Find out why you may want to be in contact with the next generation of workers
A survey EY conducted in 2017 found 62 percent of 16- to 19-year-old Generation Z members consider a career in the oil and gas industry unappealing — which was likely not particularly uplifting news for industry members who will need to recruit young workers in the future.
The survey findings also suggest oil and gas executives don’t always understand some of the major Generation Z career expectations, including what would encourage them to someday enter the field.
Executives think the oil and gas industry’s biggest career-related strengths are the salary (92 percent) and opportunity to use the newest, most innovative technology (80 percent) it provides.
While salary is important to the incoming Gen Z workforce — more than half (56 percent) rank it as one of their top three considerations when selecting a future career — only 10 percent said working with new technology was one of the three most important aspects of a job.
Companies often focus their passive and active recruiting and other outreach efforts on recent university graduates or students who are about to finish a university or post-graduate program.
Finding ways to connect with the incoming Gen Z workforce can help your organization better understand their expectations — and potentially result in a number of other positive outcomes, including:
Expanding your employer brand
Getting in front of next-gen workforce members through career fairs, internships and other initiatives will help your organization familiarize an expanded audience with the work it does, its role in the industry and the advantages employees gain from working for the company — which could help prevent future talent shortages by increasing interest in the field. Planning and executing efforts to reach the next generation of workers could also introduce your organization to other individuals, such as academic administration professionals and educators, who could serve as candidate referral sources.
Training your future employees
Educational opportunities like internships and mentoring programs for high school students allow them to get hands-on job experience. The programs also give employers a chance to impart skills they know their organization will eventually need — which could potentially reduce the time and cost involved in having to recruit or reskill workers later on.
Encouraging job loyalty
Educational programs may also be able to help convince students who’ll soon be entering the workforce to remain with the organization they’re interning at or otherwise involved with once they’ve received their degree. Mentoring programs, in particular, that show someone is taking an interest in their career development may encourage next-gen workforce members to put down roots: Deloitte research found young employees who intended to stay with their employer for more than five years were twice as likely to have a mentor than not.
Obtaining insight about what millennials want in the workplace
Communicating with Gen Z students about their future workforce expectations can help employers get a better sense of what young professionals who are a few years older may be looking for in a job — and what the company needs to offer to attract them.
For additional information on mentoring programs’ structure and benefits, read these posts on using reverse mentoring to eliminate skills shortages and building the best mentoring program.
For more ways to help workers of all ages learn new skills, check out these posts on 3 steps you can take today to prevent skills gaps in the workforce, figuring out what type of training to offer and how some companies are fulfilling training needs.