Abstract:

A preliminary survey, conducted for the European Business Forum on Vocational Training concludes that employers, education providers and youth live in parallel universes. Each have different diagnoses of the nowadays problems, because they do not engage with one another. The main goal of the work presented in this paper is to try and close this gap, building up cooperation between the two major players of job markets - employers and youth, creating an effective and successful work environment. To reach this goal, we first needed to understand the challenges companies face due to changes & consequences of new labour market trends. Another challenge is that, at the moment, there are at least three other generations (baby boomers, X and Y) in the labour market. Making them work in teams often means difficulties for companies, as a result of different needs and working styles, that are hard to harmonize. The final challenge is that a new generation, so called Gen Z, has recently entered the job market with completely new expectations.

The main expected result of our project is a strong, well-established, prosperous relationship, and a foundation of cooperation (with a special focus on working environments) between employers and their (future) employees from Gen Z, based on deep understanding, acceptance, fluent communication, consciousness and grounded knowledge about one another, as well as practical experiences. To reach this main objective, we develop the following learning resources serving further results: Manual for companies; Training for in-company mentors; Training for gen Z.

In this paper we describe the work developed and how it was faced in each country partner of the project. We also present the future work in order to make the project more effective.

Keywords:

Innovation, research projects, GEn Z, Workplace, Curriculum.