Chief Operating Officer and Principal Architect of Spektra Global, Karen Evans Halm, says young people should take pride in their professions and upgrade their skills to increase employability.
According to her, a lot of young people have no passion for their professions as evidenced by their failure to self-invest in themselves and their skills.
She noted that instead, businesses are faced with a situation where the people they employ are only concerned about their paychecks and yet are unable to put in the work that rewards them.
“Do we even care about our profession? Some generations back, we had people who took pride in what they do. So it’s not just a question of food on the table so that they kind of pretend to work just waiting for payday, but they actually take pride in what they put out.
“But now we have a generation that is so entitled, they think that you the employer you have to do this, you have to do that, they want all the benefits in the world without asking themselves what am I contributing? So it’s all a question of what I’m getting out of this company, what this company is going to do for me, but they forget that it’s a hand in hand dance.
“What are you also bringing to the table? How are you contributing to what is being done? Even as a person, as a professional, as a carpenter, as a welder, as an architect, do you even take pride in your creation? Because that is the only way you’ll have the passion required to develop yourself.
But if you see your job or your career as just a means to an end or just a way to put food on the table, definitely you will not be focused; definitely you’ll not be committed. Do you even have that personal excellence drive that everything that comes out of me, it has to have that personal touch of excellence? If you don’t have that then it will be difficult for you to improve on yourself on your own,” she said.
Karen Halm noted that some business have stopped hiring for entry-level positions due to the impatience of their young employees.
She explained that after some businesses embark on rigorous training for their new entrants, they quit their jobs immediately for higher paying jobs.
This she says affects the productivity of businesses as they have to once again retrain new staff over and over again.
“There has to be that personal drive, there has to be that personal commitment and there has to be that patience. Because what we’re finding is that he wants to drive in the same car that CEO is driving, same thing, and so even when you invest in them and train them, two years they’re gone.
“So when they come in it will take you like two years to prep them and bring them up to speed where they now become economically useful to your organization. After that two years they think that ‘well now I can do this, I can do that’ then they go to the next highest bidder.
“So as an employer, you keep training, you keep training then you realize that that is hurting productivity. So the question is why won’t I rather go for the person who has prepared him/herself?” she said.