Youth & soft skills

In 2013 when I was working in Papua New Guinea, I was shocked by the lack of local youth employed by foreign owned companies operating in the country. But when I was required to assemble a team of staff myself, applications from local youth were not forthcoming, and of those that did apply, most lacked the required soft skills to undertake the roles.

The absence of adequate soft skills such as decision making, cognitive flexibility, self-motivation and complex problem solving are not limited to youth in low-income countries such as Papua New Guinea. In fact, I found that upon graduating university I also lacked the required soft skills to excel professionally. Fortunately, I found great mentors in the workplace with strong soft skills which has fast tracked my development.

Given most professional mentors are sourced in an organisational environment, youth in low-income countries typically lack these opportunities due to widespread youth unemployment. This was highlighted by the World Economic Forum in 2016 through the identification of 10 ‘skills of the future’, the bulk of which are soft skills. These skills will empower youth to reach positive labour and social outcomes in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will cause widespread disruption to labour markets.

Soft, transferable skills, have traditionally been considered difficult to learn, but a growing body of research shows that soft skills are actually more easily acquired than technical skills. 15 to 24 year olds are considered the most flexible age bracket for acquiring these skills, particularly in structured group settings. In comparison to technical skills, soft skills are also a stronger indicator of key life outcomes, such as health, social and employment outcomes for youth. In short, soft skills = empowerment for global youth.

What is tillr?

These experiences and subsequent research have led me to create tillr (formerly Cohort), a social enterprise for the empowerment of global youth from low-income countries through an online virtual internship program. 

Tillr provides Australian professionals with the opportunity to mentor a team of culturally diverse interns through an online platform and smartphone mentoring application. The mentor provides input in both real time and deferred time over the course of tillr's highly structured two week internship.

Tillr builds partnerships with Australian organisations to source select employees from these organisations as mentors to oversee internships. Equally, we build partnerships with educational institutions for youth in low-income countries to target mentees. Prior to commencing the internship, participants and mentors are required to complete a series of initial learning modules in the program to lay the early foundations for soft skill development, the objective of the internship.

Youth that have completed a tillr internship will advance to become part of the tillr alumni, a global network of youth that continue their soft skill development beyond the internship with the assistance of tillr staff. The goal of tillr is to see youth thrive beyond the program in other areas of their lives, such as through advanced education, employment and positive social outcomes. Tillr remains an ongoing assistance to youth who have completed the program through this alumni service.

Why mentor?

Mentoring global youth from low-income countries is an extremely important role and one that provides mentors with great satisfaction. Tillr places a large importance on celebrating our mentors’ achievements within their organisation and across social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Our communication strategy is based on positive reinforcement and an understanding that acknowledgement among personal and professional peers is integral to growing the value of tillr.

Self-development in the areas of management and cross-cultural communication are of substantial career benefit to individual mentors who work for multinational corporations or non-profit entities that operate globally. There are also numerous other professional development outcomes for mentors. Tillr makes mentoring a seamless proposition for busy professionals through our smartphone application and online platform.

Recent studies indicate that professionals that mentor are 20 per cent more likely to experience a pay rise than professionals that don't mentor and 6 times more likely to receive a promotion over a 5 year period. A LinkedIn survey from 2016 shows that 89 per cent of senior professionals on LinkedIn want to mentor. This percentage equates to approximately 500 million LinkedIn users across the globe, highlighting the scalability of tillr.

2017 World Vision Challenge winner & Optus Future Makers finalist

Tillr is the winner of the 2017 World Vision Challenge and a current finalist in the Optus Future Makers Program. We have received fantastic support from both World Vision and Optus in our development to date. In August our team attended a bespoke workshop at World Vision's Melbourne office. During this workshop we had the opportunity to pitch tillr to the World Vision office staff in Nepal. We gained some great feedback as part of this process and it was particularly exciting to hear the enthusiasm for our program first hand.

Attachment: The tillr team pitch the World Vision office staff in Nepal (from left to right: Scott Boon, Alex Gavranich, Ben Redman & Tom Atkins).

Pilot programs mid-2018

World Vision and Optus have contributed $20,000 to the development of our online platform and smartphone application prototype, both of which are in the preliminary stage of development. Utilising our existing grant, we are aiming to have a prototype platform and smartphone application complete by the end of Quarter 1 2018 or early Quarter 2 2018.

The purpose of this crowd funding campaign is to raise $15,000 so that our online platform and smartphone application prototype can be piloted in multiple locations across South East Asia in mid-2018. We are building relationships with educational institutions in low-income countries in Asia Pacific to provide participants for these pilots. We will also run a timely series of workshops at these pilot locations to source data from participants that will influence the design of tillr, prior to a larger scale release in late 2018.

At tillr we consider the opportunity of providing a meaningful and measurable source of empowerment to global youth from low-income countries an exciting opportunity but also a venture that we want to ensure is both sustainable and fit for purpose. These are the reasons why we consider pilot programs to be so important to the development of tillr. Over the next 12 months we will maintain communication with our pledgers so that you are all aware of the progress we are making and the high value your contributions are having to the development of tillr.

As with most startups, the challenges are everywhere you look!

In the immediate term our challenge is to attract quality applicants to our Expert Advisory Panel. We have commenced a process of identifying people that we know will complement our team's existing skill set in business development, technology and learning and development. 

More broadly, we are always looking to connect with anyone that has an interest in what we are doing. You don't need to be a pledger or a large multi-national corporation to attract our attention, we welcome the questions and interaction.