„Resilient, Optimistic, Creative, and Keen: Equipping Gen Z for Work Success and Employability“ (NO. 2020-1-LT02-KA227-YOU-007292)
- The Covid-19 crisis is leading to a global economic depression with a pronounced negative effect on the lives of young people in terms of employment, education and mental wellbeing. Even before that, they were already facing a challenging transition into the labour market and were 2 to 3 times more likely than adults to be un- or underemployed. Now, with the tremendously challenging socio-economic situation created by Covid-19 and the changing world of work, young people’s career chances become insecure and vague.
- Research shows several factors beneficial for young people’s employability and empowerment in such situations and an essential one is development of skills for work. A significant part of the latter is formed by entrepreneurial attributes, leadership skills, creativity and readiness to innovate, resilience and cultural intelligence – all at the focus of this project not only due to the research evidence of their positive impact on youth employability but also due to their importance at times of crisis and economic recession. Therefore, our main objectives include: (1) to nurture young people’s creativity, resilience and entrepreneurialism, (2) to support their communication and leadership skills, (3) to develop their cultural intelligence and understanding of diversity issues; all of these aiming at increasing youth’s adaptability in highly unpredictable situations, improving their employability and encouraging their entrepreneurial behaviour in a post-Covid world.
- Our main target group is generation Z (young people, born from late 90s to 2010, who are starting to enter the workplace) and we aim at designing and delivering a training intervention to up to 100 such individuals from all over Europe since research shows that this population is more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, depression and anxiety, which can prevent them from success at work; they also lack optimism, which leads to poorer chances of achievement, and are impatient, so not keen to continuously focus on certain projects, have a hard time hearing negative feedback and, therefore, lack resilience.
- To support young people to overcome these barriers to career success, we will design an evidence-based training model and deliver an innovative, stimulating and engaging course (comprising four 8-hour long online sessions), incorporating expertise from the realm of business psychology, career coaching, social work, cultural awareness and creative industries.
- This will help us foster an inclusive and empowering learning environment for young people, where they can acquire and develop the core skills needed for employability in the post-Covid labour market.
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