CEO for a Month: Adecco’s talent lens & employability booster

The programme helps young talent increase their employability and career prospects through highly effective work-based training.

The Adecco Group has launched the fourth global edition of its ‘CEO for One Month’, part of the worldwide Adecco Group Way to WorkTM programme. The workforce solutions provider organises this programme with an endeavour to help young talent increase their employability and career prospects through highly effective work-based training.

Having attracted over 54,000 applications in 2016, this year’s programme offers 49 ambitious candidates from around the world the opportunity to shadow The Adecco Group leadership in their country of residence. One of the candidates will be further selected to work for a month alongside The Adecco Group CEO, Alain Dehaze.

According to the International Labour Organisation, the number of unemployed young people reached 71 million in 2016. Meanwhile, the fourth industrial revolution is creating jobs that require new skills and attitudes that few possess. Employers lament the failure of traditional education to provide the skills required for their needs, calling for more project and people skills.

The Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2017—INSEAD’s and The Adecco Group’s report on the talent competitiveness of countries and cities—also shows that leading countries, such as Switzerland, Singapore and the Nordics, are more successful at tackling youth unemployment.  This is, in part, thanks to education systems that encourage experiential and project-based learning, as well as provide work-based training opportunities, such as apprenticeships.

Talking of the initiative, Alain Dehaze, CEO, The Adecco Group says, “Our ‘CEO for One Month’ programme specifically targets ambitious young talent, providing them with a unique opportunity. Through reverse mentorship we also get exposed to fresh approaches to business challenges, while strengthening our talent pipeline with exceptionally skilled and diverse candidates from all over the world.”

The Adecco Group launched Way to WorkTM in 2013 to tackle youth unemployment and skills shortages, develop young people’s employability, and help them enter the world of work. Through Way to WorkTM, the Group provides young people with internships and apprenticeships (over 10,500 between 2015 and 2016), career guidance , training, and an opportunity to be the ‘CEO for One Month’.

To participate, candidates can apply via the Adecco Group Way to Work website.  A first screening is followed by an interview process run by the Adecco Group experts in the participating countries. The position includes a rewarding salary to sustain the successful candidate’s education and development. The selected ‘CEOs for One Month’ will receive further guidance and professional opportunities from The Adecco Group following their one-month placement.

Priyanshu Singh, country manager & MD, Adecco India, further shares that India will be participating in the initiative for the second time this year, having gathered an impressive response from applicants, last year. “It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience, first hand, the internal working of a large multinational corporation and the thinking that goes behind making it successful. It also provides an unparalleled platform to learn directly under the mentorship of the CEO, thus paving the path to success for ambitious young people by providing them a perspective that can take years of experience to otherwise attain,” he says.

“Everyone dreams of a jump start in their final year at college. My dream came true under the ‘CEO for one Month’ programme 2016. I was given the opportunity to understand business from the stalwarts themselves, thus being able to find my calling in human resources. I am extremely happy to now be a part of The Adecco Group. It has been life changing,” says Bani Sodhi, ‘*CEO for One Month 2016’, India.