In May 2017, ManpowerGroup launched a new ‘Ready for Work’ award with Junior Achievement, celebrating students across Europe who are building the skills required to be work-ready upon graduation.
Known as Young Enterprise in the UK, the three-year partnership across 31 countries will recognise different aspects of work readiness each year, starting with learnability – the desire and ability to continually learn new skills to stay employable for the long term.
Ninety-three percent of Millennials see ongoing skills development as being so important that they would give up their own time and money to upskill. ManpowerGroup is also providing access to the proprietary Learnability Quotient assessment to all students so they can find out what type of learner they are.
“Plenty has been written predicting the future of work and the impact of digitisation and automation, but our most pressing issue is telling young people that they will need new skills and they will need them more often, to stay employable for the long term,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO.
“In this Skills Revolution, 65% of children will do jobs that do not even exist yet. Helping young people upskill and adapt to a fast-changing world of work will be the defining challenge of our time. Their ability to learn, apply and adapt will be critical.
Developing entrepreneurship and employability
“As employers, we have a responsibility to help young people become work-ready, not just graduate-ready. We’re delighted to continue our longstanding relationship with Junior Achievement to build learnability for thousands and get young people across Europe ready for work.”
The ManpowerGroup Signature award is part of Junior Achievement Europe’s flagship ‘Company of the Year’ competition. This encourages youths to develop business skills by setting up and running a mini company for a year. ManpowerGroup leaders in more than 20 countries have committed time and resources to run work-readiness programmes. They also lead judging panels celebrating the skills of more than 30,000 young people across the region.
Finalists in each participating country met in Brussels in July 2017 at the ‘Company of the Year’ competition to compete in front of a global panel. Jonas Prising announced the winner and presented ManpowerGroup’s ‘Ready for Work’ award. The 2017 winner was Team Flair from Malta. Their innovative product, ‘A Cards’, are revision flashcards incorporating psychological self-testing. These are designed to build employability, and are endorsed by the Ministry of Education. The winning students will continue to develop their skills and nurture learnability through work experience and coaching offered by ManpowerGroup volunteers across Europe.
“Collaborating with leading companies such as ManpowerGroup enables us to develop entrepreneurship and employability programmes, helping students to understand the relevance of what they are studying in school,” said Caroline Jenner, CEO for Junior Achievement Europe.
“Thanks to ManpowerGroup volunteers, students get insights from experts in the field and the mutual give-and-take is a big part of the learning process.”
This article first appeared in the seventh edition of The Human Age Newspaper.
