A way to help build our future workforce
“… A great intern opportunity or great job-shadowing that allows kids to see their pathway and build their network.” Peter Beard, Greater Houston Partnership
How badly does your company want to improve the future workforce by helping a disadvantaged young person?
Executives and managers love to complain about their youngest hires, but how many are ready to teach the skills they desire? This summer there’s a chance to step up and make a difference.
Mayor Sylvester Turner and the Greater Houston Partnership are signing up companies willing to hire an intern between the ages of 16 and 24 this summer. The minimum pay is $8 an hour, but the Hire Houston Youth program promises to supply young people ready to work.
“We need to be continually building our talent pipeline, and if we fundamentally believe that the people of this region are our most important asset, then we should spend the time to make sure they are developed effectively,” said Peter Beard, the partnership’s senior vice president of workforce development. “And that means great schools, but it also means a great intern opportunity or great job-shadowing that allows kids to see their pathway and build their network.”
Summer jobs are where most of us learned how to behave at work, whether it was showing up on time or showing initiative. Yet only about a third of young people could find a summer job in 2014, compared to nearly 60 percent who worked in the summer of 1974.
“Our coaching to our members would be to think about this as a meaningful first job, and how do you expose them to peers who might help them build their professional network. How do you let them do some real work while also exposing them to the
breadth of what you company does?” Beard said. “If they come in and work in the mail room, and they don’t know what the rest of the company does, that doesn’t really help with the long-term pipeline.”
The program targets students in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the city, but anyone can sign up. The program has recruited 40 community groups to train the interns on how to behave in professional work environments before they start work in jobs many have never even heard of.
“Many of these students would not have an opportunity to work at these companies if it were not for this program,” said Juliet Stipeche, director of education in the mayor’s office. “I think they can expect to have an intern that will work hard but will also give them a unique perspective of the talent pipeline that is in our system today.”
That pipeline, by the way, is fighting an uphill battle. About 60 percent of Texas children live in economically disadvantaged households where, in most cases, there is no tradition of higher education or professional employment. U.S. Census data show that only 10 percent of these children are likely to earn a certificate or degree within six years of graduating high school.
Fewer than 20 percent of Texas high school students in 2014 who took the SAT or ACT scored high enough to consider them likely to succeed in college, according to the Texas Education Agency. And Census data show that the chances of a child breaking out of a low-income neighborhood is directly related to their parents’ level of education and professional achievement.
Internships offer a way to give young people a window into a world of possibilities they might not know exists. If Texas employers want these young people to get an education, they are recognizing they must help young people recognize the benefits of staying in school. That’s why in addition to Hire Houston Youth, employers and students can sign up for the Texas Internship Challenge, sponsored by the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Education Agency and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
The statewide effort calls on employers to offer paid internships, asks universities and colleges to grant academic credit for internships, and calls on students to apply for them. Like Houston’s program, employers can post positions on the program’s website where young people can apply for them.
“Wehave consistently heard from employers of the need for new graduates to possess workplace skills such as team build- ing and problem solving,” said TWC Employer Commissioner Ruth Hughs. “Employers offering this real-world work experience is a way to identify, train and prepare the leaders of the future workforce.”
Houston firms hired more than 1,000 youth last year, and Hire Houston Youth hopes to place 5,000 interns in 2017 through an internet-based job posting and application system. The internships last at least seven weeks and most will take place between June 19 and Aug. 4.
If you are thinking that you’d love to help but there is really no place for an intern at your organization, you can still participate. For a $2,500 tax-deductible donation, Hire Houston Youth will place a young person in a paid internship with a nonprofit organization that needs one.
Instead of complaining about kids these days — and ordering them off of your lawn — fulfill your duty as an elder, whose role in most societies is to help young people find their way in this world. The best way to give back, and better our collective future, is to invest your time and wisdom in a young person. A paid-internship is a good start.