Nestlé moves to extend its youth recruitment drive across US business
A key recruitment drive by Nestlé in the US has been extended, as it seeks to develop the next generation of manufacturing talent across its business interests, reports Neill Barston.
Though the company sold its confectionery interests in America to Ferrero in a $2billion deal four years ago, it retains bakery and healthier-eating snacks ranges within its regional portfolio.
The food sector giant has now confirmed an expansion of its Nestlé Needs YOU campaign, which aims to reach a total of 500,000 young people by 2025 in the US, through delivering jobs and major skills building opportunities.
According to the business, this is based on three core pillars of employability, supporting early careerists as they explore potential pathways through ensuring career resources, training, and on-the-job experience.
Its second area of focus is upon entrepreneurship, and through nurturing individuals to help them start, grow and lead their business through access to funding, professional development opportunities, mentoring and networking.
Finally, the company is pursuing a policy of agripreneurship, centred on providing back for future agriculturalists to build knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurial mindsets to help solve key issues impacting communities and the economy, such as supplier diversity and sustainability.
“Nestlé has a long history of supporting people in our communities as they prepare to make their impact in the world, and Nestlé Needs YOU will help ensure the future workforce is equipped with the information and skills they need to thrive in their careers,” said Judy Cascapera, Chief People Officer, Nestlé North America. “Whether they are future employees who will power Nestlé, entrepreneurs who build the next hot start-up, or farmers who grow raw materials to feed our communities, developing a skilled and future-ready workforce is more important than ever.”
The Nestlé Needs YOU initiative has already reached 80,000 people in the U.S. in 2022 through key programming and events. These include initiatives created through strategic partnerships with organisations that support young workers on employability, entrepreneurship and agripreneurship, such as The Manufacturing Institute, SkillsUSA, Girls with Impact, Future Farmers of America, and the National Retail Federation Foundation.
As the business added, programming for this year includes the development of educational materials such as videos and classroom content to help students learn about different career opportunities, launching a global Young Entrepreneurship platform to provide free innovation training and access to events around the globe for future entrepreneurs, hosting a variety of events to help increase knowledge and provide visibility into different career paths, and expanding Nestlé’s apprenticeship programs to additional areas of the business, beginning with Supply Chain.
To launch the campaign, the company held a virtual fair for high school and college students, as well as those within the early stages of their career, with the event continuing across this month.
