It is fair to say that none of us have had it easy over the last year, and we’ve written and spoken at length about the impact that Covid-19 and ongoing remote working has had on the workforce. It is however becoming increasingly clear that one segment of the workforce is encountering more challenges than most, and that is the younger more junior members of our teams and organisations. Maybe they had recently completed further/higher eduction, moved into a flat share with friends, finished a graduate training programme or apprenticeship scheme – with all the excitement and intrepedation that goes hand in hand with the next stage of their lives. This is the first step of their career path and Covid-19 and a world of remote working has thrown this upside down.
Over the last few months we have had numerous conversations with partners, colleagues and friends commenting on the challenges they are experiencing with their junior employees and new starters. This article brings together the concerns and challenges we are hearing about – across all industry sectors – right now.
Impact of Furlough
Covid-19 has been an unwelcome career pause to many young employees, with research suggesting that junior employees are most likely to be furloughed in an organisation compared to more senior staff. This career pause has led to feelings of uncertainty, a lack of confidence and struggles with feelings of self worth.
If however they are still ‘lucky’ enough to be working full time, it is often the junior staff that are left to pick up the extra work created by furloughed staff or redundancies. In addition, usually they are still striving to prove themselves and show the value they can bring to the job, which adds to the stress and demands on their time.
Mental Health
Gen Z are three times more likely to have sought help for mental health issues such as stress and burnout versus more experienced and older counterparts over the last year. They often don’t have the established support networks and relationships in place at work to help them through the tough times and can start to feel less connected and adrift. Added to this they may not be familiar with the working norms at their organisations in terms of what challenges they can ‘bring to work’, and often feel it isn’t appropriate to reach out and ask for help.
Having a voice
Although confidence is not always an issue for younger people, remote working and ongoing uncertainty hasn’t help in this department. Junior employees need to work a lot harder in terms of having a voice at the moment – they need the skills to advocate for themselves and shout louder than normal. For introverts this is a real issue and organisations need to find ways of encouraging everyone to be heard, whether that’s in a virtual team meeting or other remote working environments.
Soft Skills
The traditional office and team environments allow such a wealth of connectivity, communiation and interaction that no amount of technology can replace. Learning how to collaborate and communicate with other people has traditionally been an easy skill to pick up across the desk, in a brainstorm or in the canteen, and without these experiences how do we encourage collaboration and connectivity in both a task and social capacity?
Personal and Career Development
The status quo doesn’t allow junior employees to focus on their personal or career development. In fact, often there is not a clear career path in place for them to follow, and even when there is, there is either not the time, or a licence to spend the time on it. Many of us don’t prioritise our own learning and development but developing junior employees right now is vital if we want to avoid a highly disengaged younger workforce and unwelcome skills gap. We need to be thinking about the future, about success and growth, and it’s this generation that will be pivotal in driving recovery post Covid-19.
There is undoubtedly onus on the individual to step up, have the right attitude and take action to ensure they make the most of their careers today. But we also believe there is also a huge responsibility for the organisation itself and it’s managers and leaders to recognise these challenges and take action sooner rather than later.