LET’S BECOME ‘YOUNG EMPLOYEE FRIENDLY’

It’s great news that economies are picking up and that we are seeing a reduction in unemployment.  Sadly, however, the group of people not benefitting from this is young people.  In the UK, 24,000 more people have got jobs in the past three months so overall unemployment reduced but unemployment amongst those aged 16-24 actually increased.  In the US, 3.5 million people in that age group are classified as unemployed.

As employers, we not only have to participate in all the wonderful apprenticeship and internship schemes available, we also have to make our workplaces ‘young employee friendly’.  That means providing a job and also providing support to help young people integrate into the workplace and get the best experience possible.

At thebigword we support the Apprentice scheme in the UK, and the Internship Programmes in the US.  We have also built great relationships with Colleges and Universities, learning from them about what young people need and helping them understand employer engagement.

We currently have 32 Apprentices in our UK operation and have had a number of Interns working successfully in our New York office.  We’ve formed a Working Group to help our young employees work through their contracts and learn the skills to transition into a job.  At present, around half of all our trainees go on to permanent employment with thebigword.

A trainee contract of any kind is exactly what it says – it’s about training.  Performance issues have to be addressed but not typically through the process used with the rest of the business because it’s not appropriate for trainees in their first job.  Helping young people understand workplace conduct and giving them regular feedback is much more effective than formal warnings. 

thebigword has already won a raft of awards for our work with young people including two Apprenticeships awards.  We were also extremely proud to have won a Gold ‘Stevie’ American Business Award this year for our Corporate Social Responsibility programme, which involves all our employees.

Young people are the lifeblood of our companies.  We need their ideas and enthusiasm and energy and in just a few years’ time, we will need them to take our jobs and become the next generation of business, political and cultural leaders.

If this is going to happen, we all need to act now.