Joburg-based youth employment accelerator, Harambee, is making the task of finding employees a little easier for small South African businesses with a new online SME platform.

Harambee Business assists small businesses in registering, contracting and logging their talent requirements in an easy and cost effective manner.

Since 2011, Harambee has connected 25 000 young people with job opportunities in over 250 of South Africa’s top companies.

Over one million assessments for over 200 000 young work seekers have been performed since inception, creating a large database of information that enables a scientific approach to the issue of matching job demand with the supply of work seekers. Harambee now brings those insights to the SME space as it believes this sector is the most likely to provide real employment growth.

“For smaller businesses, hiring new staff is risky and resource-intensive compared to corporates. They need workers that are more versatile, have more industry experience and are more self-directed. Yet they don’t have the resources to find and develop such employees,” Alex Beyers, Harambee’s SME sector lead said in a statement.

“At Harambee we are part of the solution space – we help to decrease the risk of an initial hiring mistake by identifying those attributes in candidates that increase the chances of success. In the case of SMEs, much of that attribute is the ability to self-direct,” he said.

The site features skilled members of Harambee’s programme.

Other recent additions to Harambee’s SME offering include an SME Knowledge Centre – including an HR toolkit, policies and procedures templates, highly subsidised fees – and assistance to both candidate and employer through the hiring process.