admin
Julie Linn Teigland
Young people bring unique understanding and skills to businesses.
Supporting and mentoring young people is a win-win for businesses and a younger generation facing systemic barriers to decent employment.
Youth bring critical perspectives and unique skills, such as a high adaptability to change, which complement the experience of older workers.
Businesses around the world face daunting challenges.
Rising geopolitical tensions and rapid technological changes disrupt markets, while the climate emergency and growing inequalities create an increasingly uncertain future. But companies have a huge and largely untapped resource at hand in the form of young people, whose innovative thinking can have a dramatic impact on driving inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
By supporting and mentoring this younger generation, corporations around the world can empower the leaders of tomorrow.
It is a win-win for both sides; by giving young people the opportunity to thrive economically, businesses equip themselves with the skill sets they need to succeed in the decades ahead.
Young people bring critical perspectives that are often dramatically different to those of older generations, especially when it comes to digital and societal expectations.
Leveraging these insights is an essential ingredient in business plans that are resilient and adaptable in a fast-changing world.
This goes far beyond the old-fashioned notion of seeing young people simply as barometers of future demand – or the customers of tomorrow.
Rather, it recognises that they bring unique understandings, such as technological fluency and high adaptability to change, which complement the experience and institutional knowledge of older workers.
By giving them a real voice in decision-making, enlightened companies can create a multigenerational workforce with an unparalleled range of insights and capabilities.
The opportunity is greatest when companies include young people in strategic planning from the start; the earlier we bring them on board, the earlier we can bake in their thinking, and the better the outcomes are that we will achieve together.
The potential for using the skills of the young in this way is evident from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Shapers Impact Report, which highlights the priorities of young people and demonstrates the many ways they are already delivering meaningful change.
Hundreds of youth-led projects, for example, are helping local communities in areas from fighting climate change and providing disaster relief, to improving education, and harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.
However, while young people have a passion to effect change, they often lack access to the means to make their ideas a reality.
This is where companies should be stepping in with support, mentorship, and long-term employment opportunities. In this way, the private sector can play a vital role in overcoming some of the many obstacles facing young people around the world.
Importantly, executives and board members should think about this as not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.
The message is simple: It will help future-proof your company by improving your corporate strategy, and buttressing your long-term commercial goals.
In the past decade, its 25 international company members have created more than 40 million professional development opportunities for 18- to 30-year-olds all over the world. Initiatives from a wide variety of global companies have nurtured talent, and brought young people into the workplace across diverse industries.
The Alliance and the Global Shapers Community took things to the next level in 2024, by launching an annual Innovation Prize to empower young innovators — while complementary schemes such as the Green Skills Passport and Code4YOUth hackathon projects are helping to prepare youngsters to work in the green and digital economies.
But all this is just a start. There is huge scope to involve more organisations in such initiatives. Doing so would not only address the systemic barriers facing millions of young people, but also equip member companies to face the future with confidence.
The hurdles now facing young people are certainly daunting. Despite a 15-year low in global youth unemployment, a large percent of the world’s young people are still not engaged in employment, education or training.
What is more, young women account for two-thirds of this total, underscoring a worrying gender gap that could take decades to close.
Even when they are employed, young people’s work often falls well short of what they are seeking, fuelling frustration and discontent.
Worldwide, more than half of young workers are in informal employment, and the situation is especially bad in low-income countries, where three in four young workers will get only a self-employed or temporary paid job.
Businesses can play a crucial role here, by bridging employment gaps, leveraging training programmes to develop employable skills, and fostering job creation.
At the same time, the demands of younger generations for meaningful work can help companies become better employers.
We are living in uncertain and challenging times, and the pace of change is only going to accelerate.
More than ever, businesses that aspire to a long-term, sustainable future need to link arms with the young to help solve society’s biggest problems — because truly transformative leadership is about empowering those who will shape tomorrow. — World Economic Forum
Online Reporter