Hello and welcome back to our newest episode of our Zing Learning podcast, a Conversation With. In today's episode, we were very excited to talk to the inquiry credible Nicole and Wayne from Spiral Skills.
Now, Spiral is a fantastic organization that we have been working alongside in our offices in Brixton in South London and watching some of the incredible things that they do to really help young people to start to aspire towards different careers that perhaps they would never have thought of before. I've got to see the energy of the young people coming into the offices and really start to feel all of those kind of changes that are happening now.
The fantastic thing about the work that Spiral do is they work alongside employers and young people and really start to bridge that gap, which is very, very prevalent in the career space. So we have a great conversation for you to listen to today. Some amazing tips, suggestions and just some fantastic advice from both Nicole and Wayne about how we can really support young people to go into careers that are really meaningful and really make a difference in the world.
So grab a cup of kickback and have a listen. Welcome to the podcast Nicole and Wayne. I'm so happy to have you both here. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the invite. Hey, so I've obviously done a bit of an introduction before we've come on, but I'd love to hear just from your words what it is that Spiral does in general, just for the less now.
So, Spiral is a social enterprise and we focus more on raising aspirations and employability skills and we also work with the most kind of vulnerable young people. We work in schools, improves and colleges. So we are everywhere pretty much. But yeah, really trying to raise aspirations in young people and Wayne is one of key components to that happening. No pressure, Wayne. No pressure. Thanks to Call. I think it's a pretty good description of what we do.
I think a lot of times we pride ourselves in going into school settings, community centers, other settings where young people gather and one, creating a safe space for them. So a space where they can kind of be themselves and not feel restricted by structure or the pressure. And then we put a lot of emphasis on experiential learning.
So we do things that have them explore themselves, discover themselves through practical activities and we have a particularly careers and aspirations focus, as Nicole said. So through activities and creating a safe space, we help them understand some of the options available to them and understand what things they might like and what they might not like doing for careers and yeah, just try to help the world make sense to them, I suppose it's a big part of what we do.
Brilliant. It's really interesting because I obviously have been working in the same offices as you for a while now. So I've had the luxury of being able to meet some of these young people. And the buzz, the way that the office changes when they're in is brilliant. Like, they're just so they're playful, but they're really paying attention to everything and they just bring this really amazing energy with them.
So it's really nice to see young people from the local area coming in and really starting to think about their aspirational future. I think definitely. And I think a lot of the young people are also passionate. Like. Through their experience with Spiral. Being a young person that needed that guidance. A lot of them felt so inspired to kind of pass on that legacy to other young people in their community. So it is really an exciting place to work, super inspiring.
And we all know that young people bring just a different vibe, they just bring so much to a work environment. So, yeah, I'm glad that you've noticed that. Yeah. And it genuinely really does change the feel of the place and especially when you see them over a period of time as well.
So they might start on a program and you'll see them over a number of weeks and some of them are quite shy at the start and then all of a sudden they're chatting to you in the kitchen and it is a really nice buzz to be around and obviously we're all in the business of trying to make the world a better place. So it's really nice to see those younger generations coming through and having those opportunities that they might not have had if they hadn't been involved with Spiral.
So, yeah, I'm massively into the work that you do. I think it's really meaningful, it gives back a lot to the community and of course, it changes in theory, the future landscape of employment and careers and things like that. So massive advocate for that and anything we can do to support. So let me ask you this and I'll go to you first, Nicole, if that's okay.
I just want to ask, why do you think that this work is so vital to young people but also to businesses that get involved with the programs? So it's like a twofold because the benefits will change slightly depending it's a young person or a business. But for the young people. I think. Number one. It's imperative that young people have these types of safe spaces because I feel like what I've learned is you might have the support of a teacher.
But a teacher is very different to a youth worker and there's also a lot of things that they might not disclose at school. They might not feel comfortable doing that and then they also may not feel as confident talking about certain things as their parents. I feel like youth workers are in between. It's like a key pillar. Capture those young people who might not feel understood in other areas and then also with that, of course, being able to give them opportunities.
And then for the businesses, number one, promoting the industry that you're in and being able to kind of see that young talent from the very beginning. But also, I think it's good to, number one, contribute to your local community creating those opportunities, because we can talk all day about youth unemployment and youth violence and all the things wrong with young people, but yet no one's actually doing anything to kind of help solve that.
And I think businesses play a big role in that because for some young people, they already feel like there's barriers of them even accessing certain industries, or maybe their own aspirations are lowered because of their environment. So it's really important for young people to be in those places to realize, oh, it is accessible. My color, my race, my age, my religion, all of these other things are not going to be a barrier.
And I think also it gives businesses a chance to really understand the upcoming talent and what kind of support and needs they may need, as well as going into the industry. You mentioned, and this is the second time I've heard it in this very short amount of time we've been recording and safe spaces. Yeah. Can you help me understand a little bit more just before we go to Wayne to help us kind of wrap that up?
What exactly do we mean by safe spaces when we're talking about these young people in the working environments? Yeah, I think one of the key things is a safe space to not feel judged, like you can actually be open and honest about your thoughts and feelings. I know of even other youth organizations that are specifically based around LGBTQ young people where at home they may not have that safe space to be open about their true identity.
So I think number one is somewhere that's free from judgment and somewhere where they can really kind of learn, grow, and kind of understand themselves more through interacting with like minded young people, but also us as being like, mentors youth workers who have lived experience as well. I think that's one of the main things for me is, like, free from judgment. Like, it's open, be real, be honest. That answers as well. Yes, it does. It's brilliant. It's so funny.
Sometimes when I answer a question on another podcast, something, I feel like I'm giving a real politician's answer. Yeah. It's actually really robust. It sounds really good to the other person. So no, brilliant. Thank you for clarifying that. It's really interesting. Yeah. Would you add anything to what Nicole said there with regards to why this work is so vital to young people, but also, of course, to businesses as well? Yeah. First, I think that we're in a really sort of challenging period.
I think just for humans, because for the first time, really in centuries and maybe ever, there's a massive disconnect between our young people and the rest of society and all that has come about because of the Internet. And they're now exposed to a bunch of information that you probably wouldn't have been exposed to generations before. And they're dealing with a lot of pressure from that side.
And then in the school setting, you've got teachers under a lot of pressure, schools under a lot of pressure. And so somewhere young people need to be able to step out and have a conversation with someone that's not trying to make them act a certain way or squeeze them into a box, but letting them just kind of express themselves as they are without those regulations.
And so I think that's really important for them to have that outlet and to find people who will help them take that journey and figure out how they fit into this crazy life. And as I say, it's a lot to ask the teachers everything else that they're dealing with. So certainly for them and I think businesses were part of an ecosystem. We have a responsibility to create a setting that continues to make young people available for future roles and have them define some of those roles.
And I think they want to get the best talent and in many cases they're missing out on the best talent because the funnel, what we're hurting people through is so small that some of that great talent is just not fitting through. It so real opportunity for businesses to benefit by uncovering hidden gems that don't go from traditional routes.
We have one of our sort of mantras is about equipping young people to participate in society and that's for a good percentage and unfortunately, growing percentage of young people, they don't feel equipped to participate in society in a meaningful way.
So this work is really critical because we are not only helping individual young people and groups of young people, but we're trying to confirm a model that can be scaled up so that more young people can be included in this really fun excitement that is life. I felt like we call is going to add something there, but I wonder whether you just covered that.
Yeah, no, I just wanted to kind of add in a little bit about spirals in terms of partnerships as well, like having a safe space, the fact that spiral, we're part of the building and brixton consortium, we're also part of the ecosystem called harbor, which Wayne can talk more about. But even having those safe spaces for organizations in a similar boat, we all want the best for young people.
We all want to be able to kind of offer them the best opportunities and more positive or impactful pathways than others. And so even having those kinds of conversations about what can we do, but we don't have funding. OK, well then let's try and do a joint bid together. And being able to actually talk about the real stumbling blocks because we can all talk about underfunding and stuff like that.
But there's a lot more as well in terms of like community engagement or the perception of youth workers. Some youth workers don't feel respected by statutory services. They feel kind of like what are you doing claying pool and table tennis? There's a lot more to youth work than what people's perception is.
And I think having been part of a lot of these kind of consortium or kind of partnerships within the local area has really kind of helped that number one credibility but also being able to share knowledge and experience to kind of create better safe spaces for young people because that's one of the biggest things as well as trying to get young people to realize there are services here for you. You can go to this area. But again, there's other challenges of that as well as you can imagine.
But yeah, I just wanted to say that just to add that in like the partnership and being able to learn from similar organizations has been quite integral to our work as well. Fascinating. I think there's so many things I can pull out from that. The first one that's really stuck with me is the idea around businesses are part of an ecosystem.
Now I find that really interesting because of course I work business to business so I work with lots of different types of organizations that are trying to do better in the world of diversity and inclusion.
That obviously includes internally with things like the current employees that work there but representation or under representation or even over representation now, which is one of the terms that people are starting to use, the idea that we're serving a certain community and we're actually not taking that talent from that community. So I do think, and I completely agree with the idea that businesses are massively integral to any part of kind of community aspects and society as a general rule.
But it's really interesting because lots of the organizations I work with when we first start working together, they really struggle to see that level of accountability because they think, oh, it's politics and it's education and it's these other social factors that have nothing to do with my business. But you have to kind of get them to start to think well actually you're a huge part of people's lives. Work is a huge part of most people's lives.
It gives us meaning and purpose and obviously pays our bills and does all these wonderful things. So actually if we're missing out whole groups of people we're not then supporting the delicate ecosystem which is society. So I'm totally in agreement there with that common ecosystem when you even look about it, even with regards to the unemployment issues. And then obviously the government had the whole Kickstarter program for young people to get jobs.
But again that would have existed had those organizations or businesses had a partnership and said, all right, we're going to offer this as a kind of opportunity for young people, but it'll be interesting to see the outcome of that. How many young people actually stayed on unemployment, how many of them are still unemployed and things like that.
But I think that is like a key example of why businesses are a very key point or part of kind of creating that ecosystem and being part of it and making sure it works and it's a benefit for everyone, for sure. Yeah, I think a lot of business owners and a lot of execs and senior leaders have this disjointed idea that these things are separate to them.
And if you're thinking about a sustainable business and you want it to be profitable or you want it to grow over however many next ten to 20 years, you got to engage with these young people now because they're your future CEO, they're your future people that are making your big decisions in your organization. So it just makes good business sense to get involved with this sort of stuff. That's my personal opinion anyway. Since we're talking about business, I'll throw something in here.
So one, I 100% sympathize or empathize with a business because their focus needs to be growing the business, creating profit, lowering costs, all the standard things that go that are part of running a successful business. And it's really difficult to do all of that and maintain or have your other eye on social responsibility and all the challenges because social challenges aren't clean.
Black and white formulas like business problems can be where you can just say well, let's invest more, let's do the research and let's buy more product. You can't really solve social problems like that and so it makes it really difficult for a business to get their heads wrapped around how to connect with and take best advantage of those skill sets. And that's where I think the opportunity for us and one of the things that we can do is spiral really well.
Is help bridge that gap by appreciating where a business is and what its needs are and bringing interfacing being the buffer between young people in society and the businesses need so that they then can see the vision. But they've got support actually executing it and still doing their job. There's something really quite beautiful about the business sense in the business setting is where we often see the best of ourselves.
When you get focused on something and we see what happens when humans come together, collaborate, zoom in on a problem, problem solve and execute, we see the best mechanisms for solving problems within the business setting and we just try to marry and how we aim that mechanism in a socially, developmental and supportive way. Definitely. And there are tools and organizations that are really trying to do this from a advocacy policy kind of perspective.
I know Youth Unemployment UK they have something called the Good Youth Employment Charter, which is basically just kind of like number one, you're signing on to become a youth friendly employer, but just someone who's going to offer opportunities. And they also have a lot of kind of toolkits on how to develop a young person. And one of the biggest things that I always say to businesses is that a lot of the times, even if it is just work experience, it doesn't actually cost you anything.
It doesn't. And there's actually a lot more benefits, even for your staff. Let's say you want to train up some of your staff members to have their supervisor skills. It could just be like, right, you're not a manager, but for the next few days you're going to supervise this young person on work experience and it gives them that kind of meaningful experience as well. So there are many different resources. I think we need to find a better way of ensuring that they know that this does exist.
There are supports and even from a spiral perspective, because this is part of my role, which is kind of trying to connect with more businesses to offer work experience and stuff like that, which I'm sure we're going to talk about later on. But one of the biggest challenges I found was, number one, trying to get work experience for under 16s, but then also trying to convince employers of the benefits.
And so I know from a spiral perspective, we are kind of looking at that strategically to think about how can we create more safe spaces for employers to kind of share. Like, hey, we've offered work experience and this is how we benefit from it. For those, employers are a bit more bit nervous. But young people, hopefully, you can kind of demystify a lot of the myths or a lot of the things that they think is going to go wrong.
They're not going to turn up on time or they're this and that, when actually there's some young people that are more on it than me. They're there every day, they're there on time. They have that kind of passion and desire. Yeah, there's something about that. Demystifying young people, I guess is probably the best way to say it. And it's such an interesting comment you made there with regards to how people might be like, oh, they're not going to turn up, or whatever else.
And it's really interesting because we have the same thing at the bakery's center where I do work with the women and we help them to find study and work and to find meaningful kind of purpose outside of all of the other things that they're doing. And that's one of the biggest things when it comes to employers is how reliable are they? Well, how reliable are any of your staff when you get there exactly and give them the chance and how can they prove themselves?
And that's our biggest thing, like just give them a chance, give them an opportunity. Let's work together to develop their skills, develop their confidence, develop their resilience, have them feel more accountable to their work life or their future. Even if it is just work experience, this is still the building blocks to your CV, which hopefully will take you somewhere else. So I think all of those things are really crucial things.
We've talked a little bit about how the work that you do is so vital to young people and businesses. What's your favorite thing about collaborating between the two? So it might be that you've got a favorite thing for working with businesses or a favorite thing from working with young people. I imagine there's lots of those, but what is it that you really enjoy? Personally? I'll come to you first, Wayne, and then I'll come to you, Nicole, beautifully.
Businesses don't do academic speak, they don't do any of this class. They're straight to it. And when you see the light go off in a young person's head, when they're given a task and they have to get on a little bit uncertain to begin with, but then they sort of get in the groove and then the light goes off.
Where they get what this task is about and how it fits that ranks up is probably one of my highest moments because so much happens for a young person in their minds when that happens, like a bunch of clarity and things fall into place about that they've heard but never really seen or really understood fully. And in that moment when they've completed, they show up and someone gives them feedback and they go, oh, you can just kind of see them.
They're now in a completely different headspace where they're down in, explore, understand and they're kind of driven. And for me, those are the moments that really make it. Yeah, they sound pretty good. And conversely, I'll say to go with that when an employer who is somewhat nervous or concerned about how this is going to go, and when they see a young person sort of deliver and actually end up being impressed with the kind of creativity that's there, you can look on their face.
I've often watched as the sort of natural nurturer comes out in adults in those settings and they catch themselves becoming a youth worker or a parent because they just got caught up in it. And so, yeah, I think those two things together are pretty exciting for you. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I think you've said everything for me as well.
Like, my biggest thing is having a young person who's like, I don't want to do this, this is not what my dream goal is or whatever, and they don't see the benefit of doing it. I had a really amazing restaurant in Covent Garden. Probably it's hospitality. So one of the young people like, yeah, but I want to do sport what is this? This is rubbish. And I'm like, yeah, but even in sport, you've got to have good communication skills.
You've got to work as a team, trying to get them to see the transferable skills. And then within half an hour of their placement, they're loving it, they're enjoying it. They love being behind the bar and obviously non alcoholic drinks just putting out there, but they really loved it. And then I think one of my highlights from that particular placement was one of the supervisors actually saying, hey, they actually thought one of the young people was one of their trial staff.
And I was like, no, they're just here for work experience. How old are they? I was like 15. Like, oh, damn, you can't employ them. And I think for me that felt really beneficial because as I said, for some of them, they might feel a bit underestimated and feel like, oh, well, I'm a young person, no one's going to take me seriously, or for the employer to think, just a few hours, let's get them out of here. But actually they're like, oh, could they come back?
So that felt like a really nice situation to be in. And even like, one of the supervisors there had a youth work background, so they were like, please bring more young people. I love doing this type of work and what's going on. I think just seeing employers go above and beyond for young people and really try to make sure that they're also kind of planning a really productive placement for them, that's no one like you've actually took the time out and thought, right, what could we get them to do?
Who's going to support them? That's number one. And then, of course, challenging young people's, limiting beliefs about themselves and seeing them shine. Like, who doesn't want to see that? I love that. I've taken two things away from that, Nicole. I've taken that. So that one particular scenario, that person, you've completely opened up their eyes to something completely different to what they would have thought about, which is brilliant in itself, because we know that careers aren't linear.
You might want to do different things. And I always encourage that. And I think these younger generations that are coming through now are probably the poster people, let's try lots of different things. Why do we have to stay in the same thing? But there's a sense of pride, isn't there? And I remember that and I used to work in hospitality.
The sense of pride that comes over you and you do a good job or a customer satisfied, or you make a really great cocktail, whatever it is, mocktail probably in the it's such an amazing feeling, like, you can't describe how that motivates somebody to continue to want to do good things, but then you've also got the employer's perspective, right?
So obviously the youth worker, the past experienced youth worker, they're of course going to be really engaged with this, but you've changed the way someone might look at a young person coming through and they're like, damn, they're only 15. But now they might be like, well, maybe I can hire 16 year olds to come and attend the tables or whatever it might be that doesn't include alcohol.
They will change the way they start to look at these people when they come in with their CVS or if they're getting touched with them on social media. So that's a double whammy there from just one of many good experiences, I imagine. Definitely. And I always do try to find out about further opportunities because we had another work experience where they work with young kids, trying to make sure that they're all at reading age.
So they do kind of like a peer to peer kind of project and they were having paid work over the summer, so I thought, okay, well, I've got these elevens on work experience, let's see if I can get a few of them in on that organization and see if they could potentially offer them some kind of paid work over the summer. And we've now got two to three young people now working with that organization over the summer and they feel really grateful about it. So it's even like benefiting them,
benefiting the young people benefit. It's just great. I love it. And that insight from those young people in that organization is going to be priceless. They know exactly how to talk to people their own age. They know exactly the problems and the challenges that people their own age are facing. So from a strategic business point of view, it was a very smart decision to take those people on. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So hopefully we have more stories like that. Any businesses are listening, please.
But that's the idea, isn't it? The big part of this podcast is to make sure that these messages, and you've probably listened to them before, it's always about a topic that has some sort of social impact and it's really important that employers listen to these because there's some great tips in there. It's a really great opportunity for employers to hear things from the other side rather than all of the challenges like Wayne was just saying that they're looking at on a day to day basis.
It's just widening that perspective a little bit. Okay, slightly, slightly harder question now which is what do you think is blocking people or blocking organizations from taking on more young people, more work experience, things like that? So yeah, I think that there are a few key things for organizations. One, running a business is tricky and time consuming and you really do have to put time aside to think about the role, break it down and have someone manage and supervise.
And that can be a lot for an organization depending on the size and the amount of resources they have. So certainly making the. Time to support it is one of the challenges. And I think that one of the areas that we can help in that is to come to the table with sort of package solutions, so that we take a lot of that pressure off them, we help them with the job design process because sometimes it's difficult for them to think, what is a reasonable job for a young person? How do I thin this down?
So it's easy and not overwhelming, but still provides meaningful experience. So I think there are some things that we can do to help. So, one, just the amount of work and time required to do it, which can feel overwhelming.
And I say, secondly, that there's still a bit of a barrier or a gap, a generation gap, and lots of adults, employers just feel like they don't really know or understand young people and so they're a little bit sort of weeded out by the idea that this creature that's in the office and they're moving differently than I remember and I'm not quite sure.
So I think a lot of people are just hesitant because they perceive there's a lot of translation and interpretation and other stuff that they're not necessarily good at that comes with it. And Nicole does a really great job of dispelling some of those myths and putting people at ease, just saying, look, in the end you're going to find out that they're just young people, just like you, just like you were.
And so helping them just breathe and feel more comfortable about what the experience looks like, I think is also part of it. Yeah, I would even add as well, because this is literally a big part of my job. Every day, every week, every waking moment, I'm like, who can I target now? And I would say one of the biggest challenges I find, and I think employees find, is it's going to sound like it's paperwork, maybe it's insurance.
Trying to get under 16th in a workplace is actually not as easy as it was back in our day, where you could walk into Warwood or it doesn't exist anymore, but you can walk into a store with your CV and be like, hey, I want to do a two week work experience. And it's very straightforward, whereas now it's like, we can't accept under 16 or we can't accept under 18 because of our insurance. We also have to consider things like safeguarding.
Do they have those types of procedures within their work environment? Is that something they're even thinking about? Most probably not. So I think in terms of trying to get work experience for 18 plus, I think employers see more of the benefit because they're like, right, we know if they do well, we can offer them a job, it benefits us. This is great. Under 18, they're like, what are we going to do with that? They're full team. What are they going to do with that right.
But I think it's also one of the barriers, I think, and the challenges for them is definitely what Wayne said about not really feeling confident to interact with young people. But I think another part of that is also just not knowing what they can do, like what are they going to do? I don't know.
We can't have them do this, we can't have them do I think they look at sometimes the glass as half empty, then actually trying to build on, OK, could this young person shadow your marketing person for a few hours or just find out more about their role? So it's really trying to, as I said, demystify a lot of things, trying to create solutions.
And I think what we've learned as Spiral is for those under 16, because we've got a contract with Lamb of Council Lamb of May to run work experience with a lot of the local secondary schools. So that's a big thing that I'm doing. And one of the things that we've tried to do is just kind of do it more of a light touch work experience. So rather than it being five days. Monday to Friday. Nine to five. Which most employees are going to freak out. But if I go to them and say. Right.
We just want you to take maybe two or three young people for about 2 hours. Two and a half. 3 hours. Give them a small task. We'll sit with you and help you design that task. And this could be replicated with different young people. So I think they kind of really enjoyed that, just having that kind of direct support from us. But then also we've created more of a holistic curated work experience.
So it's not just you're in the work placement, but you're also learning in workshops around networking, the importance of how to speak about yourself, a CV, interview skills, I think all of that, prep them for the work experience as well. And the employers know that. So I think there are barriers, but I think Spiral way of doing things is kind of trying to look holistically at what does employability even mean?
Because it's not just the work experience, it's also the knowledge and identifying what you need to keep to hold on, to build up your future. But I think the paperwork is one of the challenges I found, and especially when you're working with groups that English might be their second or third language. So again, it's finding organizations or businesses for them that are patient, that are willing to kind of work with that young person, nurture their skills and things like that.
So it's very multifaceted. There's many different challenges, but I think those are the main ones. Obviously Wayne mentioned those as well. I think I really liked what you talked about there with regards to generational differences because we know that for the first time ever in history, we've got five generations working together, which is just mind blowing. And that's been happening over the last couple of years really. Of course, people are living longer, therefore working longer.
And these younger people are coming into the working world now with so many different ways of working, so many different things that have happened in people's careers. But I guess what would be really nice to hear just from you Nicole, is you talk about demystifying the concept of younger people working in these environments.
What do you think are the biggest myths, I guess, or the biggest things that you have to bust whenever you're talking about those generational differences there and what people's perceptions are of young people? I think one of the things is definitely the stigma on young people. And I think to be honest, that is generational. Even when you were young people I know, I'm sure your parents generation was like, all these young people, what do they know?
I think that is number one and obviously that does depend on the organization because there are a lot of younger employers or millennials that really want to give back and have a different mindset. But that is definitely one. I think another one is again, coming back to the time. We don't have the time and for some organizations they genuinely might not, but for big franchises it's like really you can't have maybe two or three young people at your retail store.
So I think that's why we've kind of developed that kind of three day curated experience for the younger under 16s because it's a lot easier to package and we are there all the time, so they're not having to rely on their own staff. We just want to be in the business and be part of what's going on. So I think that's definitely one. And I think also the fact that for some of them they might not be at 16 yet being able to work.
But I think it's also just trying to ensure that employers realize that you're actually just, all you're doing is you're seeing the talent pool from now, from earlier and you're able to kind of really nurture that talent and growth, especially if they have a genuine interest of being in your industry, whether that's it, whether it's tech, whatever it is. But I think the biggest thing is definitely like just young people being young people.
I know it sounds really bad, but honestly it's like, what are we going to do with them? Or I don't know what we would do. I feel like some employers don't have confidence themselves. I don't think it has anything to do with a young person, but some of them just don't have the confidence to be like, we could do something meaningful here. It's also just their limiting beliefs for them. So it's a lot yeah, that's a really good point. Really good point there's, limiting beliefs.
And I've worked in learning and fellow in HR and all of those wonderful things for years. And I think there is a confidence thing there. But I also think there's an element of people can't think far enough ahead. So they're only thinking in the very short term when it comes to a lot of business challenges. And they think, well, I just need to get bums on seats. I need to just get a body into this role right now. I don't have time to think about in two, three, four years time. But you're right.
If you're meeting these young people where they are and you're starting to understand the language that they're using and the way in which they prefer to work, and the way in which they're going to bring their full selves into their work and bring their kind of future talent and discover all these things about themselves, you've got a four year head start on all your competitive, right? That's a pretty big deal.
And I sometimes think that recruitment and talent and those kind of HR learning and development areas aren't able to think that far ahead. So if you've got access to that information, that's brilliant. What a strategic way to start thinking about your talent pool and your pipeline and all of those sorts of things that are going to help you to make sure you don't have a skill shortage like most organizations are going to have in the next few years.
I saw an article yesterday or last night that Netflix, for the first time, they lost 100 million subscribers. And what was interesting about the article was that they kind of said that Netflix, the brand new sort of disruptor of this field, is all of a sudden looking like the old guard that changed so quickly in our sector, in the world in general, things are moving so fast.
I mentioned that because the way that the pace that things are moving, young people are your future customers, consumers, and the time is moving so quickly. If you're not familiar with who they are, it's so easy for businesses to lose touch and be out of business, especially the large ones, because they've lost touch with their consumers. And in ten years, it's these young people who are going to be the majority of the consumption going on with them.
They're going to be middle aged and buying so really great time to get to know who they are and have them help define your strategy. And it's free. This is what's just absolutely insane about this whole thing. And Netflix is a brilliant example there because you've probably seen their adverts that are all over social media, which is the billboards which said, Keep going. We started by working with DVDs, and it's really interesting to think about how far they've come.
But they have totally stunted now because they haven't evolved. They've tried to stay the same, and they're going to be in the same bin as some of the other organizations like blockbuster and people like that. Because if you don't innovate and if you don't evolve the way you think, you will not continue to be an organization. We'll wish you talked about them earlier.
They're a really good example of an organization that worked for a really long time, for certain generations, but when those younger generations started coming through and being the customer, being the employee, all of those sorts of things, all of a sudden they didn't want that anymore.
And I was reading something about Facebook today and about the way in which Mark Zuckerberg is communicating with colleagues now and the change in the language because of the way they haven't really evolved Facebook over however many years. It's so vital. And you've got five different generations in an organization that is the most amount of data that you're going to need for your consumers, for the way in which you want to approach your target audience.
It just to me, it makes no sense that we're not paving the way in. And like you use the word nurture earlier, nurturing these young people because they are literally going to be your line manager one day. How are we not equipping them? And how are we still having to have this conversation where we're convincing businesses of the benefits of bringing these young people in? Hopefully one day we won't be there.
But I think it's a bit of a road so far, especially for industries that might be struggling to recruit because I don't know if you heard about it, I think it mainly happened in America, but they called it the, what do you call it? Resignation. Great, resignation. And I think it kind of links here because even though we get our stats out, look you from employment is decreasing and great, but how many of those young people are underemployed?
How many of those young people are on zero hour contracts? And so as much as they're counting them as being unemployed, how happy or fulfilled are they in their careers? And there's a lot of industries that are gradually declining. I think it's because they're not necessarily making a conscious effort to engage with young people. So I think, yeah, again, it's just a no brainer. Like there's too many benefits of having young people in your organization and it's a win win for all.
So if you're listening, spiral skills, absolutely. Organization businesses, we're obviously talking a lot about businesses today because this podcast is developed specifically for employers, and a lot of people in those employment are people that will do recruitment and they will do the kind of the human planning and HR and stuff like that.
If they could do one thing that could change one thing or do one thing that could make a difference to the future generations, what do you think that that would be? I think for me. Just kind of being in this role of trying to look for opportunities. I think it'll be great if more employers had maybe even if it's just a web page dedicated to how to access work experience. If it's something they actually do and actually kind of putting that into their
thought process from the beginning. Like. Okay. We know we've got staff members. But do we want to offer more training? Do we just having those conversations and making it known? Because I feel like it's very hard to know who to contact. One person in the store might say yes, but you have to speak to headquarters and a lot. So I think even just having that information available would be great and to put that into their thought process.
And I was going to say another thing that would be really helpful is especially when it comes to employment. More so. And I'm not saying that degrees are not important.
But I think more employers should count on people's experience more because I feel like the whole degree thing just creates a lot of barriers and I'm only talking from my own experience because I don't have a degree and I grew up in Brixton and I've used my experience as my building blocks and I feel like there's a lot of young people that might not see university as their pathway. They might like me. I did an apprenticeship and then continued working after that.
So I think it'll just be good for employers to be a bit more aware of the fact that there's different pathways and just to be a bit more open and not so I was going to say archaic. But I think obviously degrees are needed in some industries for sure. A doctor operating on me who just played operations. But thinking about your recruitment practices and is a degree needed or is there other things that will also be beneficial as well? No, I love that. I think it's really interesting.
We did a podcast really recently with Sound by few who you all know. They're also in our offices. They do a really good job with diversifying recruitment and trying to get people in the creative industry in particular just to think slightly differently. And degrees came up and the same as unicorn. I'm from a very working class background. It's not that I couldn't have gone to uni, I definitely got good enough grades in my GCSE, but it was more that it just wasn't done in my family.
No one really spoke about it. The teachers didn't really talk to us that much about it. It was kind of just expected that we go into work now. I have found at times it has hindered my career because of the mindset of employers and recruiters and people that are really thinking that degree equals expertise. But we know that that's not correct.
I've definitely employed people before as a HR director, manager and people like that, where they have degrees, but they're not equipped to do the role at all. And some of the best employees I've ever had. And team members I've had have been a real mix of apprentices or traineeships or people that have just worked their way through and obviously people with degrees as well. But you have to change the way you think about education because it's not easily accessible to everybody.
And until people start to understand that you'll have those kind of social mobility problems because you can't get past that first hurdle, which is a degree, university degree, definitely. And I think it also falls into the whole conversation around equality, inclusion, equity, diversity. It's all linked. And I feel like, yes, that needs to be more the forefront, I think, of employees not just for young people, but just for the longevity of their company, business and industry.
Yes. And actually there's something I would even tag onto that and I'm 100% with you with the equity and the belonging and all of those pieces. Because to have an equitable approach to recruitment, you have to stop looking in one particular area for all of your skills. The other aspect of it is that sometimes experience itself needs to be expanded in the mindset of people. We should also be looking for potential. We should be looking, you used the term earlier transferable skills.
It's not always that this person has this exact experience. And especially as young people come through and the way that younger people are working now, they're kind of like, well, actually, I want to try five different careers in my lifetime. So if you stick to one thing and you want them to have the 100% exact experience of that job description, then they're going to get bored in no time at all. Especially if you're talented, especially if they have potential.
So it's a real mix, isn't it, of people just really starting to open up their minds and getting those young people to engage with different industries and different ways of working and really starting to evolve the practices. Recruitment and attraction is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to diversity and inclusion, for sure, in most organizations. Yeah.
And I think the government could also do more to incentivize it more because I feel like we already know the youth sector is underfunded. I've got a young person that I'm trying to support. She wants to be a youth worker and actually call Blimey. Is it hard actually to get a young person to become a qualified youth worker and have the opportunities?
But I think there are more things that the government could do to incentivize the players to offer these opportunities because I think that's definitely needed as well. Yes, I totally agree. I think things like the Kickstart program are a great start. But as we know, and I've run apprenticeships and employment for everyone, traineeships, I've had Kickstarter myself as a business. The way in which the government knock these policies and these frameworks together is
just very much okay, we've done. It ticked by. They don't think about the employer, they don't think about how that person is going to manage that person and kind of really start to progress them through. So, like you say, spiral and having that framework and helping people to understand that there's a massive barrier removed for employers, definitely sustainability is key in every sense, for sure. Wayne, I'm going to ask you the same question.
I know Nicole gave a really robust answer there, but I'd love to hear if you've got one thing that you would really like organizations, employers, just to change that would really make a difference to the future generations. I think similar to what Nicole first said is just making the commitment, actually making the commitment same way you make a commitment to benefits for your staff or to implement safeguarding or whatever it is.
If you start with just making a commitment that we're going to include young people in our planning, and certainly for mid to larger organizations who actually have HR departments, that becomes like a very simple thing for you to say, we're going to set targets for ourselves this year. And if you just by putting that in your policy, you kick off a chain of events.
And I think a lot of organizations would be surprised at how many existing staff members, maybe senior ones, would love to sort of lead on something like that because they see it. If you just made a policy or made it something that you have made a commitment to, you find that there are people who want to execute on it and that it's going to be easier than you probably think. So for me, it starts with just making a commitment to my business.
I'm going to embed in my policies that we're going to find ways to include young people in our business. And I suppose if I were to stretch that and go out into my sort of rule and be super creative, I would say just to adopt a culture that's welcoming to young people.
So whether that is regular bring your kids to school to work things for your staff or other things, that just says, we're going to make a point of having young people floating around our office, even if it's not work experience, but we're going to open ourselves up to including young people in our business culture in some way. That's a great start. What great energy in the office or in the workspace in that day as well?
We were talking right at the start about how it changes the atmosphere at IB. And listen, these offices are great anyway, so yeah, it just gives you an idea of the level of energy that these young people bring in with them. It really lasts. It really makes a difference when people working on those days. For sure. I mean, you mentioned found by a few every time I'm in the office.
I know when they're there and the vibe is totally different because they've done an amazing job of employing young people and that energy and that vibe is just infectious. You can feel it now they're in the space. I love it and look at their growth and how successful they are. So I think Exhibit A for what you're talking about is pure evidence.
Okay, I just want to ask you one last question each, and if you could give one piece of advice to somebody that was working in HR department or perhaps as a recruiter, perhaps a small business owner on how they can make a bigger impact on younger people, what would that be there's? Again, a few things. But I'd say I think the first advice I would give that HR person is to try and find a local network.
Ones that I would recommend is anything that Partnership for Young London are putting on, even London youth, because a lot of their networks are open to organizations that aren't just youth organizations, especially their employability networks.
I'll tell them to definitely find a youth employability network where you can connect with youth workers and other employers and have those kind of open conversations just to start getting your mind into the mindset of a young person and the youth sector and where we're thinking. Because I think there will be a lot of learning and shared experience and that will just be a great way to just really put yourself into it. I think that's number one.
Just to kind of up your knowledge and then from there. Hopefully you can embed other things into your practice. Whether that is reviewing your quality and diversity policy. Because I actually used to quality assure youth organizations and I can honestly say that the equality and diversity part was always usually a little bit poor. But I think so. Especially in an organization where you're not used to working with young people.
I think that would be great thinking about how you can incorporate that into your training or if you want to develop any staff members. But yeah, join a network. Join a network and just get yourself out there. Start hearing from people. If you've got any questions or any doubts, talk to other people, other youth workers, and just begin from there, really.
But yeah, Partnership for Young London, I know they have a few networks and London youth do have an employability network that would be a great place to start. And do they also support businesses outside of London? At the moment, no, mainly for London. But if you're outside of London, UK youth, again, if you just want to know what's going on more in the kind of youth work space and just like on a national level and just seeing how you could potentially connect.
Because even for some of the businesses, if you're listening, I'm always plugging, but you can't offer work experience if you want to donate, if you want to support an organization support cause. That would be one of my advice for HR. Person lovely. Thank you so much. Wayne, you've had some time to think. Yes. I suppose there's a few things in this one. I think thinking about your business in its most simplistic terms.
So that young people really get what you do and how it works and how it fits into the context of the broader world. I think is one of the things. I think that young people tend to be confused and overwhelmed with the world in places where it doesn't need to be that confusing. It's just the language you use. And of course, we have Buzzwords and our various languages that we use that just layer confusion.
So I think if you think about your business and particular roles in layman's terms and make efforts to describe it that way, and parts of your website or in your documentation that really nut it down, I think that will sort of help young people at least understand what you do and appreciate how they might be able to play a role. Because I think for a lot of them, they can't see it. They have no idea what they learned in year ten to what you're doing because gap is too big. Yeah.
And then I think I'll just go back to kind of what we said previously is I really feel like just pick something and try it. I think you just got to take action. We did something that spiral that I'm super proud of and the results were just mind blowing. One day we said, look, we've got to walk the walk and we're going to start employing. So we just started taking young people who we thought were safe into our classrooms and giving them jobs.
So you aren't going to lead a class on day one, but you're definitely going to sit at the table, you're going to support other young people in doing something and that's what we're going to do. And we just went and did it. And it was amazing to see what that did for young people, their confidence, our understanding of what they were really capable of, because it was mind blowing how many of them could lead a class. And the confidence, in fact, just a great story to end on.
We took a couple of our young people from a school that we did a program at. We involved them in facilitation. And then the year after schools opened from COVID, we did these welcome back to the physical world sessions at a couple of schools. And watching the faces on teachers and adults in the school when they saw two students come back to facilitate workshops that they had previously sort of classified as super vulnerable and really at risk and not.
And watching the looks on his faces when those two students were standing in front of huge classes and talking with confidence like an adult. Was absolutely priceless. And all of that came at some point from just saying, let's just try this, let's just do something and see what happens. Let's just try this, let's just do it.
Let's not wrap it up in process and framework and okay, let's do all that later to make sure that we're paving the way for a more substantial piece of work, but let's just do it. I've also got another points now because you kind of rephrase the question. There you go, I'm going to read them off and I'll shut up because I'm sure we want to get out of here.
But anyways, so one of the things that I thought of was around youth voice and engagement and how they could potentially do that, whether that's through maybe trying to organize that with a local college or local school and just asking them a few questions about that. Maybe doing a staff survey, finding out how staff feel about work experience. Young people having more of a collaborative approach.
Sometimes if you just have one person in charge, all their biases, all of their knowledge is the decision maker. But having more of a collaborative approach around it in your workplace makes everybody feel part of something bigger. And then lastly, just researching what's happening in your area, like, do you know what local youth provisions are around? Do you know who's funded? Do you know whether you could potentially help those organizations or a local secondary school or something like that?
So those would be my other little tips as well. Now I love this. Keep on coming. These are brilliant. These are the sort of things that genuinely make a difference to the way that employers feel they're able to do things. Because like you said, sometimes it just feels really huge. Sometimes it feels as an employer, as a head of HR, whatever it might be, that you've got a million and one business thing to do and this just feels like an extra thing.
But in reality, this is a strategic thing to be doing. And of course, even if you want to just take it to the CSR or the Esu G or any of those acronyms, that basically means that you've got some sort of a social impact in your business. You've got that as well. It's a triple whammy. There's so many benefits, I think. Could you offer an apprenticeship, things like this.
You might not know, but if you had a staff serving you, ask all your staff, do you think you could potentially assist a young person? Do you think there's any parts of your role that could be a good learning opportunity for a young person? Just ask the question, start the conversation, and as Wayne Eloquently said, just do it. Just do it. So I think that's a good place to end, maybe. No, that was brilliant. Thank you so much.
Is there anything just before we finish, is there anything you want to add something you want to make sure doesn't get left out from people hearing. I'm definitely going to plug Spiral always. If you're a young person listening right now, maybe you're under the age of 30, you're not in work, education or employment, please do reach out to us. We've got instagram at spiral skills. Any questions? Just please just DM us.
We would love to kind of support if you're an employer and you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and want to kind of brainstorm some more. Again, please do reach out to us and we're open for any type of dialogue at this point because we've got lots of young people that deserve amazing opportunities and we're sure you're one of them. So that would be my final note. Excellent, Wayne. Nothing needed to add there. That was perfect.
Yes, I think you really sum it up route and I suppose if I was going to add anything, I would just say to employers and everyone listening, feel free to be creative with this. Maybe you've got a different idea that is somewhere between work experience and employment or is some other way or something. Spiral is really open to experimenting and trying things out and being disruptive and all those kinds of cool things. So if you got another idea or something that we haven't covered, send an email.
Real people will talk to you. We're happy to explore. Excellent. Brilliant. Thank you both so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I've learnt lots. I'm hoping the people that are listening and taking away some of those brilliant ideas. Thank you so, so much. I really enjoyed that. Speak to you very soon. Thank you, Zoe. Thank you. Bye. Wow, what a podcast and what a load of fantastic suggestions, advice, tips and just some really great insights from Wayne and Nicole there.
I think there's something really important about listening to these types of conversations because you can really pull together the idea of why employers are struggling so much to really start to attract and bring on new younger talent, and also why it might be more difficult for those younger people to be able to get into those types of roles. So, hopefully, you took away some great tips here today.
Hopefully for an employer listening, you might start to think a little bit more further forward with your talent strategy as well and start to think about engaging those younger people earlier. Really, really important messaging. There definitely something I've taken away from Spiral today, but we've got loads more fantastic conversations to listen to in our podcast. Have a listen to any that you haven't.
We've got more coming up and we want to thank, of course, Wayne and Nicole for just bringing such brilliant insights today. I know I've learnt a lot and hopefully you have, too. So we'll see you on the next one. Thanks.