For the past three years, we’ve been running a sustainability competition in high schools that encourages students to develop innovative ideas relating to sustainability. Through this competition, we’ve seen a willingness from the younger generation to learn, explore and be part of the solution.”

 

Looking ahead, Merchants wants to continue building its internal capacity for sustainability measures across various divisions. “We want to ensure the message of sustainability is one that is sung forevermore across our organisation. Ours is to entrench and inculcate sustainability as a standard practice in our daily lives and challenge our employees to do the same,” says Shikweni.

 

“Merchants has only just begun. We’re going sustainability in action; our vision is to drive social and economic transformation in a significant way.”

 

Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network South Africa, UN Global Compact Network South Africa, Dr Achieng Ojwang, acknowledges Merchants’ efforts in advancing the SDGs and going beyond compliance.

 

“Companies have a duty to go beyond compliance as they do business. We are proud of the initiatives taken by Merchants to contribute positively to society. We call to more companies to implement the SDGs and UN Global Compact Principles’ she notes.

Dr Achieng Ojwang, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network South Africa