Trainees no longer ready for workplace

[Kukcoo]

I used to love having trainees allocated to us. They were so enthusiastic, hardworking and a breath of fresh air. It was great to see them develop.

The last few have acted like they're doing us a favour if they turn up by lunchtime because they could have called in sick for nothing. Seriously can't be bothered doing the basics and expect everything to be done for them. Little respect for anyone else and the huge support they're being given. Won't meet a deadline, because this would affect their mental health and basically impinges on their human rights.

They all still expect to qualify and will be passed by the provider unless they do something truly dangerous, but they won't have the real experience or skills to join the workplace and get on with a job.

I'm barely even a different generation, but wouldn't have dreamed of acting the way they do when I was learning and felt I had to prove myself. AIBU to expect standards to be the same?

There are lots of parents who would like to give more freedoms, but don't because they are afraid of the judgement of teachers or others in the community.

And not wrongly. I always tried to give my kids as much freedom as I thought they could handle, and we could get away with. They did have adults speak to them on a few occasions because they thought they should not be on their own.

YANBU

My last workplace stopped hiring these people. I was sick of them crying because they got constructive feedback (I could have been much worse given how lazy and mediocre they were) and their bloody mummies calling up to either say I’d upset Lucy because I told her she did something wrong (am I supposed to say nothing?!) or that their diddums won’t be coming in because they’re “just not feeling it today”. And they wonder why they aren’t lined up for a job at the end of it

I blame Gen Z parenting and social media that has told mediocre children that they’re special and unique and all their feelings are valid and trump everyone else’s

My DD has just started year 7 and says her French teacher lets them play music during the lesson. Fucking ridiculous, distracting and so insensitive to the children with sensory issues. How the actual cock is one meant to learn French, a very tough language, whilst Billie Eillish whines away in the background

I attended a conference a few months ago and a speaker said that when all the older tradesmen retire we are gonna have a huge shortage on our hands because so few apprentices are coming through these days and completing their apprenticeships. Very worrying indeed

One thing I saw mentioned earlier in the thread is that these young people are terrified of making mistakes, so they avoid taking opportunities or doing work in order to eliminate the risk of getting something wrong.

I think this is very true, and this is where I think that stems from:

This is the cohort of people who have grown up on the internet and who have jumped at the chance to cancel people left, right and centre. Anyone with a “wrong” view, anyone who said something unpleasant over a decade ago when they were a teenager is immediately cancelled and never given a second chance. They are totally and utterly cast out.

Its not just online either, as people they know in real life are ostracised for typical, clumsy teenage behaviour.

I haven’t encountered many young people like this in my workplace, and to be honest a lot of this to me sounds like the typical moaning at younger people every generation goes through. But I suppose there may be some truth in it.

Some points I would make:

• Why is no one criticising those in charge of recruitment here? I feel a lot of the blame here lies with recruitment agencies and those who work alongside them who’ll do anything to fill the role. The always-expanding influence of HR departments may also be to blame, where teams are often filled with a surplus of low-skilled people who become involved in recruitment when they don’t know the first thing about what to look for in a candidate.

• it is literally your job to train a trainee, if you are given that responsibility. That naturally means you have to balance it with your other work and commit to educating them and getting the best out of them. I wonder how many of those complaining are actually giving enough of their time and patience to these new starters.

• Some of the comments on this thread (which I agree with) would get the user banned from Mumsnet if they made the same point on other threads.

I have some sympathy with new starters who have a bad reputation as I once had my own poor experience. When I was mid-20s I took a job (my third since graduating and I worked during A levels and university too). I had always had very good feedback in all my previous roles, I was seen as a self-starter and I knew I was really liked in all of them.

But in this job, I received zero support. I was given a pile of work and expected to get on with it. I had no understanding of what to do or how to do it, and my questions and appeals for help would either be totally ignored or - at best - I would receive once sentence from my line manager before he turned away and ignored me again for the rest of the day. It was a dreadful feeling and I know that for a long time everyone thought I was the shit one. Eventually I thought “fuck it” and felt really disenfranchised. But I genuinely wanted to turn around and tell them that I felt I was being bullied and unfairly picked on, but I knew I would just sound like one of the entitled people discussed on this thread.

Funnily enough, the woman who started before me was the subject of a lot of grumbles and was referred to as “useless”. And then the woman who started after me really struggled to get to grips with the role too.

So whenever I see someone complain about a trainee, I would always question whether or not this person has been given fair crack of the whip and whether they feel fully supported.

Also, some colleagues were talking the other month about how the economy of work has changed. They have worked for maybe 10 years longer than I have.

They were saying how when they started, after 12-24 months in the job, with a couple of exam passes and a couple of incremental pay rises, you could buy your first house.

Then after a few more exam passes and the small promotion that comes with it, a few years later you move up a step on the property ladder.

You then move up again with more passes and again upon qualification.

But now, even our newly qualified and nearly qualified trainees (who may have 5-10 years experience) are unable to afford a house, and any house they do get will be the starter home for the other colleague. They won’t be able to move up the property ladder.

Young people are now realising that there’s little incentive to do anything.

We moved house just before I was 10, to a different town, we knew no one and did not know the area.

A girl about the same age appeared from the next door house and before the removals van was empty we were both on bikes with her showing me where the local shops and playground were.

No helmet, no phone, no idea who the girl was except her first name.

My dd has mental health issues but works her arse off at school and has 2 jobs. Let's not generalise.

Having said that I do feel that many workplaces have more bullying cultures and excessive presenteism. I had to leave a few as they wrecked my mental health....and I work hard.
Incidences included not being allowed to leave before it got dark as there was severe flooding on the route home...even though the manager had left 5 hours earlier to avoid the floods too. I was told I should have packed a sleeping bag and camped out if I got stuck. Then being told to go to occupational health as I was anxious about said floods and clearly had issues...why was the manager not told to do the same?!

As a trainee AHP whislt working my arse off...having trainers who couldnt teach, tut and eye roll at minor mistakes that I corrected and grilling me about stuff that wasn't in my assessment. Oh and also another trainee was sick every day before work because of the way she was treated.

A happy medium where people delivered, are prompt and hardworking but can go home at the end of the shift rather than work over would be ideal.

You make a fair point about trainees not getting enough time and attention in some places, because the staff who are meant to train them don't get enough time to invest in them. And you can't get mad at a new starter/trainee/apprentice for not knowing what they should know but haven't been shown or taught.

I haven't had problems personally with the work some of the apprentices do as much as their work ethic and orientation to work in general. They're perfectly well able to learn things and do the tasks when they choose to. It's not aptitude, it's attitude. It's the "I don't feel like coming in today" type stuff (and the parents who enable that and phone in for them) or things like taking a 2hr lunch break to go shopping as I mentioned upthread. I absolutely understand boundaries between work and personal life, starting and finishing on time and taking your breaks, not buying into hustle culture, which is unhealthy. But with some we've had, it just sort of feels like work is optional for them and we should be grateful if they turn up.

Of course, we've also had some that are brilliant too. We had someone leave to start a clinical psychology doctorate in summer who had worked his way from being a customer service apprentice on the helpline, to becoming a wellbeing practitioner and then a team lead, studied part time alongside his full time work to get his psychology conversion course and has now been accepted into clin psych which is hard to get into. We were all really proud of him when he got his place and some of us who have done either the DClin or similar (I did a doctorate in educational psychology) helped him prep for the interview.

You match the effort the apprentices put in. If they're keen and willing, in most cases managers will be keen and willing to support them and you don't mind giving your time and energy to someone who appreciates it and works hard.

I understand what a hierarchy is; I am at the top along with the other directors. Management involves training and mentoring staff, which means being responsible, accountable, and providing guidance. We establish a framework that helps new team members integrate smoothly.
What you're describing sounds like the average rank-and-file complaints about each other that sometimes find their way to my desk.
You have a very outdated view of working practices, that isn't uncommon however.

I agree that harsh discipline has no place in the modern workplace. But your manager pointing out where you have gone wrong, explaining you are falling short of required standards, and asking you to improve, is not 'harsh discipline

It isn't, although it depends on how it's delivered.

Also, if you have an appraisal at work, about 5% will be on the good things you do, and 95% on the bad. Even though you get more out of people if you play to their strengths (within reason - obviously poor timekeeping has to be dealt with if you eg drive a bus :) )

There is a very negative emphasis in schools. Although they say they are all about developing confident young adults, in reality it's crowd control and forcing square pegs into round holes.

We've been seeing that for a couple of decades really though. At first, it was to an extent covered up because of Eastern European tradesmen coming in after their countries were brought into the EU and had freedom of movement, but even before Brexit, there appeared to be quite a reduction as they either went back home or moved to different EU countries.

I've got a few dozen clients who are various trades, electricians, plumbers, joiners, kitchen fitters, window blind and carpet fitters, painters & decorators, and a couple of small "grease monkey" garages. I'm 60 myself and have been running my practice for 25 years, so most of my clients are likewise now middle aged or retirement age. Only 1 has an apprentice, the rest are sole traders and their businesses will just disappear when they finally retire. Plenty have already retired. I don't have a single tradesman under 40 years old! Several have taken on apprentices in the past but soon gave up due to a combination of ridiculous administrative burdens and/or the apprentices not turning up, being drunk or high on drugs, being incapable of following instructions, or just messing around instead of working. Those who did simply aren't bothering again!

The one "lucky" one is an electrician/alarm fitter, who found an absolute gem of a lad. He's now in his second year and is absolutely lovely. Really friendly, always smiling, really polite, and the guy says he's a very quick learner, never been late once, always follows instructions to the letter etc. The guy has already decided he's going to give the lad a partnership as soon as he qualifies and will hand over the business to him a couple of years later, for free! Funny how the lad is going to end up very "lucky" indeed to have a business given to him, but it's really not luck - he's put himself into that position by his personality, his hard work, etc. The guy himself is happy because he knows he'd just give up his business when he has to retire so would get nothing for it anyway and he's glad that all his regular customers will be well looked after by the lad in years to come!

My cousins daughter studied to become a sparky. She and her classmates really struggled to find placements for the mandatory (free) internships. Nobody would take them. She has now graduated 2 years ago and works in retail cause nobody wanted to hire a fresh graduate and can't really start her own business before she properly lestns the trade. She's thinking of applying to university now to study something else.

If there's a shortage of tradespeople it's because current tradespeople (like larger employers) don't want to take the time to train them. It's hard work, but it needs doing!

Yes, indeed, so the current tradespeople should be helped and incentivised to do it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of admin and red tape involved with colleges etc., and sole traders often don't have the time to spend training as it slows them down and means they can do less chargeable work, at least in the early days, until the apprentice becomes useful. Like I say, the tradespeople need some kind of support/assistance if we, the country, are serious about tackling the problem.

Very worrying!

There was always going to be a skills gap.
It started in the 80s when apprenticeships went out and the Youth Training Scheme was put in place.

The trouble that "good" trainee teachers are finding now is that right from early on they are being pushed to specialities that they did not sign up for. Dd wants to teach biology y7-11. (With the full understanding that that includes all 3 sciences)

She has already had 4 people in the science dept and SLT go to her on placement asking if she'd consider going on for A level chemistry... her degree was both Biolgy and chemistry based... and more and more of her assigned observations are now Y12 Chemistry. (Despite her non committal answer, and this being her first placement for PGCE)

I'm guessing chemistry teachers at a level are in really short supply.

I work with newly qualified junior doctors and they are exactly the same. I’ve done this job for years and never known so many to be off sick or not turn up to teaching.

I know many will shoot me down for this, but I think this is at least partially another outcome of COVID lockdown, and universities looking to increase income at the expense of a properly rounded and delivered education. We are now seeing a 'generation' of young people that didn't sit GCSE's due to the first lockdown and then spent their A levels etc mostly learning online. Universities realised that they could sign up way more paying students by using this ' hybrid ' approach and reducing direct tutor contact / support time. This means that those crucial years of indirect learning of the associated skills of time keeping, group interaction, team work and commitment etc etc have been much harder to pick up / teach. Also, younger people will never have the work ethic of the older generations because to be frank, they don't have the same rewards or future to work for, with barely enough potential income to be able to own a home and raise a family and the world not looking such a great place to do that in anyway, so their priorities have changed to reflect that.
I think it's down to all of us to set an example as well as for the manager to cover this directly via performance management and evaluation - especially in a field like teaching, where setting healthy boundaries is essential, but being fully engaged can provide such hugely fulfilling rewards that they may have simply never experienced before. There will always be some who just won't be receptive but you could see it as an opportunity to help.

It’s exactly the same where we work (NHS role) students that are willing and keen get the very best teaching. Those that are always late, lazy, unprofessional get the bare minimum. We are not there to be their parents, they are supposed to behave as an equal

I work in the NHS. We get newly qualified nurses from two different institutions. One group are amazing, and the other are just unbelievably bad. Barely literate and numerate. I simply don’t know how they passed and got the job.

It seems that trade qualification have been cheapened. A plumbers course is now only eight weeks and an electrical installer course a mere two weeks.
Young school leavers can't be blamed when offered an easy route to a "qualification" instead of 3 years training, an apprenticeship and and an NVQ.

Same with lots of jobs/"professions". Accounting is the same. A few "lower tier" professional bodies making out they're equivalent to the "chartered bodies", but with far fewer exams, much quicker timescales, and lower standards of qualifications. Also some so-called "professional" bodies that don't even have any exams, just need a couple of years of relevant experience signed off.

You could say the same with the medical profession, with "physician associates" and prescribing nurses doing the work previously done by doctors.