What a young Martin Sorrell wrote in 1966 about recruitment

....And why business needs to take back control of education (not just training)

Dear Readers,

In this week’s edition:

• What a young Martin Sorrell wrote in 1966 about recruitment

• It’s All Relative Podcast: What are young people thinking in China?

• Why the teenage filter on TikTok paves the way for a new era of social media

Welcome new subscribers, I’m Dr Eliza Filby, a historian of generations who explores how society is changing through the prism of age, tackling how each generation are evolving as consumers, workers and citizens. Helping you feel out of touch and up-to-date in equal measure…. 

Why business needs to take back control of education (not just training)

Advertising grandee Sir Martin Sorrell, 78, is still prolific in offering his thoughts on the future of his industry and the wider economy, but it is worth digging into the Sorrell archives for an insight into our past. Back in 1966, then a young aspiring journalist, Sorrell wrote a feature for Management Today arguing that, in an age of increasing graduates, industry needed to realise that universities were not just for training the professions but the key breeding ground for the next generation of business managers. 

This may sound obvious today but 60 years ago, when graduates were more likely to be attracted to research, teaching or the civil service, it was far from a mainstream view. The major obstacle, according to Sorrell, was that UK business, "unlike America, is not degree orientated". Businesses were struggling to integrate this new tertiary-educated cohort, with one report outlining how graduates "think they are heaven born" while another noted that they "lacked drive, ambition, enthusiasm, personality and the polish for general management." Perhaps this sounds familiar? This scepticism was alongside a general business frustration and age old complaint that campus learning was too much theory and not enough application. Sorrell concluded that business "is not getting to, or getting, the best brains".

Sorrell's hope that business in the UK would become more degree orientated would, of course, come true as the graduate milk round came into being. Businesses descended on an elite selection of campuses, senior managers took an interest in recruitment for the first time and HR departments expanded to fulfil the operation. As more and more graduates were created and the traditional professions lost their status, pay and security, a solid talent pipeline was forged between universities and business.

This would reach its zenith at the beginning of the twentieth-first century as the UK switched to a knowledge-driven economy, with women on an equal footing and students acting as consumers; buying an educational qualification that was supposed to guarantee them a good job. That was my generation. I remember being schmoozed at graduate fairs, easily impressed with the free tote bags, pens and decent starting salary (all couched in a naive excitement that would make today’s Gen Z graduate snigger). 

But there was a fundamental problem with this model. Firstly, universities (and certainly academics) never viewed the degrees they were teaching as finishing qualifications for a new generation of knowledge economy workers. They still prioritised their research while university career departments remained notoriously poor. All the while business bought too readily into a rigid idea of a graduate workforce (to the detriment of apprenticeship schemes and non-graduates), and at the same time complained evermore loudly about the growing skills gap between what was being taught and what businesses needed. At the root was a complete disconnect, evident in all but the most vocational qualifications, between what universities thought their role was and what business thought a degree was for. 

This was most evident in the millennials' careers. They were the knowledge-economy kids whose childhood and schooling was driven towards educational attainment, powered by a political priority to get as many of us to university as possible (with little thought for those who didn’t make it). The degree inevitably devalued in this democratising process; the value went down just as the price went up. And it also ran counter to how work and training had operated throughout history. In the age-old apprenticeship model of work, there was never an expectation of prior knowledge. Instead, employees were paid to learn on the job, business took on the responsibility for that teaching and there was a job guarantee at the end. But in the degree-driven culture, the responsibility, liability and cost for training broadly transferred from the employer to the individual and in a tenuous climate of spiralling costs and a declining likelihood of a graduate-level job.¹ In the UK it has been estimated that of 500,000 students graduating each year, only 50,000 end up employed in dedicated graduate schemes. The choice of what to learn, the cost of the degree, the effort and the risk now rested entirely with increasingly frustrated graduates.  

Very soon business began to realise that there was a problem with this structure. The STEM skills gap became more apparent in the digital age and while graduate training programmes developed to meet the demand it was further challenged by a new graduate workforce who had paid even more for their degree and had grown up in an hyper-individualised culture where the backlash against the conveyor belt career was only beginning. It was also post-2008, where anti-business culture meant that professional services did not hold the same allure as they once did. It was little wonder that more and more businesses dropped their 2:1 or even degree requirement. In 2016, Penguin led the way in ditching the graduate scheme whilst making it unnecessary for applicants to have degrees. Grant Thornton then became the first professional services firm to remove academic requirements from the list of desirables for applicants. It was done in the name of widening social mobility but there was also a tacit acknowledgement that the model of graduate hiring was not the only answer and that attracting school leavers on apprenticeships was more likely to result in loyal employees.  It was also a symbolic end to the late 20th century narrative that educational attainment was the necessary key to social mobility. 

And this is the story up until now. As admirable and right as it is for companies to ditch formalised qualifications and shake up graduate schemes, it is only half of the answer to the recruitment conundrum of the 2020s: business also needs to radically widen its educational responsibilities. In the era of AI, automation, ageing workforces and with Gen Z (who are savvier and more sceptical about education and employment than those before them), companies need to rethink their approach to learning as a whole rather than just training for the job.

Firstly, there is fresh urgency. The idea that we saddle individuals with all their training and debt in the first 20 years of a working life that may last another 60 years frankly no longer makes sense and Gen Z know it more than anyone. Secondly, AI will require all workers (not just young) to continual up-skilling to keep up, remaining agile not only in terms of their human skills but in their ability to manage AI. One of the key decisions of the next decade will be who shall pay for this. Historical precedent from the British process of deindustrialisation in the 1980s suggests that it will not be the state. Personal finances of millennials and Gen Z suggest that it cannot be the individual. The only answer is for companies to step up.

What does that mean in practise? That means a fundamental overhaul of learning and development. It means a culture where teachers are rewarded as much as managers and are not just outsourced. It means a multi-generational learning dynamic where skills swapping is the norm and observing and osmosis learning is a given (yes, through shared time in the office.). It means a culture where humans of all ages learn how to manage AI (as well as people) covering everything from conflict resolution with chat bots to body language in VR. It is a culture where learning doesn’t stop at 25 or 35 but where apprenticeships can start at 60. It’s a culture where the immersive works alongside face to face. It’s a culture that recognises that most learning now has a sell by date. It’s a culture where would be retirees are invigorated by new projects and the entrepreneurial spirit of Gen Z is unleashed. Ultimately, it’s a business environment that feels more like a campus and a classroom than a HQ.

Back in 1966, Sorrell pleaded for business to seek out graduates in order to ensure that companies were getting the best brains. But sixty years later, in the 2020s, we need a different answer. It has never been more important for business to recognise that outside of specialised professions they cannot rely on universities to offer a conveyor belt of work-ready graduates. Outsourcing education is no longer the answer, it’s a job best done in-house. And, it’s worth adding, it’s also the best way of getting folk back into the office.

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S2.Ep1 It’s All Relative

(available wherever you get your podcasts)

In this first episode of Season 2, I speak to China expert, Zak Dychtwald, about the generational and familial dynamics within the world's fastest growing economy. What has life been like for the 400-million strong Chinese millennials that not only grew up under the one-child policy, but also witnessed China's transition into an economic superpower? And what about Gen Z, to whom all this is normal, how are they asking different questions about work and life? Zak covers everything from familial pressure to feminism.... plus recounts his own experience as a code-teaching court jester to the 'little emperor' generation. You can buy Zak's book Young China here and do follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Stuff I’ve read

1. Social media has disrupted our politics, our advertising and our sense of selves but this substack from Ed Zitron argues that its influence and model is on the turn. Not unrelated…..According to Pew Research Center, 1/4 of Twitter users are over-50 but make up 80% of all political tweets.

2. Sat-Nav Gen? According to this WSJ article, sales of paper maps are surging, particularly amongst Gen Z and millenials seeking exploratory, digital-detox experiences. Are we heading for a future where we are wanting distinct analogue and digital experiences?

3. How old do you feel in your head? An interesting read on how we all have a ‘subjective age’ . Mine? 25 for sure.

Feast for the Senses

Watching: Catching up with Happy Valley - compelling but miserable. What with Tanya McQuoid in White Lotus, it begs the question: are female characters now dominating TV in a way that female singers are dominating music?!

Listening: Did I mention Season 2 of Its All Relative?

Reading: The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World by Paul Morland showing how demographics has been crucial in shaping history. Paul is the next guest on It’s All Relative.

Visiting: Fitting in LA, SF and NYC next week speaking about Gen Z as the next generation of workers and consumers.

AND Finally…

The Teenage filter on TikTok is a dangerous trend not least because the success of it is further evidence that oldies are colonising the platform. But also, who needs airbrushing? Who needs botox? Can we affirm ourselves as 'age neutral’? The gap between our screen selves and IRL is getting wider and wider…. making the shift to avatars as representations of the self seem ever more normal.

Thanks for reading

Eliza

1. A key point that Anne Helen Petersen brilliantly makes in her Can’t Even: how Millennials became the Burn Out Generation