As young people face increasing challenges entering the workforce, businesses are being urged to play a greater role in creating pathways into employment. Reed research found that 16-24 year olds spend almost five months on average searching for work, with many reporting that a lack of experience and a shortage of suitable opportunities are preventing them from taking that crucial first step.
Yet, employers also recognise what's at stake. Nearly three quarters (73%) say attracting early-career talent is a high priority, while 74% believe shortages of young talent today could contribute to leadership shortages in the future.
Against this backdrop, we spoke to Emma Gibson, People Capability Partner and Early Careers Lead at Evri. Emma discussed the company's approach to graduates and apprenticeships, the importance of recruiting for potential rather than experience, and why investing in young people remains critical to the future of both individual businesses and the wider UK workforce.
Q: What does Evri currently offer when it comes to early careers, and what are your hopes for the future?
Emma Gibson: In terms of early careers, Evri is slightly different to other organisations I've worked for in that we recruit more graduates than apprentices. With the recent news about graduate recruitment, it's probably a positive thing that Evri is still invested in graduates.
There's quite a lot of appetite for early careers in the business, which is great. Graduate recruitment is a priority, particularly in our corporate areas such as finance and data. They're regular recruiters every year, so they've got nice, well-established programmes that help individuals progress. They know what they want to do with them and what their career progression looks like.
In terms of apprenticeships, Evri does a lot more in the upskilling space than any company I've ever worked for. They're very good at promoting apprenticeships as an opportunity to develop existing employees. They have put over 400 people through either bootcamps or apprenticeship training for LGV driving. Our HR director has even done her LGV qualifications.
Our commercial teams are also very good at using apprenticeships to recruit. They have an established relationship with a specialist sales provider and like to bring in talent through the apprenticeship route that they can develop because they have very specific recruitment needs.
There's quite a lot going on. Going forward, we want to look at what we can do to increase the numbers, recruit more young people and create more of a pipeline into different parts of the business. That's a work in progress at the moment, but hopefully we'll have more to shout about over the coming months and into next year.
Q: How many people do you currently have on your early careers programmes?
Emma Gibson: We've got about 50 people on programme at the moment. The numbers have been fairly small because we've grown a lot as a business.
We've doubled in size since 2018 and now have 12,000 colleagues across the business, but the early careers side hasn't quite caught up in terms of recruitment. That's something we're looking at as we explore how we can bring more young people in.
We're also doing some work on the Youth Jobs Grant, so we've got some young people coming into the business through that route too.
What we're trying to do is start small, help the business understand the benefits of early careers, and then grow our offer.
Q: At a time when many young people are struggling to enter the workforce, why is it important for Evri's long-term success to bring in young people and early careers talent?
Emma Gibson: We're in quite a unique position because we have a lot of entry-level roles. Within our warehouse operations, for example, there are opportunities to understand the operation, learn how it works, and progress through the business.
We do a lot of progression from within. There's a real opportunity to move from becoming a supervisor to an operations manager. We have opportunities that some companies are potentially losing because of AI and technical advancements.
As companies across different industries, we need to be mindful that we don't lose those opportunities to develop and train young people.
Q: How important is a first job in shaping somebody's confidence, aspirations, and future prospects?
Emma Gibson: It's key because until you've been in the world of work, you don't really understand how it works.
That transition from college or university into employment is a real milestone in your career and your journey through life. That first opportunity is critical in shaping your understanding of how businesses work.
Your confidence grows because you begin to understand how the world of work operates and everything around it. As part of our review, we want to open our doors more and offer opportunities for people to gain work experience because it's critical in helping them understand different companies and working environments.
Q: How do you identify potential in young candidates who may not have previous work experience?
Emma Gibson: A lot of our managers are very open to recruiting on potential rather than previous experience. We're not looking for people who know the industry inside out and can hit the ground running. We're looking for people we can bring in, teach our ways of working, develop, and help grow. For example, we recently introduced a sales academy, where we recruited for a number of mid- and entry-level roles. The roles at entry level were hired based on demonstration of skills rather than previous experience, which allows us to find talent, then develop and grow individuals based on our specific sales frameworks and role requirements. For apprenticeships, as long as candidates meet the required grades or eligibility criteria, they're people we would consider bringing forward to interview or assessment centre.
Q: What steps has Evri taken to ensure its early careers opportunities are accessible to young people from diverse backgrounds?
Emma Gibson: One of our key partners is Scope. Our opportunities are advertised on their job board, and we work with them to review our recruitment processes and understand how accessible they are for people who may need support from a disability perspective.
We've also started working with organisations such as Youth Employment UK and we're doing a lot of work with Jobcentres. We work with a strategic relationship manager through the Department for Work and Pensions and are trying to create diverse talent pipelines and reach as many people as possible. We also have a long-standing relationship with Mencap where we support in delivering work placements as part of their programmes.
We're working closely with our partners to understand how accessible our processes are and identify where improvements can be made.
Scope is a key partner because we want to be an accessible delivery company. They don't just review our recruitment process, they also look at our wider customer processes and services to understand how accessible they are for people in general. We currently have a three-year partnership with them.
Q: Beyond technical skills, what qualities do young people need to succeed in today's workplace?
Emma Gibson: We're living in a constantly evolving world, and with technology developing at a faster pace than we've ever seen before, a resilience to this is important.
Evri is quite advanced when it comes to technology, both internally and externally, and there's a lot of transformation happening from an AI perspective. Because of that, having a basic understanding of AI can be hugely beneficial.
We're actually looking at delivering AI training as part of our early careers onboarding so that people who join us via our programmes can become comfortable using it from day one, as well as building an understanding of how it should and shouldn't be used.
Those are two critical skills going forward because it's becoming harder and harder to create a clear five-year plan when nobody really knows where things will be in five years' time.
Q: There's a lot of discussion about younger workers lacking workplace skills. Do you agree?
Emma Gibson: I don't necessarily think it's communication skills. I think it's more about professional etiquette.
For example, someone might receive a meeting invite and not accept or decline it. It's those kinds of workplace behaviours and understanding how professional environments operate.
We're a fast-paced business and some of that comes through role modelling from managers. If managers don't accept meeting invites but turn up anyway, then we need to recognise the role we play in modelling the right behaviours.
We recruit commercial apprentices who need to be good on the phone and capable of writing emails to customers, and they're generally able to do that very quickly. It's more about understanding things like turning up to meetings on time, appreciating the value of your colleagues’ time, and preparing questions when you're given opportunities to build your network.
Q: What's the biggest lesson you've learned about recruiting and developing young talent?
Emma Gibson: The biggest lesson is ensuring the right amount of support and commitment to development is in place to nurture young talent.
Managers need the right tools throughout the entire journey. They need to understand the apprenticeship itself, what support is required, what level the individual is starting at, and where they need to get to.
They also need to understand know how they should or shouldn’t manage an apprentice. It's about ensuring managers understand their responsibilities and have the knowledge and confidence to support people effectively.
Schemes can really fall down if managers don't fully understand the commitment involved. If someone has a poor experience, they're unlikely to stay, and the time, effort, and resources invested in developing them can be lost.
That's why manager support is so important. We work closely with training providers, run pre-boarding sessions, provide safeguarding training, and hold regular drop-in sessions so managers can ask questions and receive ongoing support.
Q: Do apprentices and graduates tend to stay with employers long term?
Emma Gibson: Retention rates are generally very good, particularly in the apprenticeship space.
At my previous employer, within the business units I was responsible for, we still had more than 70% of our apprentices seven years post programme.
In my experience, I think graduates can sometimes be more likely to move for promotion opportunities, salary increases, or benefits. Apprentices often develop a stronger sense of loyalty because, alongside their qualification, they've received coaching, development, and support.
If that support network is there and they've had a positive experience, they often develop a strong connection to the organisation. That can create more loyalty than somebody who has already completed a degree and perhaps moved around through placements or other experiences before joining.
Q: Are young people part of the solution to the UK's skills gaps?
Emma Gibson: Yes, but there has to be balance.
Every organisation should have a view of their future skills needs via a strategic workforce and capability plan. There will always be situations where you need experienced people who can step in immediately if someone leaves and critical work needs to continue.
At the same time, organisations need to ask what skills they'll need in the future, where the biggest recruitment challenges are, and whether those capabilities can be developed through early careers programmes and young people.
Building future talent pipelines has to be part of the long-term solution.
Reed's report, 'The missing generation 2026', explores how employers can rethink entry-level hiring and build the pipelines their businesses will rely on next. Read the report to see how future-ready organisations are widening access to early talent, download your free copy.
