'Employers lose out on employee retention, recruiting incredible talent, when they focus on this idea that young people should have it all figured out before their first job'
Work-integrated learning (WIL) has seen a slight decline among young people in Canada, according to new research. And that could impact the labour market as valuable, early-career talent remains untapped.
“If industries have trouble recruiting young talent, then work-integrated learning can be a great way to get top talent from universities,” says Ilona Dougherty, PhD student and managing director of the University of Waterloo study.
“The main complaint of young people who are trying to get into the labour force is that you have these job descriptions that say we need three to five years’ experience, and they pay nothing, and that's an entry level role, essentially.”
The study, “Young People & Economic Inclusion Longitudinal Study,” cited Statistics Canada numbers to say there has been a “general decrease” in WIL participation by youth – down to 43% from 46% in 2020.
Work-integrated learning increases organizational adaptability
This common requirement for recent grads to have sometimes years of experience before they get their first job means untapped, valuable talent is left on the table, Dougherty says – a system that, “doesn't serve anybody. It doesn't serve young people; it doesn't serve the employers.”
She points out that in previous generations, young or early career employees were hired by organizations that saw their potential but acknowledged their lack of experience and trained them accordingly.
“There is a big workforce development piece here, and I think employers really lose out on employee retention, but also on recruiting incredible talent, when they focus on this idea that young people should have it all figured out before they come into their first job.”
In addition to benefiting from recruiting more talent, WIL programs can be used as a tool for increasing an organization’s adaptability, says Anne-Marie Fannon, PhD student and director of the Work-Learn Institute at the University of Waterloo, which specializes in research around preparing youth for the future of the workforce.
The condensed nature of WIL means employers and HR must devise systems and strategies to maximize the potential for a WIL student to become a long-term, loyal employee in a short timeframe, while also ensuring the bottom line and objectives of the company are met, she says.
“If you can figure out how to bring a student into your organization and get them to productivity and organizational commitment in four months, then you can do that with gig workers, you can do that with contract workers, you can move people around your organization with more fluidity,” Fannon says.
“This is something that all employers need to be thinking about.”
Informal networking for remote WIL students, employees
WIL programs benefit employers by building talent pipelines and potentially bringing on employees with organizational commitment. But remote WIL models negatively affect those benefits, Fannon says.
The most important factor for retaining talented WIL students is networking, according to 2023 research from the University of Waterloo, and reduced social interaction during pandemic-era WIL placements negatively affected students’ career progression.
The authors of that report stated that to create meaningful and successful WIL experiences for students, employers need to focus on how and where employees are building workplace friendships. Remote WIL students reported fewer work friendships, but that doesn’t necessarily mean employers should require all their student workers to be in person or hybrid, the researchers explain.
It does, however, mean they need to try harder to create those opportunities online.
“The challenge seems to be to identify opportunities for sharing values, sharing tasks, and socializing in an increasingly remote world. If WIL stakeholders can create opportunities for connection online, then perhaps much of what was lost from organic in person connections can be recovered in remote work,” the researchers wrote.
Organizational benefits of successful WIL programs
Striving to connect WIL workers with peers online and elsewhere not only benefits their career development but helps to bond them with the culture and community of the organization, Fannon says.
“How can we set up and structure work-integrated learning opportunities that have the best learning outcomes for students, but also those organizational outcomes for employers?” says Fannon.
“The talent pipeline, organizational commitment, conversion … there's a lot of structural elements that need to be put in place for students to feel a connection to that organization.”
WIL program participants report more skill development, professional growth, and soft skill growth, but there are also significant long-term benefits to the company, in the form of affinity.
“They see more opportunities. They say things like ‘I met the CEO in the elevator my first week. I was stuck one day and someone came by and said, ‘I'll show you the production floor,’ and that helped them understand the organization better, and then they kind of see more opportunities there.”
Therefore, creating informal networking opportunities is a vital way to convert WIL students into long-term employees, she says: “There's incredible benefits to either making sure there is intentional opportunities to connect, or building the most robust online orientation, informal networking that you can think of.”
In person, work-integrated learning essential for retention
Dougherty calls engaging with WIL students “employee engagement-plus”, due to the double-whammy of not only training potential valuable employees on the job about their role and the business, but also teaching them about the workforce and working life as a whole.
Complicating matters further, current generations coming into the workforce as WIL students received much of their education during the pandemic, she says, meaning they have much to learn about interacting with others, professionally and socially.
But if it’s done right, incoming WIL participants can be converted into long-term talent. This includes tapping into the capacity for learning and for new experiences which young people bring to the table.
“Young people's brains are literally wired to learn, they're wired to be exposed to new experiences and to be challenged,” says Dougherty. “So to have opportunities to learn on the job and not just be expected to do your job like a robot, is really important for the retention of young people, and for them to feel like their employers really value them.”
