Disengaged youth | Business Brief
episodePreviously titled “Young talent | Business Brief” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Transcript
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Why are young people feeling disconnected and economically dislocated today?
Today, I'm thinking about young people, our future business leaders. Hey, I'm Jo. Welcome back to The Business Brief. The Financial Times has specifically labeled young people economically dislocated. calling out the fact that this traditional path that we've been kind of told is going to guarantee us a really strong and fruitful career, the perhaps playbook of our past leaders, has not necessarily been playing out for young people today. They might be feeling a sense of despondency about the state of the world, a sense of uncertainty about what direction they should take when they're investing such a large amount of time and money A large chunk of their life studying for something that might be obsolete when they come out of school.
The World Youth Report in 2025 said the number one biggest concern for young people right now is mental health. not as its own isolated issue, but connected to the state of the world that they are coming into, that they're inheriting, which paints a slightly dystopic and despondent picture, unfortunately, but is an important starting point.
What does the UN’s Meaningful Youth Engagement report say about genuine youth involvement?
Employment rates for young people are stagnating or declining in some OECD countries, They haven't even recovered from an employment perspective with young people to where we were pre-pandemic. The last few years have been really tough on young people, and it doesn't help that they might feel disconnected from the decision makers who are crafting strategies and opportunities for them into the future. The United Nations Children's Fund explored this quite extensively in a report they called Meaningful Youth Engagement and looked at how we can bring young people in, not just to have a say in the policymaking, but to actually feel like they're influencing it in a meaningful way, that they know what they're getting themselves into.
They are benefiting from it in some way. and that they are connected after the fact to feedback on what has been drafted. Often in business, we really like the idea of getting youth engagement. We survey young consumers all of the time, we get data about them, we observe their behavior. We certainly are thinking about hiring the next generation of workers, designing employee value propositions that appeal to them, attraction of these younger people to come and work for our organizations.
How can businesses move beyond performative youth engagement to real impact?
And what the UN report really highlighted was that sometimes this can be largely performative. We want to hear from young people. We want to hear what they have to say. And then thank you very much. We're back to adult business. An important part of this is not just getting their input, but getting their provocation, as I spoke about with Shai Nidus on the Looking Outside podcast recently.
when you want to work with children and young people, when you bring them into these spaces, they might have perspectives that clash with your business. They might have perspectives that clash with your thinking. And so it's also a question of, do we have the openness to create that space?
What can we learn from McDonald’s youth ambassador program for talent retention?
Are we willing to challenge our thinking and the way that we're working? in order to have an opportunity to understand where youth are at today, what their perspectives are.
Discomfort, contradictions, provocations, young people can sometimes bring ideas that make us feel unsettled, but they can also bring ideas that are truly motivating and they can drive the ambassadorship that is really natural and organic that we want for our organizations. We had this really beautiful program in McDonald's. They were able to create this coalition of young people who were crew members, so the people in the restaurants serving you and I, who became ambassadors for the brand. So they opted in to show their love of the brand, their experience in the restaurant, the camaraderie, and then use that as a way to promote the organization. Now, if you're a business leader thinking about hiring, training, and retaining great young future talent, it's worth paying attention to the narratives that they are hearing in mainstream media right now.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why are young people feeling disconnected and economically dislocated today?
0:00–1:11
2
What does the UN’s Meaningful Youth Engagement report say about genuine youth involvement?
1:11–2:26
3
How can businesses move beyond performative youth engagement to real impact?
2:26–3:10
4
What can we learn from McDonald’s youth ambassador program for talent retention?
3:10–4:34
5
Why should leaders listen to youth perspectives to shape the future of their organizations?
4:34–4:55