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Inspiring and nurturing tomorrow's talent

3 Jul 2017

“Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.” This quote is taken from Simon Sinek's book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, and describes, in essence, the Native VML way of recruitment for our various learning programmes that are focused on the growth and development of highly motivated youth employed by the business. The agency runs numerous programmes simultaneously including generic management learnership, advertising learnership and the Native VML internship.

Keeping the Millennial engaged

The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2017, highlights that we are living in a time where the youth are looking for stability and opportunities from their employers, which surprisingly is the complete opposite key take-out from the survey that was run in 2016 where “Millennials seemed to be planning near-term exits from their employers”.

So what exactly are these surveys saying? It becomes clear that today’s companies looking to attract and retain Millennials will need to be equally cognisant of the young employees’ desire for stability whilst continuously challenging them with new and exciting work that will allow them to develop their skills. The organisation needs to create a space that will allow progression supported by numerous opportunities to upskill and allow them to grow into senior roles at a pace that best suits them.

“If you cannot beat them, join them” – a quote by Jim Henson is to a certain degree relevant here. If we are to fully comprehend the learning and development challenges that our youth are facing we are going to have to change our mindset to truly understand how to better educate the youth we employ. The truth is that the chances of your Millennial employee staying with an employer that cannot provide them with the growth opportunities they need are slim.

As people accelerator at Native VML, I get to spend several months with young talent and which provides me with some rare insight into the thinking of these Millennials. For one thing have learned that they want to be supported, mentored and coached now. To offer a three- to four-week course is no longer the ideal. Young employees have spent 15 to 16 years studying to obtain their degrees and if they are to get the full value out of the learning programmes we have on offer, the programmes need to be short, concise, to the point and relevant to the skills they need.

On the job learning where skills are being taught in short bursts as and when employees need them is an easily implementable solution, as well as utilising online learning, which comes in short courses that comprise of two to five-minute video content. Many of the learners we employ find these tools very useful in their day to day working. An employee who feels challenged by a task can find solace in the fact that it is possible to learn a skill in one hour, retain it and then apply it to the work an hour later. This concept of learning is not a foreign one and is not only applicable to the young but can be applied by all staff.

So let us motivate and inspire our youth to do more, be more, learn more. For nothing is more empowering than a mind that is knowledgeable and free.

Samantha Bezuidenhout

About Samantha Bezuidenhout

As a mediator from the age of 13, Samantha has always loved working with people and assisting them where she can. Whether the assistance came in the form of a hug (such a big hugger) or just sharing a kind word.