Stop for a minute and think: How many companies do you know to promote leadership amongst their younger employees? It’s fairly common for directive positions to be held by older people, which makes it difficult for the younger ones to aspire to those roles.
We’re excited to announce our first edition of the Comfama Youth Council, a pioneering program in the country in which young people from ages 23 to 30, dream and work for the future of this organization.
According to a 2015 study by Spain’s newspaper El País, it would take 15 years for a 25 year old person to reach a high leadership position in an organization, taking into account that the average board and council member’s age is 45 years old.
Understanding that corporate dynamics are constantly evolving, young people’s outlooks are a valuable asset for companies that want to adapt to shifting markets, face corporate challenges and find new growth strategies.
Comfama currently has 1.200 young employees, 38 of which hold second and third degree leadership positions. Through the Youth Council we seek to spark conversations about new views from young people’s perspective and cut down the time it takes for a young person to reach a leadership position. The program will also shed light on the importance of young people’s contribution to corporate dynamics, while proposing a generational exchange that solves specific matters in the organization.
Even though there are many educational proposals regarding business leadership, these seldom take place within organizations. Luisa García, Comfama’s gender and youth manager, says that this program aims to create disruptive and up to date views on the company's direction, while shaping the skills and knowledge of the Coucil’s members, training them so that in two years they’re able to lead multiple processes and advise organizations.
According to Luisa, the Youth Council program creates a two way welfare: while it gives young people greater visibility in the organization and boosts their professional growth, it also allows for a business model redesign and corporate transformation.
After a process of challenges and selection, we now have twelve members of the Comfama Youth Council, a diverse group that comes from different areas of Comfama that demonstrated skills and talent in planning, critical thinking, innovation, cooperation, cognitive flexibility, entrepreneurship, assertive communication and management.
This Council will serve for two years, after which it’s members will be capable of applying tools and methodologies of organizational management based on Comfama’s purpose and create collaboration strategies for exchanging ideas and notes on projects, as well as designing action plans for creating, building and launching new products and services within the organization’s field of action.
