Mona Mourshed: How to Reimagine Global Employment?

Mona Mourshed: How to Reimagine Global Employment?

Guest Profile:

Dr Mona Mourshed is the founding CEO of Generation. Mona has decades of experience as a leader in the education and workforce space. She authored widely cited education reports, including Education to Employment: Getting Europe’s Youth Into Work, Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works, How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, and How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top. Mona previously founded and led McKinsey & Company’s global education practice and led McKinsey’s global social responsibility agenda. She was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s ’40 under 40’, sits on the boards of New America and Teach for All, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and previously served on the Board of Governors of the International Baccalaureate Organization. Mona has a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from MIT.

Episode summary:

In this conversation, Mona and I discuss how Generation is reimaging employment. Generation has created a 7 step approach that has been tried and tested to support upskilling. They partner with various private and Government entities to support their reskilling initiatives. They have been measuring the impact for learners and employer partners to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work. Mona shares her vision for Generation to address the unemployment challenges.

Key questions and topics covered:

What methodology and approach is used by Generation?
What has been the most impactful project or initiative?
What is your view on the way people are selected for jobs today?
The focus on demonstration based interviews is critical to help place learners in new areas and sectors.
What has been the effectiveness of the programme which are now online?
How has the pandemic impacted the work at Generation?
What ask do you have from Leaders and HR heads to support reskilling and employment?
What is your vision for Generation in the next few years?

Sound bites from the podcast:

(please listen to the podcast for full context)

‘we started in 2013. We now have 14 countries, and they have an 82% job placement rates within three months of the members and our graduates earning three or four times the income they have previously but really is down to the seven steps’

‘So when you look across OECD countries, 40 to 70% of long term unemployed are age 45 or age 50. And yet when you look at programming, and you look at research around this population, there’s actually surprisingly little.’

‘we ended up doing this work across five-six of our countries and over the course of last year supported 300,000 healthcare professionals to the training. So that was something that we never expected that we would offer that we thought that was a way to be a best service to the community at the time.’