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Gaming used to help youth obtain jobs

Cape Town - A new online game - Team C4 - hopes to help more young South Africans to obtain jobs in the contact centre industry.

The industry is one of South Africa’s major sources of employment, especially for unemployed matriculants and employs more than 215 000 people in SA.

“The contact centre industry is creating over 5 000 new jobs every year to service the international business process outsourcing (BPO) market. Our biggest challenge is finding the right people to fill the available positions. We hope the Team C4 learning game, will help address this challenge," said Gareth Pritchard, CEO of Business Process Enabling SA (BPeSA) Western Cape, at the launch of the game on Thursday.

The game helps to identify talent suited for the industry. It assesses the core industry competencies numeracy, literacy, problem-solving and language capabilities. It is regarded as a cost effective recruitment tool and will be piloted in the Western Cape and rolled out across the country later this year.

The game was developed Formula D interactive, which specialises in learning games.

“We needed a funder who not only believed in the potential of the industry, but was visionary enough to see the gamification innovation tool that could attract unemployed youth. The Rockefeller Foundation saw the project as a perfect fit with their Digital Jobs Africa initiative and decided to support us,” said Pritchard.

READ: W Cape contact centre industry shines

The investment forms part of the foundation’s broader strategy of influencing social change through impact sourcing. This is an employment practice through which companies connect disadvantaged youth with a lot of potential to jobs which they would otherwise not have access to.

“We have identified the contact centre industry as having the potential to make a difference through impact sourcing for thousands of young South Africans trying to enter the job market. We look forward to continuing our work with BPeSA on this initiative,” said Mamadou Biteye, managing director of The Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office.

According to Michael Wolf, founder and creative director of Formula D, so far the feedback has been very positive.

“Our industry has always struggled to identify relevant talent on scale, but through Team C4 I believe we may have found the answer. Not only will the game help the industry in sourcing talent, more importantly it will show the participants whether they are suited to a career in a contact centre or not. By finding the right people upfront we believe we will be able reduce attrition and cut costs,” Tebogo Molapisane, CEO of BPeSA National said at the launch.

“This is a first for our industry in South Africa and I will be watching the pilot very closely over the next few months. With most of the people employed in the industry coming straight out of matric, I believe we have the perfect tool to reach the youth and look forward to replicating its success across South Africa in 2015 and beyond."

He added that, although the Western Cape is still the benchmark for the industry in SA, KwaZulu-Natal is taking off and Gauteng will follow.

The game can be downloaded on www.teamc4.co.za and via Google Play.

ALSO READ: SA outsourcing can capitalise on adding value

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