Eva-Maria: Annoying Youth Habits in Your Workforce

 Read more from Eva-Maria here.

Day in and day out, more and more youth are coming into the workforce. And no wonder – half the world’s population is under 25 years old, and the new generation’s work habits are following them into the workforce. Bad attitudes, scruffy work clothes, turning up late and in general, disregard for not understanding when the business doesn’t do well, they may be out of a job.

Sure, that sounds like the generic youth job of a bartender, or coffee-maker, but it extends way into the corporate and SME world too.

The twisted youth minds are a hard one to understand, but when it comes to it, unless your generation wants to be blamed for the bad habits instilled in today’s youth, it may be good to pay some attention to what they react to, and what will help them achieve more in your business.

Many attitudes come down to the parenting young people have received. Do they respect you as an employer, comes down to: do they respect adults in their lives? Showing up in scruffy clothes, comes down to: were values instilled about respecting the people around them?

Having asked around, some of the most common problems with youth come down to the same answer:

The issues are: coming in with scruffy clothes, bad attitudes, and showing up late for work

Why do they do that? They know when their shift starts… do they not own an alarm clock??!

If only things were that simple. When a young person’s shift starts at 9am, they’re likely to show up at 9am on the dot. Coming in scruffy clothes…perhaps that’s how they actually dress. Bad attitudes aren’t kept in check unless someone complains. So why not just tell them! Picking up on turning to work late, older generations understand that a 9am start time means coming into work 10, 15, minutes before start-time so they’re dressed and ready for work. Well, not in this world – youth will show up when they’re expected, sometimes later. The warning for being late will be obvious, but not when they show up on time, even if they spend 10 minutes to get into ‘work mode’, thinking they’re paid for the time they’re on the premises.

What’s the way out of it? Tell them what you expect and why – whether it’s about the dress code, attitude or time management. What may seem very obvious to you about workforce attitudes will be different to today’s youth due to their parenting they received. If you expect to run your business in a particular way, don’t let it to their common sense to decide what’s right and wrong – tell them. Come up with a Code of Conduct with all the rules written out so if they come to work ‘on time’ instead of 10 minutes earlier or are wearing a ripped shirt, you can point them back to ‘the rules’. No if’s or but’s there…

How do you/how would you keep your young workers in check? (Comment below)

 

Published 21st Jun 2011

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