RECENTLY you summarised the CBI Pearson Education and Skills Survey 2017 about the shortage of young recruits with the right skills and education (“Firms fear new recruits will fail to make the grade”, The Herald, August 22).
The report also said 33 per cent of employers responding complained about new recruits' "attitude, resilience and behaviour" and talked about "the central importance of a positive attitude and resilience for success at work and life”, “readiness to take part, openness to new ideas and activities, desire to achieve” and “recognition that hard work, persistence and effort yield results”.
So are skills shortages caused not just by educators, employers and the quangos set up to improve things, but by the youngsters themselves?
Many families with two or more children seem to have one struggling to get on a career path, still in education or internships by their late twenties. I know a very talented architecture graduate who had four jobs in the years, a 1st Class Business Studies graduate from Robert Gordon University who couldn't work out the VAT on £75, 000 and got upset with even gentle "advice", a brainy, keen and personable 28-year-old intern, whom we reluctantly fired after three weeks because he simply, genuinely, could not get into work, yet is a "legend" on Facebook for his partying.
A friend told me her university department has been demoralised, and pressurised by management, because of online complaints from students unhappy with low grades and critical feedback. Hibs and Celtic managers Neil Lennon and Brendan Rodgers complain about "snowflake" players who don’t work hard enough at their game.
What I and the CBI are describing are "Millenials", a term for the generation born after 1984. There is a wealth of research on this topic. One expert is Simon Sinek whose excellent video on Youtube describes subject, its causes and ideas on how to deal with it.
He says employers define them as “tough to manage, entitled, narcissistic, and lazy”, and never happy with attempts to accommodate them.
Mr Sinek says causes include “failed parenting strategies”, technology and impatience.
From childhood kids are told they are special and can achieve anything, an attitude that is quickly challenged in the workplace - but crucially not at school.
The impact of technology, especially social media, which replaces real life interaction, reinforces attitudes and becomes addictive because it stimulates dopamine, the same chemical that drugs and alcohol produce.
The third component is impatience, a product of the first two, which prevents them persevering and overcoming obstacles in the long haul to success and happiness.
It may also be a major cause of the epidemic of depression and mental illness we read about.
Every year around 70,000 Scots join the workforce. If one-third of them display these characteristics that means we have 23,000 youngsters ill-equipped to train, work and persevere at school, college and work – more than the estimated number of immigrants we need.
Our politicians, too afraid of upsetting potential voters and their parents, never discuss this problem. If you don’t admit and identify the problem, the combined efforts of parents, employers, educators, youngsters and Skills Development Scotland’s 1400 staff and £221, budget will not solve it.
Alan Sutherland,
1 Willow Road, Stonehaven.
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