Minimising graduate opportunities will minimise your post COVID-19 success

What does our new normal mean for the emerging workforce and their potential employers?

We find ourselves in a new normal and an economic downturn that has caused many organisations to about turn. Organisations are looking inwardly at ways to manage risks and financial impacts from the enforced quarantine.

One area under scrutiny for many organisations is their graduate schemes and intakes for 2020 and beyond, with recent reports suggesting that 27% of organisations have paused their graduate intake for 2020.

Indeed, some of the largest graduate employers including Deloitte and PwC have confirmed pauses to their internships.

Today’s article in the Telegraph confirms the dire prospects for this population with youth unemployment expected to hit over 1 million as a result of COVID-19. It’s clear that the outlook is challenging for this year’s cohort of graduates.

The class of 2020 need opportunities and support to enter the workforce because they will be a fundamental part of the success story for organisations as they continue to embed remote, digital ways of working.

Grayce believes in the value that adaptable and capable graduates provide. This unprecedented situation brings into sharp focus the additional skills graduates offer which will be ideal for a post COVID-19 workforce.

Using digital tools and technologies is innate to this population. Digital collaboration, data analysis, and agile ways of working are just some of the skills the emerging workforce bring to organisations, boosting productivity where some digital migrants may struggle. It seems certain that organisations will face an ever-increasing skills gap as they operate in a post COVID-19 world across their inhouse, consultant and contractor populations.

We believe that graduates will play a vital role as the working world experiences huge change and disruption. Organisations that can find ways to harness this talent will benefit from their perspective, their innate skills, their desire to learn and their productivity and drive in the long run.

Find out how the emerging workforce is responding to remote working