Deadline: 13-Sep-2024
The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) is looking for an experienced consultancy firm to conduct qualitative research on Youth retention strategies (including both strategies explicitly designed for retention, as well as job quality improvement strategies that could contribute to improving retention) in the CFYE portfolio and beyond.
Through this framework CFYE encourages Implementing Partners (IPs) to apply a Youth and Gender Lens to the journey of youth in their company and optimize the experience of youth employees in their company.
The insights from this assignment will advance CFYE and partners’ understanding of workable solutions to the challenge of youth retention. They will use these insights to contribute to tools and solutions that can be applied by their IPs and ultimately by other actors working on youth employment interventions.
The assignment outputs should show the business case for investing in youth retention strategies and share practical tools to enable action, including through a clear overview with examples of costed retention solutions. Insights and recommendations will be made available to the wider ecosystem of youth employment actors, so they can apply this knowledge and contribute to sustainable youth employment creation.
Objectives
- Under the Youth Quality Work Journey, CFYE distinguishes 3 stages: how to attract youth, how to select youth and how to retain youth. CFYE identified 10 topics that are key in optimizing the stages in the youth quality work journey. 6 out of these 10 topics could support companies to improve their retention rates, notably: Young Professional Development Opportunities, Peer Networks, Space for Youth Voice, Youth focused secondary benefits, Young Parent Specific Benefits and Youth Focused Respect and Dignity at Work. Gender Inclusive Practices are important to enhance retention of young women.
- This specific assignment focuses on how companies can retain youth. The objective is to gain insight into:
- What are effective strategies for youth retention? (within or outside of the topics referenced above)
- What effective strategies are implemented in CFYE portfolio? (By providing examples of costed business cases of retention strategies).
- How can companies or organizations decide which retention strategies are suitable for them both from an operational and financial perspective.
- To achieve these objectives the following learning questions were identified:
- What are generally seen as (cost-)effective youth retention strategies (outside of the CFYE portfolio)? And how can these be dis-aggregated across sectors/business models/gender?
- What critical challenges are their Implementing Partners facing around youth retention?
- What retention strategies are their Implementing partners deploying, and to what extent are they successful?
- What other job quality investments are companies making that contribute to improved youth retention?
- What gender inclusion strategies are effective in youth retention?
- What is the business case for youth retention strategies?
Funding Information
- The total estimated budget for this assignment is 35.000 euro including any logistic arrangements or tools required. No travel is foreseen as this research can be remotely implemented.
Timeline
- Estimated starting date in October 2024 until end of February 2025
Expected Outputs
- Output 1: Desk study report (max 15 pages) on effective youth retention strategies across different employment types, business models and sectors.
- The report should answer the following questions: What challenges are companies facing when it comes to youth retention? Why should companies invest in youth retention strategies? What are generally seen as effective youth retention strategies (outside of the CFYE portfolio) and how do they relate to job quality? What gender inclusion strategies are effective in retention? The report should give an overview of evidence base for effective retention strategies.
- Output 2: 9 case studies (1 page each) of implementing partners youth retention strategies.
- These case studies should analyse the retention strategies these partners are deploying, whether they are effective and what the business case for investing in these strategies is. 3 case studies should focus on Digital sector companies, 3 on Green sector companies and 3 on company strategies for gender inclusion in relation to youth retention.
- Output 3: Updated and improved database of solutions related to the Youth Quality Work Journey.
- CFYE has started drafting a simple database with youth retention activities implemented by IPs. Based on the desk study and the case studies this database should be updated with additional external and internal strategies and improved to make it fit for external use. It should also include filter-options, allowing organizations to create a shortlist of relevant solutions for them.
Key Activities
- Desk research of relevant methodologies for cost-benefit analysis of (youth) retention strategies in the wider ecosystem
- Present custom research design for this specific assignment
- Desk analysis of available research/evidence on effective retention strategies within the youth employment ecosystem.
- Cooperation with CFYE research intern to access and analyse qualitative data of retention strategies from existing reports.
- Analysis of current CFYE Youth Impact Growth Matrix results for 43 CFYE Implementing Partners,
- Conduct 9 short case studies (incl. quick cost-benefit analysis) of tried and tested retention strategies of 9 CFYE Implementing Partners under three themes: Digital, Green and Gender.
- Present preliminary findings on effective retention strategies to CFYE portfolio. Utilize this session to collect additional input.
- Update and improve the CFYE Solutions Database with new insights on youth retention. Develop into tool with a practical and simple decision-making tree to arrive at a shortlist of relevant retention solutions split out across relevance for type of employment/business models and gender inclusion. This database does not need to be costed.
- Present the result at CFYE internal meeting and potentially in an external facing platform (eg. Podcast or conference).
Criteria
- Extensive experience with relevant research assignments in the (youth and women) employment domain in an international context
- On the ground presence is not required for this assignment but specific research experience in Africa and the Middle East being a plus.
- Experience with relevant research methodologies, including cost-benefit analysis of employment strategies
- Ability to process existing reports and raw data from interviews and the draft database into attractive, easy to understand recommendations
- Cultural sensitivity: Respect for diverse cultures, perspectives, and experiences, especially within the specified regions.
- Demonstrate experience in working with private sector/companies on research assignments.
For more information, visit CFYE.