Rethink Retail, powered by the BRC (British Retail Consortium) are delighted to partner with early careers specialists MyKindaFuture, to provide young people visiting WorldSkills UK Live (21-23 November, NEC Birmingham) access to ‘connectr’ a bespoke early careers Digital Skills and Digital Mentoring platform. This supports ‘Mental Strength’ which is top of the agenda at LIVE this year, developing the resilience to start and progress within a career.

Why is this so important?

Whatever form it takes, mentoring is a proven catalyst in building confidence and empowering young individuals. In a professional context, not only can mentoring help young individuals progress within a business or industry, but increasingly, it is being used to help young people understand more about an industry, and to take the first steps towards a fruitful and rewarding career. Often this first step is purely based on building self-confidence, knowledge and mental strength.

A 2018 report from Randstad highlighted the importance of new talent being able to identify with their peers before applying for a role. In other words, helping an individual to connect and be ‘mentored’ in some capacity, goes a long way in helping that individual develop self-confidence, as well as confidence in your business.

A historic barrier to entry for those looking to provide large scale mentoring opportunities, particularly from an attraction standpoint, sits with the time, resource and scalability issues associated with a traditional approach to mentoring.

Digital mentoring solves this challenge. It’s agile, light touch, light on resources (meaning fewer time constraints), provides a positively honest insight into business, and critically, it can help to develop peer to peer relationships, all in a way which allows for engagement to be tracked and measured.

Putting it all together for World Skills UK Live

Visitors can sign up for free access to ‘connectr’ on the Rethink Retail stand (H6-C-5). As well as creating one-on-one mentoring experiences, the Rethink Retail platform will also offer free skills modules, designed to develop key skills and confidence young people need in order to be successful in the retail industry. These include the Personal Skills module covering self-awareness, learning how the smallest things have a significant impact in a new job, as well as recruitment processes which covers CV and cover letter tips and how to ace interviews. In addition, after the show they will be able to connect with digital mentors from Sainsburys, Pret a Manager and Boots to continue the conversation and ask questions. 

For more information on Connectr visit www.mykindafuture.com