People should stop blaming young people for not knowing stuff they've not been taught

[Echobelly]

I see quite a lot of social media posts and articles about 'Generation Z don't know how to do X' or 'Gen Z don't know how to behave in an office' or (and this has been going of for years) 'Young people starting their careers lack job skills'

A recent one has been complaining they basically don't know how to use a desktop or computer filing system because they all use phones/apps. Well that's hardly their fault workplaces are still using the stuff most people have grown up with, and that those people have then assumed everyone will know how to use it automatically. Just because 'the kids' are social media savvy doesn't actually mean they're automatically 'tech savvy'.

And with the rules of workplace and flexibility changing, again it's not suprising if some young people misjudge what's OK. I think workplaces may need to spell it out a bit more what might need to be cleared with a manager and what's OK to make a call on. Those of us who've been in the office for decades (sorry, can only talk about office-based work from my own experience) know how to make that call, but someone who's not worked before might not realise. Especially if coming out of uni where, let's face it, some people play fast and loose with their attendence at things, especially now when lots of stuff is available on a recording.

Like we knew how to do everything when started our careers, or it's school/higher ed's task to teach kids how to be 'Marketing executives' or 'Junior content managers' - no employers, that's your job! I do think people are unfair on young people like this.

Saturday jobs do very much exist, most of 17 year old dd's friends have one. People just need training really when they start work. I'm in my fifties and I remember people being late or not turning up at all at my first Saturday job. I'm probably better at answering the phone. But DD can change a hard drive when I wouldn't go have a clue. Different skill sets.

Sadly with state pension age being pushed further away people have no option but to keep working. Some older people have health conditions like arthritis, chronic pain, menopause symptoms, cancer, heart disease. It may look like they're coasting but actually they're just struggling on.

Absolutely.

OP - the thing with getting all your "chatter" from social media posts is that the very clever algorithms bring reels and articles into your newsfeeds that are similar to the last few you viewed or talked about. So you will "keep seeing" things that other people just don't see.
Most of us also tend to have "people like us" around us that we chat to. Our friends and people we spend most time with will tend to have similar views about important things and relatively similar life experiences to ourselves.

People who lump whole generations together like this - be that your older people moaning at the new entrants to the workplace, or be that people like you talking about "older people moaning" are really helping no-one.
Yes, there are some people who do this but equally there are loads that don't.

I agree. I'm 55 and would get this attitude from my grandparents generation, it's always the same. My DC are gen z and they're both smart and bright, they just know different stuff then the generations before them.

We recently hired an 18 year old Saturday girl. Lovely, but a bit clueless. We had to start with the very basics- and I mean things like how to use a landline! Unbelievably, never used one before. Anyway it's all good, and learning fast.

I know loads of stuff that I was never taught. I know more stuff that I was never taught than I do stuff that I was taught ( half of which I've forgotten anyway). It's called "using your initiative", "taking responsibility" and "acting like an adult". I know young people who can do it. I know older people who haven't a clue. So I don't see that age has anything to do with it. Engaging ones brain is not something that is defined by age.

When starting your first job or couple of jobs you are always going to know less about that job that people older than you. That is not putting anyone down, that's just logical. Even to use a clichéd example, the younger person might understand how to write social media posts that get traction, they won't yet understand how to get internal stakeholders onboard for that approach or when a certain approach is not business appropriate. Sometimes older people know more is not true in this situation - more experienced staff will know more than someone new to work and that sector.

Older staff and managers should recognise that all new starters need genuine support and time taken to learn, with a realistic way to.monitor this. It needs to be given real time and resource.

I have had a lot of applicants straight from university without experience going for roles that are not entry level and they have no evidence of their skills. My best team member is also straight from uni but did lots of relevant volunteering experience and is very willing to learn. I expect her to be promoted to my level within the year and beyond me within a couple of years.

I think the art of answering the phone has definitely been lost. You only need to see the number of posts on mumsnet by posters who won’t answer the phone (or the front door). It’s bizarre.

I don’t recognise some of the descriptions on this thread. We have three apprentices at work who have now passed their apprenticeship and are full time employees. None of them went to university and they are all excellent in their individual ways. They have a good work ethic and are rarely late for work, but we have fantastic management within our team who have taken time to teach and encourage them. I believe a lot of the reason you get poor staff is down to poor management.

In terms of using a laptop, I would have thought that a large percentage of school children and all students would know how to use one. DD had to learn a few new software packages for her degree. And as for being spoonfed at university, it definitely didn’t happen at her university. I’m sure some universities do spoonfeed their students more, but (I am prepared to be flamed her) generally the higher ranking ones tend to leave it up to the student to do their own research rather than giving it to them on a plate. And maybe these graduates are better at thinking “I don’t know this, I will google it or ask someone”?

The reluctance to ask questions isn’t a generational thing. DH is a semi-retired engineering consultant and has worked with many companies where the MD or CEO has employed his services, and the main issue is that the senior management won’t ask the questions or listen to him because they don’t want to “lose face”.

I agree OP, YANBU.

When I was a child/teen, my grandfather used to do the “the youth of today are terrible/lazy/don’t have a good days work in them… etc etc” routine. Now people my age (40s) do it! So I think it’s just a cycle. I have young family members (teens/early 20s) with amazing work ethic etc and those with less so, I also have family members my age with great work ethic etc and some less so 🤷🏻‍♀️. Strangely it’s only the unmotivated youngsters who are seen as proof of their generation’s laziness.

Someone I know occasionally needs a bit of manual work help so finds a young person who is available at short notice and willing to do a few days. Inevitably, these immediately available people are not good workers (to put it mildly!). He then complains about “all young people” being rubbish when it’s actually just that he’s selecting from a pool of (predominantly) not particularly motivated individuals. Otherwise they’d already have a job or want more than a casual few days.

Not quite in the same way but I get than an awful lot on Mumsnet.
I'm a gypsy and my life is understandably very different to most on here. The amount of people who berate me for not knowing things that are apparently common knowledge is shocking.
I think people get so high and mighty and forget that not everyone is on the same track in life and the only ones who end up looking stupid is them because of their ignorance.

Unreasonable to expect them to already know but the excuses some make are also unreasonable. We've all been there, we've all had to learn, there's shit I don't know how to do in my office and it's my responsibility to learn. Same goes for them.

I meant to add to the above that singling them out for this is as unreasonable as making excuses for them. I don't understand why they're supposed to be different to any other generation either way.

“They expect to get high end jobs quick and don't want to graft.”

”They”? Stereotyping, much.

our 19 year old works around his uni resort course, sometimes finishing shifts at 2 or 3am when he walks or cycles (on the bike he bought from his earnings) home depending on the weather.

His recent appraisal gave him an “exceptional”. He will be a fantastic employee in his field after graduation. So sod off with your ageist nonsense.

University not uni resort 🙄

Yes, ageism cuts both ways. We can all learn from each other, and a bit of tolerance wouldn't go amiss either.

In my job a see loads applications from people in their late teens and early 20s and many of them have been working since they were 16 and quite a lot have worked before that too. What they often don't have is a stable work history and have been in and out of retail, hospitality and agency jobs so I would doubt the short-termism of those jobs has provided any real quality grounding or training.

Where I see a massive difference between Gen Z and others is a common inability to complete an application form properly and there's a much greater degree of hand holding during recruitment - simple instructions need to be repeated multiple times for example. It's so common that it can't possibly be individual fault.

The Saturday job thing is interesting, i think attitudes have shifted towards young people and part-time work. I used to work in a University and I came across a lot of 18 year olds who had never held a part-time job because their parents wanted them to focus on their A-levels. To be honest, I think this is doing them a disservice. Young people gain a lot from those early work experiences. The more motivated, confident, organised and independent students I saw tended to be the ones used to juggling work and study.

I would definitely encourage my DC to get a Saturday job when they turn 16 or 17 as it is such a good low-stakes introduction to the world of work.

I remember my colleague trying to hire for an entry level position at my previous workplace and they decided on somebody who didn't have an employment history but who had been to university. That's not particularly uncommon at the moment because COVID lockdowns removed a lot of typical student job opportunities for a couple of years. However, when the university was asked for a reference, they responded that they couldn't really give one as he hadn't actually turned up to the majority of his lectures. Would love to have been a fly on the wall listening to how that conversation went when they retracted the job offer because he'd essentially done nothing for 3 years.

DD was one of a 300 student cohort for her course, and had only spoken to her personal tutor once. She needed a reference for her masters application, and her tutor didn't know here at all, so she would only be able to provide an academic reference and attendane record, and nothing else.

@UsingChangeofName - I'm aware algorithms may swing things in certain directions, but I also see it through stuff at work where some of my research covers workplace issues, so the generational stuff pops up a lot. I do think the whole 'pigeonholing people by generation' is bollocks generally; it's the old 'looking for a pattern and then deciding that a vague one that fits your way of thinking is actually really strong'.

Interesting topic. I was thinking about something related the other day.

My mum used some of her limited funds when I was in year 6 to get me a kids touch typing course by a company called Pica. You learnt about correct hand placement and each lesson added one or two keys at a time with various exercises and ended up with your keyboard covered in various multi coloured stickers corresponding to which fingers should be typing them.

Proved extremely useful in my teens at secondary school and uni typing up essays etc. And my career has been office/computer based so has helped there.

Was pondering if worthwhile to get DC8 to do one in the next few years. But then I realised it’s all tablets and phones with virtual keyboards now and you learn the two thumb technique very easy just through regular use. Surely by the time they are grown more and more will be done on iPhone/smartphone and VR type devises and you will be able to use two thumbs on a touch screen type keyboard than a full sized one.

Nevermind AI tech like chatGPT which will generate base writing that will only need some manual review and editing which will involve little typing, and voice to text.

Most people in senior positions being paid well do do the job they are being paid to do.

If they don't, they get dismissed. Either directly for poor performance, or get added into a redundancy exercise. In fact, even if they are performing well, ageist attitudes like yours find them managed out.

Companies don't have time for hangers on these days.

If your employer does, they aren't very efficient. Or they are finding that those poor performing "oldies" are actually performing better than you think they are.

I find this ageism really irritating. Some people are good at their jobs, others are not. Age is irrelevant. Lack of training may be relevant, but that's not about age.

@Echobelly
I completely disagree. Many teens, Uni students do have these skills. Just started uni and has had a Saturday job for a few years = equipped to deal with this, does not need to be taught because already learnt. Teens who do A'levels need to be organised, file stuff. Know how to locate a document, an email. They can. We all might need to be shown at any age a new employers unique system, but it wouldn't come as a shock to you, me or a teen.

My friend who is the partner of a law firm says some trainee lawyers are very entitled, won't do lots of things that she did as a trainee 20+ years ago. (Whether that's a good thing, what she was forced to do, the laborious admin donkey work, long hours, is a different discussion).

Could be the enviroment. I worked with a lot of teenagers till about 4 years ago. 95% of them were great. Sure we had to tell them in more detail what to do, like not just telling them to greet people and ask name and number but telling them to make eye contact, say goodmorning, may I have your name and number so I can give you your forms/t shirt/whatever. They listened really well and worked hard. In my experience most wanted to feel useful and appreciated. Yes they were a bit insecure but that's fine at that age. We always told them if something happened, someone got angry or they didn't know what to do, to just stay calm and tell them that they were getting a superior to help. Some roles also involved filling in excel sheets, the kids are much more techy than most people our age and very capable with computers. The kids who stayed for a few years (weekend work though) did grow in a professional sense.

Sure we had the odd antisocial slacker but I doubt that that would have been different if we employed older people.

I'm 43 and my ex colleagues back then were 50ish by the way.

Nobody knows anything unless they have been taught.
I read about a young person who started a job and didn't know how to mop the floor when asked.
At least they were honest. Just show them. What's the problem?