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Nurturing young talent in wholesale: the benefits for businesses and recruits By Abigail Brierley Exclusive report
T
he job market is a challenging place for school leavers and graduates at the best of times, yet the recently added insecurity brought on by the COVID-19 situation has left young people more concerned than ever. The wholesale industry has typically been very keen to engage with young people, and for many businesses the pandemic has not seen this stance change, despite the added logistical complexity. This is because companies recognise the mutual benefits that can be gained by providing placements and jobs for school leavers and graduates.
“As a company, we are very much about opportunities for all; however, we understand the benefits of recruiting young people as they can help build our talent pipelines,” she continues. “They allow for employee diversity and bring with them a different viewpoint and ideas. It also benefits our other employees as some go on to develop themselves by coaching and mentoring the younger workers.” Slater also highlights the career development opportunities for young employees at Parfetts: “Parfetts has tremendous success in developing employees who have joined our company whilst working part-time and studying at college and university. “We also have employees who have worked for the company since leaving
school, college or university that are now retail development advisers, general managers, and even a director. We would love for them to continue, and to that end, we have an exciting new scheme aimed at bringing more talent into our business, and this is being launched over the coming weeks.” Wing Yip, the UK’s leading Oriental grocer, offers a range of opportunities for university students. Director David Yip says: “At Wing Yip we are always keen to support young people and have been doing so for numerous years. We know that the past year has made it more challenging for young people to secure placements and progress in their careers, so it was especially important that we continued our work to support local students.”
‘Highly valued’ Parfetts highly values young people – under 24 year-olds account for over 20% of its employee demographic. As an employee-owned business, it views having a robust recruitment strategy as key to its continued success, and a major part of this is identifying young talent to develop within its in-house ‘Futures’ programme. This gives employees opportunities to learn about all areas of the operational side of the business while working, with a view to holding key positions within its depots in the future. Louise Slater, head of HR and compliance, explains how the pandemic has actually benefited the company’s recruitment: “We have seen a change in the backgrounds of our new employees that have joined Parfetts, especially in some of our younger recruits. “Some of them had set career aspirations in sectors that no longer took on apprentices or closed their graduate schemes. We have benefited from this and seen younger employees looking to change their career ambitions, say from working in aircraft engineering to having a career in the wholesale sector. 14
May 2021
Reece Rudman started with Parfetts on the checkouts a year ago and has progressed to the picking team. He is keen to become a retail development advisor in the future.
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