Reconnecting young people and organisations

• Summary
• What the Demos report is about
• It's the knowledge economy, stupid
• What skills are needed?
• Supporting the wider development of young people
• Expectations and experiences of young people
• Reconnecting young people and organisations
• References

Summary

This article summarises the key points discussed in a recent report 'Working Progress: How to reconnect young people and organisations'. The study, from think-tank Demos, found there is a mismatch between graduates’ employment expectations and employers’ requirements. Yet, nine in ten graduates surveyed felt they were either very or quite well prepared for the world of work.

The study looks at ways to support the wider development of young people and gives recommendations as to how graduates and organisations can be reconnected.

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What the Demos report is about

The think tank Demos recently published the report 'Working Progress: How to reconnect young people and organisations' [1]. According to this study:

there is a damaging disconnect between young people and organisations - a disconnect between the training of today and the workplaces of tomorrow, and between the changing values of young people and the organisational cultures that they encounter.

At the heart of this disconnect is a lack of understanding on both sides of the other’s needs.

The study aims to develop a better understanding of this problem by drawing on young peoples’ own perspective and that of employers, and asks what can be done to help graduates survive and succeed in the workplaces of the future.

The study involved over 30 interviews with employers, human resources (HR) professionals, graduates and training providers, as well as three regional focus groups with young people who graduated from university in the past one to three years. In addition, GfK NOP undertook two polls on behalf of Demos. The first of these questioned 539 graduates about their experiences of entering the workplace. The second interviewed 50 HR directors or the most senior professional in charge of graduate recruitment in FTSE 200 companies or equivalent.

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It's the knowledge economy, stupid

The world of work is changing because of supply and demand. Supply is affected by economic restructuring and the ever greater requirements of employers. Demand is affected by the pressure on employers by young people to ‘loosen up’ and to facilitate flexible working and portfolio careers.

The Demos report points out that it is people, not machines, who have the ability to adapt to new situations, to generate new ideas and identify new opportunities. The 2005 Cox Review of Creativity in Business concluded that the UK has a ‘window of opportunity of between five and ten years to develop the kind of creative skills that will be necessary to compete in a global economy’ [2]. The thinking behind this assertion is that both the physical stock of investment and the mental stock of knowledge are capable of being replicated elsewhere in places where wages and other production costs are much lower. Would be employees in the UK, India or America are often in competition for the same jobs. There are no British jobs, only British workers [3] . The only possible sustainable competitive advantages are those which make better use of the stock of capital and ideas. This requires creativity and innovation.

The GfK NOP survey of HR directors of FTSE 200 companies clearly supported this trend. When asked what the most important skills and qualities will be for graduates in ten years’ time, creativity and innovation was ranked above literacy, numeracy, IT ability, communication skills, problem solving and multitasking.

Moreover, in an earlier Demos report on life skills, it is argued that how an employee might respond in a given situation has become more important than what s/he already knows [4]. Increasingly, it seems, employees need initiative as well as intelligence, creativity as well as qualifications. In response to this, ‘leadership’ is increasingly understood as an activity, rather than a position within an organisation’ [5].

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What skills are needed?

According to Leitch, educational attainment as measured by numbers qualifying and grades achieved at GCSE, A-Level and first degree are continually rising [6]. The GfK NOP survey carried out for Demos reveals that 48% of employers regard today’s graduates as more skilled than those of ten years ago, against 30% who regard them as less skilled. Fifty four per cent of employers, however, believe that it is harder to find an adequately skilled graduate than it was ten years ago, against 16% who regard it as easier. Is this apparent contradiction because skills are still not high enough or because different skills are needed?

Table 1 shows the responses from HR directors when asked what are the top three skills that they look for in a graduate employee, whilst Table 2 shows responses from recent graduates when they were asked which situations made them feel most awkward. The results indicate that communication skills, which is ranked top on the employer’s list, is clearly a concern for many graduates. Modern personal communications between young people favour text messaging and email, and is thought to discourage the development of oral skills.

Sixty four per cent of HR directors surveyed reported that graduates lack customer handling skills. This is followed by the ability to improvise, reported by 44% of employers. Neil Mullarkey, comedian and business trainer, is quoted in a case study in the Demos report emphasising the importance of the latter skills, ‘When you lose the fear of looking bad, you can look good’.

Employers in the Demos study also noted that the notion of ‘appraisal’ is one that many young people find difficult after their experience of ‘right or wrong’ answers in an exams-based education system.

The authors also speculate that the education system rewards listening to authority and doing as told, when told. There is a right answer: so independent thought is neither necessary nor desirable. This has consequences outside the classroom, where it is feared that young people are not equipped to judge independently and adapt to the risks around them.

Despite the concerns expressed by employers mentioned above, 91% of graduates polled by GfK NOP believe themselves as either very well or quite well prepared for the world of work. It seems, therefore, that not only are graduates under-prepared for what will be required of them, they are also under-prepared for how much there is to learn.

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Supporting the wider development of young people

The report argues that the focus of concern should be on which skills and aptitudes young people should be nurtured in, rather than simply offering more of the same. It is, however, recognised that soft skills cannot be developed in any meaningful way without their application to real world situations which simultaneously require the knowledge, understanding and application of hard skills. Tom Bentley is quoted [7],

It is impossible to develop or demonstrate emotional intelligence in the absence of some other question or issue. One cannot work in a team for its own sake.

Perceptions of inadequate imagination, creativity, independence, self-perception etc have led to the insertion of new modules into the National Curriculum. Citizenship, enterprise education and work experience are now compulsory. Packing these things into their own boxes, however, deprives them of any practical or conceptual link with other subjects. It also perpetuates the false distinction between knowledge and skills.

The report suggests three important characteristics at the heart of an approach to break down the line between knowledge and skills:

1) The right connections between schools and the wider community at every level to open up more varied learning opportunities and build understanding.

This will provide young people with opportunities to tackle a ‘genuine’ problem - as opposed to one set inside the structure of the national curriculum, which is undertaken in a controlled environment and is likely to have predetermined answers.

2) An accreditation system that sends the right signals to both professionals and young people and informs about the relative importance of these wider skills and aptitudes.

The report argues that the current examination system fails to convey the importance of a wider set of skills and aptitudes. Providing a greater range of learning opportunities can be seen as a risk - a diversion from ‘what really counts’ - but creative approaches legitimising and accrediting these activities can help.

3) Opportunities that give young people the chance to express themselves and explore their interests.

In the GfK/NOP survey, recent graduates collectively ranked ‘creativity’ only eighth out of 12 when asked to identify where their main skills lie. Many young people, however, demonstrate creativity in their lives beyond school - building websites or making music. The challenge is, therefore, to find ways of accrediting and valuing these informal examples and of finding ways of better harnessing young people’s interests at school.

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Expectations and experiences of young people

The Demos report pointed out that the challenge of understanding is a two-way street, and that there is a significant gap between employers’ offers and graduates’ expectations.

Employees nowadays want more autonomy and flexibility but also meaningful work. The Demos report cited a study from Common Purpose, the leadership development and training organisation, which has identified what it describes as a ‘quarter life crisis’, during which young, successful employees are likely to leave their pressurised jobs to embark on a search for meaning and personal expression through their work’ [8]. Research carried out by Business in the Community has also found that 88% of British employees believe it is important that the organisation they work for is committed to living its values, but only 45% believe their employer does [9].

Graduates are becoming increasingly interested in ‘the whole package’ offered by employers – a package that allows them to be personally fulfilled inside and outside work. In the focus groups carried out for the study, graduates stressed that one of the key attractions of graduate schemes was not just the career opportunities, but the knowledge that others ‘like me’ would be starting work at the same time – and that there would be people a year further on with tips and hints to share. Young people, thus, tend to benefit from a ‘one up, one across’ support structure.

Professional development, however, is not all that young people craved. Four in ten graduates in the GfK NOP survey reported that they found it difficult to maintain a work-life balance. The report suggests that work-life balance training could be incorporated into the initial induction for new employees.

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Reconnecting young people and organisations

To help address the disconnect between young people and organisations, the Demos report gives several recommendations:

• The Government should introduce a Skills Portfolio, to help capture some of the learning, skills and aptitudes that are often not reflected in traditional qualifications.
• Schools should hold termly equivalents of ‘parents’ evenings’ for local businesses and community organisations.
• The government should support the introduction of an Investors in Community accreditation for businesses, which would encourage a greater number of partnerships between the education system and wider community.
• Universities should draw on the work being done at universities like Glasgow Caledonian University and MIT-Cambridge to embed transferable, work-based skills into the curriculum. This would see undergraduates applying their skills in at least two or three real-life settings before receiving their degree, as an integral part of the curriculum.
• Companies should hold entrance interviews and skills audits for young people entering their organisations. This would not only help employers to find out what young people’s development needs are, it is also an opportunity for managers to find out what motivates their new recruits, as well as sending the message that it matters.
• Companies should recognise work–life balance as a set of skills as well as a set of legal obligations or company policy.
• Companies should learn from leading practice and provide ‘deep support’ for young people entering organisations, help solving people’s ‘life’ issues at work.
• Employers should work with each other, and with young people, to develop an online, open-access training resource that young people can consult when they need to, to supplement their own development.
• Organisations should find ways to support the peer-to-peer networks, both inside and outside their walls.
• Companies should consider organising themselves into networks, offering short-term ‘skills development’ contracts for new graduates, involving placements in a number of different companies or institutions.

In short, a constant dialogue and ongoing efforts at mutual understanding and support will be key to reconnecting young people and organisations. The report argues that reconnection does not just enable young people to be better prepared for the demands of today’s workplace. It potentially supports young people to shape the workplaces of tomorrow to meet their changing aspirations, and helps employers to ensure that education and training respond to the inevitable and as yet unseen challenges of the future.

References

1. Working Progress: How to reconnect young people and organisations, Sarah Gillinson and Duncan O’Leary, Demos, 2006.

2. G Cox, Cox Review of Creativity in Business: Building on the UK’s strengths (London: HM Treasury, 2005).

3. P Brown and H Lauder, Capitalism and Social Progress: The future of society in a global economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).

4. H Lownsbrough, G Thomas and S Gillinson, Survival Skills: Using life skills to tackle social exclusion (London: Demos, 2004).

5. P Skidmore, ‘Leading between’, in H McCarthy, P Miller and P Skidmore (eds), Network Logic: Who governs in an interconnected world? (London: Demos, 2004).

6. Leitch Review of Skills, Skills in the UK: The long-term challenge, interim report (London: HM Treasury, 2005).

7. T Bentley, Learning Beyond the Classroom: Education for a changing world (London: Routledge/Demos, 1998).

8. Common Purpose, Searching for Something: Exploring the career traps and ambitions of young people (London: Common Purpose, 2004).

9. Business in the Community, FastForward Research.

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