Openly discuss their goals and aspirations in your industry
When they first begin with your organisation it is important to sit down with them and have an open conversation around what they want out of the job and how you can help them achieve their goals and move within the industry. This will allow you to develop a plan around what you can do to help them grow as individuals.
Always offer opportunities to grow
Offering youth an opportunity to grow and step up into new roles will see youth flourish in the working environment. Creating opportunities for your youth employees will see more positive interaction between you and the youth in your workplace.
Encourage continuous learning
Continuous learning will not only benefit the youth but it will also benefit you and the work they are doing. Encouraging continuous learning will enable youth to upskill and move through roles within your company.
Ensure they see you as a mentor rather than an unapproachable boss
This is key when trying to engage in youth-friendly employment practices. You want youth to come to you with their questions rather than seeing you as unapproachable and not easily talked too. Acting as a mentor to the youth within your organisation you can pass your knowledge down and create the next generation of your organisation.
Set challenging/achievable targets
With youth employees, it is key to set manageable yet challenging targets to ensure you are getting the most out of them and they are constantly challenging themselves to improve on their current position in your workplace.
Create a plan of how to succeed and stick to it
When youth first become apart of your organisation they will bring goals and aspirations of the role, so will you. This will allow you to develop a success plan to ensure they are driving themselves to be better every day. It is important that when you have created this plan that it is stuck to, to make sure the expectations are clear and they know what is asked of them.
Positive reinforcement and applauding the things done right
Research shows that youth are more engaged and on task when they have been positively reinforced and have been given feedback on what they can do to improve their actions. This will allow them to better improve the output and their personal skills.
