Another attack on lazy, snowflake millennials or a serious issue? The latest education and skills survey by CBI/Pearson found that a third of companies are “concerned about young people’s attitudes to work” and nearly half were worried about their communication skills, and behaviours such as resilience.
Eight out of 10 students feel pressure to get a job within six months of graduating. Yet, for those who manage it, it can be hard to feel grateful when the work doesn’t match your skill level (as experienced by one in three graduates) and there may be little chance of inflation-linked pay rises, promotion prospects and a good pension. Modern working life is rubbish. Long hours are common, insecurity is rife and Facebook access at work is increasingly restricted. Also, open-plan workplaces are officially hell. With this in mind, here’s a quick guide for grads heading into a workplace for the first time.
Avoid the ‘big boss chair’
Your lecturers may have thought your every contribution was a vast leap forward for human knowledge. Get over this. Your boss will say they want to hear your ideas, but then they will ignore them. The psychology says that someone feeling powerful is so confident in their beliefs, they aren’t amenable to the ideas of others. The trick, researchers found, is not to raise them while your manager is sitting in their big-boss chair, but to catch them somewhere neutral and to preface it by saying something that shakes their confidence (such as “That Harvard Business Review piece is so interesting”, not “Have you brushed your teeth today?”).
Don’t steal the biscuits
Eat your housemate’s special biscuits and the worst you can expect is a passive-aggressive note. However, the fridge policies in a workplace are on another level – violate them and you will be the subject of a company-wide email shaming. Recognise this isn’t about the biscuits, but that you have breached someone’s carefully carved bit of autonomy in their otherwise micromanaged day. (Unless you’re nicking chocolate crunch creams – then it’s about the biscuits.)
No napping
Sleep pods are there so your company can say it cares about employee wellbeing and make claims that it doesn’t really believe about productivity. They are not to be used.
Touch base
The CBI survey found 33% of business leaders were not happy with their employees’ literacy and use of English. But could it be that employees just don’t understand what they’re on about? A survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management found nearly two-thirds of offices are plagued by management speak. Prepare for this by actioning a thought shower to come up with some blue-sky content.
Don’t worry. Within a decade a robot will be doing your job anyway.
