Do your young employees have resilience?

Do your young employees have resilience? 5.051

Generation Y Employees – do they have the resilience it takes to impact your business?

I have noticed a rather worrying trend among young employees that I coach and that is their lack of resilience. Their inability to deal with the stress that can occur in a chaotic work environment, their inability to deal with negative comments from customers and colleagues and the worrying length of time it takes them to bounce back and recover their spirits, strength and good humour.

Seeing a trend, I thought this had to be more than pure coincidence so I began to investigate (I can never really shake those police officer habits). For those that know me, you know that the questions I ask myself are always different and the question I pondered around this was, as a society how are we failing to produce young people with resilience? My investigation led me to interview the amazing author of Toxic Childhood.

What Sue Palmer discussed with me really made sense… she noted that children who were given less freedom, did not have much face-to-face contact and were never allowed to make mistakes ended up becoming less resilient and less able to make decisions. With more and more children not being allowed out by themselves, communicating only via MSN and being rescued by their parents rather then being allowed to get on with it, employers are suffering. Some young people coming into the workforce are lacking essential skills that their parents should have taught them and hence as an employer, you can find yourself being more of a parent, increasingly frustrated by what is essentially very childish behaviour.

So what do you do when your business relies mostly on young employees?

1. Set very clear rules and guidelines and stick consistently to them. Yes, Gen Y’s want involvement and want to be equal, but if you manage a young workforce believe me, you need to get clear and consistent in your non-negotiable standards.
2. Nip any arguments in the bud as quick as you can; don’t assume that your employees can work things out themselves. Use conflict resolution strategies that allow both to get a say and come up with win-win alternatives. If you can make an older, more senior member of staff responsible for this, then so much the better. You will be teaching your employees great skills for later on.
3. Give positive feedback in terms of who they are. This doesn’t have to be in lights, all singing and dancing, however it must be targeted at an ability rather than an action. Rather than complimenting them on dealing well with a customer complaint, focus on them showing patience and compassion when dealing with the customer.
4. Hand it over to them. When they ask questions, ask them what they think, what will be the best solution. This will give them freedom and support them in developing there decision-making process.
5. See failures as good things. When they fail, which they will at some point, don’t chastise them, but ask what they learnt and what they would do differently next time. This may be the first time they have not had someone pick up the pieces, so be gentle and support them in working through it.

And if your are one of those employers who thinks that, because they are just seasonal or temporary staff that you shouldn’t bother, shame on you! To not put this extra effort in will be foolish as every employee, whether they work 60 or 6 hours is important to your business. They all have an impact on your customers and future employees. And think of society as a whole and the good you have done by forming a young person into an adult.

Pliny the Elder said, what we do to our children they do to society. I say, what you do to your young employees, they will do to your business, so if you want respect, be prepared to give it first.