Ray Mostogl, CEO of KEEN Partners

Recent media discussions about resilience have highlighted causes of why resilience may not be as strong in the current generation of new entrants to the employment market as it were in the past.

There are many causes, but two in particular rise to the surface:

1. For many parents, a guiding factor in raising their children is to support them into a “better life” than they had, and while this is admirable it may mean children miss the experience of setbacks, conflict, personal challenges and how to cope when confronted with these.

2. The more pervasive nature of how current communications can be so personal and so widely shared on social media platforms.

There are so many more avenues for young people to experience helplessness, especially through the inappropriate use of social media. The reality is, it’s more difficult to cope in this age given the dual factors, and so it’s no wonder we see more mental health challenges. This is why more new workplace entrants are starting behind where new entrants were a generation ago – often they’ve been shielded from character-building events in their formative years and been subjected to more of the anonymous/faceless criticism which some social media users can deliver.

When employers take this into account, it becomes obvious new employees need more than technical training to become competent, they also need support to develop resilience. Employers need to be understanding and show compassion but still apply “tough love” when appropriate.

To become resilient that journey is usually littered with setbacks, failures, conflict and other events that require a person to learn how to pick themselves up and move on. Employers should acknowledge that for some of their new employees this will be the first time they’ve been compelled to not walk away from an issue. The role of an employer is to pick a person up, help them and assist in developing their life skills to cope with barriers. Expressions such as, “harden up” or “in my day….” don’t help and in fact, reduces the likelihood of a person having a go at getting back into the saddle.

The national apprenticeship completion rate sits at 51%. This leaves me wondering:

What proportion of the 49% who quit before gaining their qualification, do so because of insufficient resilience skills?

With all of the efforts to increase the number of people starting apprenticeships and traineeships, perhaps targeting a higher completion rate should be equally as important. At KEEN Partners, surrounding ourselves with compassionate managers, accessing excellent professional support with the “licence” to offer coaching advice to employers on resilience building approaches to employee setbacks, we plan to make a much bigger difference in the lives of our employees. There’s much more to our approach than simply up-skilling our people. Growing people to be more employable is part of our mission - within that we also work to build resilience.

Are you a like minded employer who’d like to build a resilient workforce for your future?