Engaging, motivating and retaining young adults in our workplaces

An issue I hear a lot at the moment is the difficulty that many employers are having engaging with and motivating young adults entering their workforces, and with retaining and inspiring them as they progress through their initial training periods and onto their experienced careers. The mindset and expectations of young adults seems to have changed rapidly over the last 2 or 3 years and employers need to respond to this to ensure their talent pipelines stay relevant and robust.

Here are a few resources that I hope you will find useful, feel free to share with colleagues and contacts:

  1. “How young adults think” – First Intuition employer speaker forum from 8.30am to 10am on Tuesday 7th February

I am putting together some expert speakers to discuss ‘what makes young adults tick’ and to give tips on how to engage with them, motivate them and retain them.

We will be promoting this event in the New Year but I wanted to give you plenty of warning so that you can get it into your diary as I think it will be a very valuable discussions at a time when many employers will be at a crucial stage of the recruitment process for 2023 intakes. For anyone who can’t attend live we will record the session and send a link to everyone registered.

Anyone who would like to attend can register a free place here

 

  1. Recording of webinar on ‘supercharging recruitment and retention of trainees’

I attended a webinar a couple of weeks held by the ICAEW on recruitment and retention of young adults joining the workforce as trainees. I found it fascinating and filled 13 pages with notes!

You can find the recording here (you have to register in order to view the recording) which I think is well worth an hour of your time if you can spare it. It’s not particularly specific to accountancy and has relevance for any sector bringing Gen Z into their workplaces.

 

  1. A few reports produced recently look at how the experiences and expectations of young adults has changed in just the last couple of years
  • I thought that this recent report titled ‘Generation Isolation’ by national youth charity OnSide contained some really shocking statistics which I think we need to bear in mind when onboarding new cohorts:
    • 73% of young people (ages 11 to 18) spend most of their free time on screens
    • only a small minority say they spend most of their time involved in activities that might build ‘employability skills’ such as face-to-face communication and teamwork
    • 77% spend most of their free time at home
    • 19% spend most of their free time alone
    • only 13% spend most of their free time in person with anyone other than parents/family/carers
    • 56% reported high or very high feelings of anxiety
    • 41% do not have opportunities to meet new people and make friends
  • The Bright network recently produced this report on ‘what do graduates want?’
    • The report highlights the importance to graduates of being able to build a professional network, something that prospective employers might be able to talk about during interview and onboarding
    • There is a perception that lack of work and sector experience is a handicap, something interviewers for entry-level positions might be able to reassure candidates about
    • Their concerns about lack of inclusivity in the application process, and in the onboarding phase of starting a new role
  • Hays released the results of their 2022 survey ‘what workers want’ which you can find here. As well as showing that 90% of employers are concerned about skills shortages, this report seems to show that there is a disconnect between the skills development opportunities that employers think they are providing compared with what their employees believe they are receiving:
    • 94% of employers say that they invest in their team’s upskilling. Only 33% of employees feel that they have a clear skills development plan
    • 82% of employers say they provide learning resources to their staff. Only 54% of employees say that their employer provides learning resources
    • 62% of employers are satisfied with the learning resources they make available to staff. Only 50% of employees say that they are satisfied with those resources
    • 78% of employers believe the learning materials they provide meet their employees’ needs. Only 59% of employees think those materials meet their needs.

 

  1. And there are a couple of further resources on attracting and managing Gen Z joiners

 

Hope some of that proves useful, and I hope to see you at our webinar on 7th February if not before!

Yours

g

Gareth John BA FCA

Chief Executive

(he/him)

First Intuition

garethjohn@fi.co.uk

www.firstintuition.co.uk