Poor work attitudes among the long-term unemployed are the major barrier to tackling Britain’s jobless crisis, according to a new report from think tank the Centre for Social Justice.
Based on a survey and extensive interviews with employers, the report says a commitment to hard work, presentation and punctuality is more important than literacy and numeracy skills when firms fill “entry level jobs”, such as the hotel and restaurant trade, retailing, catering and manufacturing, typically staffed by unskilled workers. Such jobs make up about a third of the total UK workforce of around 27 million.
The report states 82% of entry level employers rated attitude and work ethic as important to progression versus 38% for literacy and numeracy. Asked why they turned down applicants for unskilled jobs (which make up about one third of the workforce), 62% of employers cited “poor work attitude and ethic” and 57% said poor presentation. This compares with the 29% identifying lack of academic skills. A key recommendation from the CSJ is that schools should add a fourth “R” to their traditional prescription of reading, writing and arithmetic. The new element should be “responsibility”, meaning that teenagers should be taught how to conduct themselves in the workplace.
Gavin Poole, CSJ executive director, said: “Many employers told us that they believe students should leave education “work ready” and that currently too many students fall short.
“Timekeeping, self-awareness, confidence, presentation, communication, teamwork and an ability to understand workplace relationships are too often below the standard required, particularly in younger job seekers.
“The education system needs to also focus on the fourth “R”, responsibility, enabling young people to take greater ownership over their future, to seek out the information that they need to make the right choices now, and to understand how their decisions today are likely to affect their future.
As someone who has worked both in education and as a mentor of people with learning difficuties in the workplace, some of whom are in their first job since leaving school I find the article interesting. I would agree with the criteria starting with timekeeping, but question the comments on understanding workplace relationships. I have been in the workplace for fifty years and when I retired would not claim definitively be able to go into a workplace and immediately pickup on all the nuances of the relationships within that organisation.
I think what is overlooked is that schools do provide in general terms for entering employment, but cannot realistically cover all possible scenarios.
Most students do some form of experience and this if followed up productively offers much in learning how to act and react in the workplace.
Part of the difficulty can be that when on placement those, particularly in the “unskilled jobs” are often buddied by people who while skilled in the job, lack the skills to train and be a role model. From personal experience I have been asked to monitor someone in an evironment with much to offer, but where there was a “poorwork attitudeand ethic”. The person survived the experience, and gained from what they learnt, but without my help they would have gained less.
The point here is that schools and colleges are not able to monitor work experience as closely as they would like, and rely on the emp;loyers to re-inforce good practice.
So often those on work experience start enthusiastic and soon become disillussioned. There needs to be better communication between schools and employers, and understanding that whether it is work experience or a first job the person is not the finished article.
No one buys a plant and then does not nuture it, part of that nuturing is making sure it can thrive