Using innovation and digitisation to power up the potential of youth

Under Z’s Community Stand, we are committed to dramatically lifting the potential of young people by building their capability, confidence and career choices. We’ll do this by providing tangible outcomes that measurably enhance the potential of disadvantaged young people; and by facilitating opportunities for education and the development of life skills so young people were better able to make powerful choices.

 In order to get after these commitments most powerfully, we’ve partnered with Minded, a digital platform that helps young people to understand themselves, their personality and communication style, what they’re passionate about, and how they can set goals for the future. We piloted our partnership with Minded at Mana College in Porirua back in May, and since then have agreed to roll the opportunity out to several more low-decile schools across New Zealand.

 The digitisation of the model means that young people are able to access effectively a psychometric tool that really positively describes who they are and where their strengths lie – without judgement and in a really compelling manner. What we’ve found on our product development pathway is that young people feel like everyone’s asking them what they want; but that no-one’s hearing them in a way that’s meaningful to them. The Minded tool allows these incredible young people to have a conversation – often for the first time – about who they are. When you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the fact that we’ve enabled self-actualisation for the first time really does make a life-changing difference to some of these young people’s lives. It’s a huge buzz and one we’re incredibly proud to have been a part of.

 Bringing this to life for Z

In order to spread this buzz and share the customer experience with the broader Z whanau, we gave Z staff and their kids a chance to have a go at the model, as well as rolling it out to schools across NZ. We held two workshops with Minded for Z staff and their kids, in the Wellington and Auckland offices, last week. Our GM of People & Culture, Helen Sedcole came along with her son, Jack, and found the workshop a really informative and positive session, and that it felt like “a privilege to have that conversation with my boy”; who couldn’t wait to share what he’d learned with his Dad. National Commercial Sales Manager Mark Findlater came with his son Jai. They “loved the experience and found it great to explore something like this together. Jai discovered different words that he could use to describe what makes him who he is.” Convenience Retail Store Specialist Laura Unasa said it “was really great to give my kids language to start to articulate what their strengths are outside of school subjects. This was the first time they realised people communicate and hear things in different ways.”

Products Market Specialist Elisabeth Roll and her daughter Sophie attended and also “loved it. The biggest positive for her was to put words on what she was good at and can do. Thank you so much for organising this. I believe this is not only interesting but should be given to all young kids in NZ.”

 As a firm, we are committed to doing what we said we’d do, and to fulfilling against our purpose of solving what matters for a moving world. Through our Community strategy, this gives us the opportunity to work with our partners to discover and enable ways in which we can make a real and tangible difference to the lives of disadvantaged young New Zealanders. In helping our young people to find who they are and what they can aim for, we really are fulfilling on our potential to a enable a resilient and healthy Aotearoa New Zealand that empowers our youth, neighbourhoods, and Z whanau.