During a time of technological innovation, creativity is crucial for any workspace to get ahead in the game. ‘Teens are the most creative age group’ and incorporating them is the most scientifically proven way to get ahead in terms of innovation, according computational neuroscientist Paul King. Young adults weren’t part of the corporate picture when it comes to recruitment, until recently.
As more adequate search sources were in grasp, more and more young entrepreneurs have started emerging from the help of newfound technology. So came Mark Zuckerberg, who at the age of 19, was successfully able to cofound the app Facebook, now worth over $ 60 million, which helped pave the way for other young inventors to follow suit including Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy (Snapchat app). Both apps rank the top 10 in the social media category. What sparked these young minds? Could young age truly be a factor to success?
Neurologically speaking, the teenage brain itself is a wonder. It’s number one superpower being its plasticity, a unique entity characterized by changeability and easiness to adapt to new and difficult environments. Imagination being a forgotten factor in adults is prime to teenagers, as their ability to imagine and be able to think freely is a given in exchange for naiveness. Teens working hand-in -hand with mature adults give businesses the ability to stem new ideas from teens, then be conducted into real world action by trained adults. They go hand-in-hand, not to mention.
According to Forbes, soft skills such as dedication, flexibility and critical thinking are what’s on the watchlist for employers this decade. Unfortunately for teens, this is their kryptonite. Soft skills are learnt through practice, says Harvard MBA professor Harold Brierly. By recruiting a younger workforce, not only are you reincorporating these skills, but you are preparing them to excel and reinforce these skills in later years, giving them the chance to pursue higher roles in the job force as they’ve met the standard.
Despite the major known benefits, employers in Kuwait are faced with a practical constraint with regard to child labor laws as the legal age for work in Kuwait is 15 as per Section 5, Article 20 of the Kuwait’s Labor Law for private sector. Yet, when we look at the number of places to work as a teen, they’re as rare as white peacocks! Notwithstanding, youth employment is crucial as much as it is beneficial to building a better equipped generation of workers and a more flourishing work environment for any company as many of these young entrepreneurs have taught us. As the dictum goes, age is truly just a number./KT
