Why a summer student program is good for business

It’s back-to-school season which means that we have just said goodbye to more than 1,300 students who spent the summer with RBC.

Over the last few months, I’ve had the privilege to work with some of these amazing young professionals and have seen their enthusiasm and ambition first hand. This is very close to my heart: as a former RBC co-op student, continuing to grow our summer student program and playing a wider role in helping prepare youth for the world of work is one of the most important things that I do.

During the summer I’ve also met with many business leaders and entrepreneurs and future talent has dominated many of our conversations. Everyone is wrestling with the challenge of developing a workforce that’s fit for the next decade and beyond.

For RBC, this is so essential to us and our communities that we’ve made it a core part of our purpose.

We are committed to providing young people meaningful, experiential work and learning opportunities – where students tackle real, project-based business challenges and are given the flexibility to take their own approach to getting work done.

A program that offers meaningful work experiences can be put into practice at every organization, even those who don’t have the capacity to take on 1,000+ students. The key to success is to move beyond simply thinking about providing students with work placements, and instead, focus on harnessing young people’s talents to solve real workplace problems.

This approach is great for students, but it’s also great for business.

For instance, participants in our RBC Amplify program – where students collaborate to build solutions for real RBC challenges – filed 15 patents this summer. They worked on projects to improve our predictive analytics capabilities, data management policies, and cybersecurity measures. One group of students even helped us design and develop a customer-facing app to help new and expecting moms and dads navigate the financial challenges of parenthood.

Elsewhere in RBC offices around the world, our summer students helped us on a wide range of projects, from providing bond rating analysis, to organizing women’s mentoring events, and helping prepare our teams for the potential impact of auto tariffs.

These are real, business challenges with clear goals that require foundational collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving skills.

I’m highlighting how our program works because while Canada is well under way to becoming a co-op nation, we just aren’t there yet. Roughly 40% of students in our country have no access to meaningful work-integrated learning placements as part of their education and only 1 in 5 Canadian employers interact with educators.

That’s not good enough and it’s one of the reasons why we created RBC Future Launch, a 10-year commitment to co-create partnerships that help young people prepare for the skills economy of tomorrow.

To ensure that all post-secondary students have access to meaningful work-integrated learning placements, businesses, educators and students need to be better connected. This will give young people the opportunity to cultivate their skills with work placements that matter to everyone involved.

All employers need to view work-integrated learning as not only an investment in tomorrow’s skills economy, but also an investment for the future of their business and the Canadian economy as a whole.

All of our futures depend on it.

As RBC Economics has found, by investing in our youth and increasing their productivity to the G7 average, Canada could see a $40-billion economic lift.

As this summer comes to a close, I encourage you to consider how the students you worked with this term contributed to the success of your team and overall business. And if you didn’t work with any students this year, start thinking about how you can change that in 2019. Tap into the skills and fresh perspectives our youth can bring. You’ll see just how they can shake up the way you do things.