Many graduates are unemployed as most companies are looking for experienced people and yet the graduates cannot gain experience to become employable if they cannot get a job. It is this Catch 22 situation that has led the government to launch initiatives like the National Youth Development Agency and more recently the youth wage subsidy to attempt to make the youth more employable. But is this the only way? A Durban based company, 2Cana Solutions, has a unique formula that is proven to deliver results and assist graduates to cross the formidable bridge between graduation and productive employee.

2Cana Solutions is an IT company providing highly specialised financial services software and, as such, has a high demand for talented IT professionals. “In our industry attracting and retaining top talent is essential and our employees are  amongst our most valuable resources,” says Kenneth Jones, software development business unit manager of 2Cana. “The graduate recruitment process also ensures a steady stream of fresh ideas and results in a highly motivated workforce which in turn translates into above average staff retention – all significant assets to the productivity and performance of the business.”

“We aim to give them a good grounding for a successful career path and we want to establish the reputation that Durban – which is perhaps not considered the career hub of South Africa - is indeed a place where you can get into IT and have a fulfilling career.” Every year 2Cana Solutions approaches a number of different universities offering degree courses appropriate to the business and recruits graduates.

“We recruit from several universities including UKZN in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, Durban University of Technology, Wits, Rhodes and UCT,” Jones said. “The degree courses we favour are BSc (Computer Science), BSc (Information Technology) and BComm majoring in IT or ISTN.”
 Once a graduate is recruited, they complete a year-long training and development programme. This involves hands-on technical as well as soft skills training.  At the end of the first three months of classroom training the graduates will be ready to join a development team to begin implementing their training and work on the practical training for the remainder of the year. A senior staff member will facilitate the seamless movement from the classroom to the team where they are assigned a mentor to help them with their career progress.

Another important element is familiarising the graduates with the environment of the clients they will work with. During the year, they also attend many additional course modules in the areas of communication, time management, leadership and customer centricity. “It is now over 20 years since the launch of the first course and it is now well-honed,” explains Jones. “Reasonably speaking, the graduates start contributing productively after three months and become fully productive after perhaps six to nine months. The pace of progress is set by the graduates themselves.”

Once the graduates join teams, they receive consistent feedback from their mentors to help grow their skills. The mentors also help them adjust to the work environment and convert theoretical training into practical personal productivity. Over the years, many of the graduates have gone on to excel in the company. Three have become directors, seven out of the firm’s nine business unit managers started on the graduate programme and all of the ten current team leads - who are responsible for running projects with teams of up to 12 people - joined 2Cana as graduates. They all went through the internship process, joined teams, learnt and grew over the years.

The very first graduate who joined 2Cana 25 years ago is Tracey Muller who is now business unit manager of the project management/project support office unit.

“I am still learning, just maybe not the same things I covered in my initial months on the graduate programme!” says Muller. “2Cana provides an environment that supports continued growth and learning which is one of the many things that makes it an exciting and rewarding company to work for.”