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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Manufacturing
They are talking about this topic: General Skills
The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers feel professionalism is lacking in new hires, and they cite generational differences in work ethic. Many employers express concern about issues related to attendance, quality of work, and discipline. They also have difficulty finding employees who are willing to work second and third shifts.
| "We have to have somebody that's willing to learn, somebody who understands that our way has to be the way to do it, so there isn't this attitude of, 'Well, that isn't the way I was taught to do it.'" | Northeast |
| "The soft skills are such a critical area, before you even get to the technical level. We have to have somebody that can do the basic reading and writing. We need somebody that can understand and follow directions. Somebody that can work as a team member and understand ethical practices. All of those are so critical. And those are areas we spend time on constant training." | Northeast |
| "One of the comments that we're hearing from them is about work ethic. It seems to be a different work ethic that's coming out of the colleges and schools more than it ever was before. Part of that's a generational gap. But how do you teach work ethic?" | Northeast |
| "It's something you have to want to do. You have to want to do a good job. And you have to realize that you can't take as long as you want to take to complete a task. You're allocated a certain amount of time for tasks." | Northeast |
| "Well, I'll talk a little bit about the production technology at our company. I hire—some of them are high school kids that I hire. One thing that is lacking is the soft skills, the teamwork, the being on time. They don't get how important that is—the work ethic—and a big issue is entitlement. I see people that come in and think they're entitled to everything. Those are the concerns that I see most often, and it's the soft skills. I think they need to be developed more, whether it's in high school or just the college aspect." | Northeast |
| "We definitely see the need for the project understanding and the teamwork, because these both go hand-in-hand. You're on a project. You're leading a project. You're a good team member. Understanding your role as a team member is important. The work ethic thing, we do struggle with that." | Northeast |
| "One of the things we're doing at our company—or that we're starting to do—is a mentorship program. We assign an experienced technician with a new technician or an intern. We're doing it in the professional jobs as well to really try to address what we're talking about here which is that—when they come in—the expectations are different than, well, I hate to talk about generational differences, but they seem to be different. Entitlement is a good word for a lot of the folks when they come in. So that's one way we're trying to address this issue as well—to assign someone more experienced to help them understand our expectations." | Northeast |
| "I do agree that there seems to be a work ethic issue. And I don't necessarily want to classify different generations, but I think this is as much us—as an industry—needing to adapt to the workforce and what they need in order to be motivated. We've evolved at our company to collaborative work groups. They work very differently than perhaps what the other employer was referring to. I mean, the other respondent may not have the luxury to do what we've done—he's got a labor-intensive business. But if you're able to move to this collaborating group, this teamwork, and you focus on those soft skills, then that's where we're finding some success in allowing them to define their work and accomplish it." | Northeast |