On Wednesday November 24th, the YIN organized a webinar gathering 20 participants from Vietnam and the Philippines, to share about how to increase the “match” between excluded Youth and companies.
After presenting the recent updates regarding the impact of YIN members on Youth inclusion, the attendees could hear a testimony from Gaelle Muraca, LP4Y volunteer for 7 years and Project Manager at the Catalysts Co., a consulting structure working for social and environmental positive impact of companies, organisations and institutions.
Gaelle exposed the importance for the companies to act, given the increasing number of Youth who need support due to Covid 19 devastating impact on employment and education.
> 375 million Youth were already working in insecure, unsafe, informal, indecent conditions, representing 75% of the 500 million Youth working. With the crisis, 42% of the 500 million Youth got fewer incomes (the salary being already low given young worker status), and 45 million lost completely their jobs.
> 300 million Youth (mostly women) were not employed, educated, or trained. The crisis increased the level of exclusion for those who were living in difficult conditions and expanded the number of Youth without resources or support from relatives.
> For the remaining Youth who were studying, most of the educational systems switched to digital with the crisis. Deprived of digital equipment, internet or electricity most of the time, the excluded Youth are the most concerned by drop outs, a phenomenon largely observed in South East Asia.
As a result, the crisis definitely worsened the living conditions of hundreds of million Youth but companies can act and represents in fact, key players. The companies can for instance:
> Educate/train = facilitating school-to-work process through an internship, supporting digitalization, proposing on-the-job training, bringing their own knowledge, ensuring job readiness of the students…
> Promote or provide safe and decent jobs: supporting the quality of transitions for young people entering a job, securing access to social protection and promoting decent working condition standards …
> Support women: implementing special support for young mothers, having the parental policy, facilitating female growth in the company and promoting women, settling goals for gender diversity, ...
These represent some actions on a large variety of alternatives and all companies can find a way to support the inclusion of excluded Youth.
Gaelle shared then stories of excluded Youth, highlighting the decisive impact of employment on their living conditions, for them but also their families.
“As companies, you can change lives, you have the power to transform the futures of Youth who ask for the chance to integrate companies to show how committed and talented they are. This is something that I have seen so many times during my years with the Youth and the impact is huge, not only for the Youth, but also for the companies, with so many benefits linked to diversity.”
Obviously, hiring different profiles is not easy. This asks for preparation, for understanding, in order to make this recruitment a real strength for a team or company. Actually successful processes result from experiences with the Youth: the more you know them, the more they will impress by their capabilities, what will change your perceptions regarding excluded Youth".
After this presentation, the attendees could discuss practices and tips in order to increase the "match" between Youth and Companies. As part of the highlights of the discussions, the members notified the importance to:
> Increase the professional exposure to support vocations and ambitions
> Advocate and sensitize other companies or team workers in order to enlarge commitment and develop opportunities for the Youth
> Train and develop step by step programs to support skill acquisitions or select the right candidates
> Focus on values, attitude and motivation rather than skills during interviews
> Start with internships to test the “matching” with the Youth but also to identify the jobs, responsibilities and tasks adapted to them
> Enable projections to see potential or motivations
> Give confidence to the Youth and the right to make mistakes
> Give time for the Youth to reveal themselves to truly perceive talents
More details will be available to our members.
We would like to thank all the members who joined this webinar and look forward to seeing you all, in December 14th for the launch of the LP4Y White paper and in January for our next International YIN event!
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