Understanding Positive Youth Development in the Workplace

Pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment cre­ates devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate envi­ron­ments for young peo­ple. The approach is root­ed in decades of research on brain devel­op­ment and proven strate­gies, such as men­tor­ing and work-based learn­ing. It has helped count­less young peo­ple pre­pare for life­long careers and earned the endorse­ment of the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and its partners.

Below, Casey Senior Asso­ciate Rani­ta Jain explains the ben­e­fits of pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment for work­ers and employ­ers and shares lessons from the recent­ly con­clud­ed Gen­er­a­tion Work™ initiative.

What does it look like to cre­ate a work­place where young peo­ple can thrive — and why does that mat­ter for employers?

Jain: Cre­at­ing a work­place where young peo­ple can thrive means design­ing work envi­ron­ments that inten­tion­al­ly sup­port growth and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Inspired by how evi­dence-based pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment prac­tices have been embraced in schools, the Casey Foun­da­tion want­ed to demon­strate how they can be applied to youth employ­ment strategies. 

By incor­po­rat­ing pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment strate­gies, young work­ers gain:

• Strong rela­tion­ships with super­vi­sors and men­tors. Young work­ers ben­e­fit from man­agers who pro­vide con­sis­tent feed­back, coach­ing and encour­age­ment — not just oversight.
• Clear expec­ta­tions and trans­par­ent path­ways. Thriv­ing work­places com­mu­ni­cate what suc­cess looks like and how employ­ees can advance.
• Oppor­tu­ni­ties to build skills and con­fi­dence. This includes both tech­ni­cal train­ing and so-called durable skills like com­mu­ni­ca­tion, prob­lem-solv­ing and teamwork.
• A sense of belong­ing and con­tri­bu­tion. Young work­ers want to feel heard, val­ued and con­nect­ed to the mis­sion of their workplace.

In short, pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment approach­es are a win-win. They empow­er young peo­ple to gain valu­able skills and expe­ri­ences while build­ing a tal­ent­ed, durable labor force for employers.

How does a pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment approach strength­en hir­ing, reten­tion and advance­ment for young workers?

Jain: Dur­ing the sec­ond phase of Casey’s Gen­er­a­tion Work ini­tia­tive, which launched in 2022 and con­clud­ed in 2025, part­ners in eight com­mu­ni­ties worked close­ly with employ­ers. Togeth­er, they helped employ­ers iden­ti­fy and explore solu­tions in three areas to meet their busi­ness needs while attract­ing, keep­ing and nur­tur­ing young adult talent:

• Hir­ing. Employ­ers were encour­aged to devel­op struc­tured onboard­ing process­es and pro­vide ear­ly sup­port to incom­ing employ­ees. In some cas­es, employ­ers removed unnec­es­sary degree require­ments or part­nered with local orga­ni­za­tions to find new talent.
• Reten­tion. Employ­ers pro­vid­ed employ­ees with con­sis­tent feed­back and coach­ing, gave employ­ees oppor­tu­ni­ties to share feed­back and pro­vid­ed access to super­vi­sor training. 
• Advance­ment. To help young work­ers suc­ceed, employ­ers often laid out clear path­ways to pro­mo­tion, encour­aged goal-set­ting con­ver­sa­tions and con­nect­ed them to pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment opportunities.

What did you learn from Gen­er­a­tion Work?

Jain: Six key pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment imple­men­ta­tion lessons emerged across all eight sites.

1. This work requires time, trust and capac­i­ty. Help­ing employ­ers iden­ti­fy and imple­ment youth-sup­port­ive prac­tices are built through deep and ongo­ing rela­tion­ships, not one-off inter­ven­tions. We also found that these prac­tices were most suc­cess­ful when work­force part­ners had the capac­i­ty to engage employ­ers over time, under­stand their work­force chal­lenges and co-design solutions.
2. Improve­ments must align with employ­er needs. Employ­ers were most recep­tive to changes when pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment prac­tices were tied direct­ly to press­ing work­force chal­lenges like hir­ing, reten­tion and ear­ly-career turnover.
3. Ongo­ing, tar­get­ed tech­ni­cal assis­tance is essen­tial. Employ­ers often want to improve their prac­tices but don’t always know how. Gen­er­a­tion Work part­ners found that struc­tured and ongo­ing tech­ni­cal assis­tance helped employ­ers move from inten­tion to imple­men­ta­tion.
4. Super­vi­sors are crit­i­cal to suc­cess. Rela­tion­ships are the basis for work­place cul­ture. Train­ing super­vi­sors to pro­vide con­sis­tent feed­back, men­tor­ship and growth-ori­ent­ed man­age­ment was one of the most pow­er­ful ways to improve reten­tion and engagement. 
5. Youth voice dri­ves change. One of the clear­est lessons was that young adults them­selves are experts in what helps them suc­ceed. In many cas­es, young adults’ per­spec­tives direct­ly shaped busi­ness prac­tice improvements.
6. There’s no one-size-fits-all solu­tion. Pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment is a set of prin­ci­ples, not a rigid pro­gram. Employ­ers suc­ceed­ed when they adapt­ed prac­tices that fit their indus­try, size and culture.

Relat­ed Resources

• Lever­ag­ing Pos­i­tive Youth Devel­op­ment to Build and Sus­tain a Young Adult Work­force (blog post)
• Promis­ing Prac­tices for Inte­grat­ing Pos­i­tive Youth Devel­op­ment in the Work­place (case study)
• Lessons From Gen­er­a­tion Work on Cen­ter­ing Young Adult Work­er Voice in Employ­er Engage­ment (research brief)

Learn more about pos­i­tive youth development