Keeping entrepreneurial spirits high despite the economic challenges
With the holiday season over and as we start the autumn term, many of us will have friends or family members either starting university, advancing their education and training, or entering the workforce for the first time.
Emerging from a global pandemic, addressing an increasingly urgent climate crisis and facing an uncertain global economic and political outlook – this is a generation facing challenges and a rate of change quite unlike any that have come before them.
Agile and adaptable
As smart technology transforms the global economy and the nature of work, the impact on workplace skills and education will be profound and career paths transformed. The generation now entering the workforce is one alive to entrepreneurial opportunity and have grown up experiencing some of the world’s biggest brands start as lone, digital side-hustles.
Nurturing innovation in all its forms is beneficial at an individual, commercial and societal level. Creativity and lateral thinking not only benefit the next generation of workers facing a more self-sufficient and transient employment environment, these are skills that bring enormous value to businesses and transforming industries.
One of the ways the ACCA nurtures innovation, outside of its own qualification and training, is through supporting initiatives like Side Hustle. This nationwide scheme provides mentoring and a funding pot for young people with business ideas they are passionate to launch – whether for profit or societal benefit.
We need to do all we can to help support the leaders of tomorrow. Activities that offer a helping hand up and a platform to share stories and experiences, can provide invaluable inspiration for our future changemakers.
Seeing workplace transformation all around them, Generation Z see workplaces as fluid and transitional, where opportunities are to be seized and skills transferred and renewed, and have an impressively nimble and agile approach to their careers. Our own research last year into this cohort found that 57% expect to move role within two years and 64% expect to have multiple careers in different disciplines in the future.
Flexibility and entrepreneurial aptitude
This flexible and entrepreneurial aptitude will prove invaluable to the business community as we rebuild and reimagine our economies and industries of the future. It is also a necessity, as the nature of employment shifts and hiring and training tails off in some sectors.
In our recent monthly SME tracker, we saw a dip in the number of those looking to recruit, a reflection of smaller businesses dealing with soaring costs. As we start the autumn with a new cabinet, the need to prioritise support for small businesses should be loudly reiterated.
While the role of major corporates may be under the spotlight as we grapple with inflation and spiralling costs, we mustn’t lose site of the fact that 90% of our businesses are SMEs, providing more than 50% of employment worldwide. Success in this sector will be crucial to economic recovery and sustained growth.
Despite the dip we are seeing in the number of SMEs looking to recruit, in many sectors we are still seeing a skills shortage – a key barrier to their growth. In our own sector, we’re seeing particularly high demand for professional accountants. The squeeze on talent in many sectors means that workers can demand more in terms of pay, innovation, flexibility and work aligned to their values.
Enhanced focus on purpose-driven careers
When faced with societal and environmental challenges of such magnitude, it’s unsurprising this generation has a heightened focus on purposeful work. When we interviewed more than 9,000 18-25 year olds last year on their aspirations for work and their careers, clarity over the purpose of their endeavours and impact on wider society stood out as a clear priority.
Events of the past few years have demonstrated why we need to transform our business environments to foster a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable future. Generation Z is determined to understand the value created by the organisations they work for, and the impact of their personal contribution in delivering this.
As this is the cohort tasked with driving future prosperity and delivering public value for us all, this is sentiment is reassuring. Never has focus on broader societal impact and public interest been as important as it will be in building the sustainable future we need and achieving global economy recovery.
A next generation of ethical leaders
Over the next decade, businesses will reframe their goals to become more resilient and create and preserve long-term value as the world demands more accountability and transparency. And it is stakeholders in all shapes and forms – not just shareholders – that will hold them accountable.
So while the global economic mood music might me gloomy right now, we have a new generation of leaders in the making that will be the driving force behind making the societal changes we need to fruition.
This is the generation that really will need to be the change they want to see in the world – and they’ll achieve it through their flexible talent, innovative thinking, tech know-how and commitment to achieving purpose-driven work that makes a difference.
To learn more about the side hustle initiative, visit www.yourgameplan.co.uk/side-hustle/