How cutting down on graduates is a dangerous game

The skills crisis

As England comes home defeated from the World Cup, it becomes so obvious that there is lack of good talent coming up through the ranks of sport in the UK and it seems that this skill shortage is hitting hard.

My eyes were recently drawn to an article in Construction Manager (my hubby is in the field) entitled, “Industry is storing up trouble over skills shortage, reveals CIOB survey.”

This survey reveals that the industry is laying the groundwork for an on-going skills crisis. A third of respondents said that the recession had resulted in reduction in graduates at their firms, while 20.3% said it had stopped altogether, with 32.9% saying that apprenticeships were down and 17.5% stating that they had stopped apprenticeships altogether.
Lyne Crowe, regional manager of the recruitment consultant Hays Constructions, says that the industry sees graduates and recruitment as a major cost, rather than a long term investment.

While I know nothing about the construction industry, my guess is that this trend is far-reaching and worldwide.

To me, cutting down on employing fresh talent seems totally counter intuitive. Not only do we create future problems for ourselves in terms of skills, but we also cut out the new creativity, energy and enthusiasm that young fresh meat can bring.

As a company, when the going gets tough do you cut your most valuable resource, the young fresh talent? What can you do to make sure this doesn’t happen?

The Innocent Culture

A company that youth want to work for.

I recently wrote an article on Innocent drinks and what they have done to make them a youth friendly company. How they have made their way into the hearts and minds of Generation Y.

Below are some videos which I think give a great insight into why.

Managing Gen Y

A case study on managing millennials and youth

This is a post that I have wanted to write for so long and no, I haven’t been procrastinating, I just needed to get an inside ticket, so to speak.

In the UK there are a few amazing companies that have been started by Gen X ( of Gen Jones for those of you who are into generations in a big way) that are walking and living examples of how to run companies that Generation Y want to work for. However, there is no company that has done it better then the guys at Innocent Drinks. They are living, breathing examples of building a business based on real values through and through and Gen Y fall over themselves to get a slice of the Innocent pie. Richard Reed, Adam Balloon, Jon Wright, now 36, started their business in 1998 with a clear goal to get fresh healthy drinks out to the public, and they did it in a very quirky way.

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Skilling the young workforce

You need two skills or more to survive in the marketplace!

by Denise L. Jackson- Certified Life/Career Coach-CPC

As the auto industry laid over hundreds of thousands of workers the USA cringed. These people worked on these assembly lines for 10, 15 and over 20 years. They are now without jobs and without skills to find something else to do. They will need to be trained all over. They will have to go back to school or obtained certifications to obtain the money they were accustomed to before being laid off.

It really had me thinking. What if I just had one skill and lost my job? How would I take care of my children, my home, my life? Fortunately I was always nosy. If I wanted to know something I would go to school and take a course. Before I purchased my home I received my certifications in Loan Processing and Loan Underwriting. No, I did not want to go into real-estate; I just wanted to understand the language that would be thrown my way while I was looking for my home. Now that I think about it I can get a job as a loan processor or loan underwriter. My point is this. As the young generation come up they have to have another skill level that will make them money just in case the other skill set falls through. This is something that will be the norm from now on.

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Are Generation Y really entitled?

Generation Y employees

Generation Y employees are always being discussed and yet again, more research has the papers saying yes, they do have a sense of entitlement.

There is a post that says:

“Gen Y workers get a bad rap in the workplace, with many a geezer complaining that their work ethic is less developed than their sense of entitlement.” But is that really fair?

Yes, according to new research that has yielded actual data to back up that notion.

Read more Are Generation Y really entitled?

Managing Youth – what can we learn from gaming

Managing Gen Y

I recently saw this post and it really got me thinking about how we can manage Gen Y better by taking lessons from video games.

And while, in my experience, I am not sure that Gen Y in the UK keeps score (as stated in the article), so to speak, I do think that bosses can certainly learn how to manage youth by pulling information from the gaming world. As for understanding youth by understanding gaming, well certainly that would apply to boys in the UK but for girls you need to understand social gaming, which is so different.

For me, what they gain from gaming is not necessarily to keep score but to get a reward to keep going. In this modern day world it is a well known fact that young workers will not just go along for the ride as they use to, most want feedback and rewards to keep them going and they want to feel excited. As far as I can see, it goes far deeper than merely keeping score; it is about feeling the buzz of being alive.

Read more Managing Youth – what can we learn from gaming

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