Are you 'Kickstarter' ready?

Preparing young people for success through empowerment

A £2 billion government initiative designed to help hundreds of thousands of young people into work has launched.

The Kickstart Scheme provides funding to create new job placements for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment.

Further funding is available for training and support so that young people on the scheme can get a job in the future.

Now imagine this. You’re a young person entering into adulthood. You’re struggling to decide whether to choose further study or to go straight into a job. You’re eager to get stuck in and start earning. You’re hands-on, practical, and full on energy; energy that you want to apply productively now. You don’t want to wait. You want to start working towards your goals.

The Kickstart Scheme combines the best of both worlds. It gives you the opportunity to learn while you earn, and acquire essential on-the job skills that will be invaluable for your future career. So, you sign up. You’re excited, and ready to go. You’re ready to push yourself and give this new experience your all. For the first time in a while, you’re excited about what your future holds.

You’re one month in. You’ve bonded well with your team, you’re learning new skills, and your first review meeting with your supervisor went great. Everything seems to be going well; you’re doing it, you finally got to where you wanted to be!

So why does something feel off? There’s a pit in your stomach. You feel nervous; a little anxious; a little lonely. You try to rationalise it in your head but you can’t work out what it is that’s making you insecure and unstable. Everything has gone to plan, and you’re on track for success. What could possibly be wrong?

Well, here’s the thing. Being the newbie in an organisation is overwhelming for anyone. You’re thrown in at the deep end from day one. You’re in a completely new environment, with new people, new systems, new priorities… your day-to-day changes significantly.

You’ve done well to adapt to this change. But, when your environment changes so drastically, it can make you question your whole identity. It can be difficult to find yourself. You’ve channelled all of your energy toward this new role, and in doing so, you’ve prioritised everything but yourself. The consequence? You feel a drop in your self-esteem, your wellbeing, and your levels of motivation. It’s difficult to focus, and you don’t know how long you’ll be able to keep going.

As an employer, you care about your team, and you care about their long-term success; you’re not interested in short-term gains that could lead to burn-out. You want them to feel their best so that they perform at their best. You want them to be healthy, productive, and motivated to drive business results.  And to do this, you realise that you need to add an extra layer of support.

It’s not enough to provide on-the-job training. It’s not just about making your new Kickstarters the best workers they can be now. It’s about empowering them to be the best workers they can be now andin the future. You want to empower your Kickstarters with the soft skills that they need to be the best version of themselves at work.

So what do these soft-skills look like?

Stress Management

Have you ever walked into a room and forgot what you went in there for? There was probably something else on your mind. Well, it’s this exact effect that stress has on productivity levels. It clouds your vision with overlapping thoughts and inhibits your ability to focus on the task at hand.

Increased stress leads to reduced productivity, and increased satisfaction leads to increased productivity. Rapidly changing circumstances, worry, and anxiety can all have a significant impact on your ability to focus. These factors have a negative effect your working memory; the ability to grasp incoming information, form it into cohesive thought and hold onto it long enough to do what you need to do with it.

This is why providing Kickstarters with ‘Stress Management Training’ is key for their long-term success. It teaches them to clear their mind of uncertainty and compartmentalise their thoughts so that they’re able to focus on improving their performance at work. Learning to be present equips them with a sense of control, and the confidence they need to tackle oncoming challenges and come out stronger on the other side.

Personal Brand Management

You might think that career advancement depends on how well you perform. Well, this isn’t the case. It’s about how others perceive your performance. Your achievements may not be rewarded if they go unnoticed.

This is a bleak reality that young people often realise throughout their new placement. Those who acquire the appropriate skills, knowledge, and experience are often confused and disheartened when they fail to obtain the recognition or the promotion they anticipated, having met the required criteria.

It comes down to one powerful tool. They may have failed to use Impression Management Behaviours; the process whereby individuals seek to influence the perception that others have of their image.

In particular, it’s self-promotion that has proved to be the most important impression management for hiring and promotion decisions due to its association with qualities such as competence, confidence, and ambition. So, young people who want to pursue their goals and move up the ranks need to emphasise their strengths and project a confident image by engaging in self-promotion.

Learning to manage their personal brand empowers young people to steer the course of their career development. It equips them with the knowledge they need to present themselves for opportunities and drive their advancement in the organisation.

Business Etiquette

The behaviours that work in a business environment are often very different to the behaviours that work outside the workplace. And, this may not be intuitive to many. Some of these behaviours aren’t necessarily even practical or rational; they’ve simply evolved in the business context and are thereby understood by those who have experienced this reality before. 

But, many young people have limited work experience. They may be completely new to the business environment. Sure, they can surely pick this up as they go. But, as an employer, you could save both yourself and your Kickstarters from some embarrassing, frustrating, and counter-productive situations, by providing a little training from the start.

This can include training on how to start a telephone call appropriately, how to draft emails professionally, how to dress suitably…there’s an ample range of behaviours that young people would benefit from knowing from the start; it’ll help them to adapt smoothly and swiftly into an environment that’s already different to anything they’ve experienced before.

Active Listening

“Are you listening to me?” This is a question no employer wants to ask a new member of the team. In fact, it’s a question no employer wants to hear in the workplace at all. Communication in critical for an effective workforce, and active listening is central to this.

For young people new to the workplace, actively listening is critical if they’re to fully understand instructions, communicate effectively with clients, and understand the needs of others. They’ll be better able to provide viable solutions to problems and actively participate in making important decisions, because they’ll be better able to understand the issue.

Plus, encouraging active listening in the workplace makes new starters more likely to feel that they can speak up and contribute their ideas. It’s important that they feel that they too are listened to; that their needs are considered and their opinions respected. It’s key for a cooperative and collaborative working environment, in which apprentices can flourish.

Effective Planning and Scheduling

All employers need to be sensitive to the reality that Kickstarters will experience an overwhelming flow of information during the start of their new role. Not only do they have to learn to use new programs and systems, but to process a flow of information at a speed that they’re unaccustomed to.

Managing this inflow of information is key; new workers need to learn to interpret this information and fit it into their schedule. They need to coordinate their plans with those of others, and this can be tricky, especially given the pace at which this information is received.

There are workplaces in which a Kickstarter might receive ten emails in one hour, whilst they’re working on a particular task. They may additionally receive a call, or someone may come to see them with a burning question. It can feel overpowering. Information is coming at them at full speed.

Employers who want workflow to run smoothly should look to empower new starters with the knowledge they need to decipher which information is relevant and which is not, to prioritise tasks, to ensure they hit the deadlines they need to hit, and attend the meetings they need to attend. If they can do this with confidence and ease from the start, they’ll be able to dedicate the majority of their attention to their work. Not only will this save both sides anguish and stress, it will also improve productivity and business results.

These are just some of the many soft-skills training courses that Kickstarters and their employers alike can benefit from. They provide a solid foundation of knowledge and capabilities that empower young people to seize their new role with confidence and equip them with the skills they need to maximise each opportunity and overcome every challenge.

They can make the adaptation process quicker, smoother, and more enjoyable, so that your Kickstarters can hit the ground running and channel their energy towards productivity and achievement.

Jollyworkr has over 450 online soft skills and knowledge based eLearning courses, including the 15 course bundle: "Welcoming Your Kickstarter'. Check out the training suite here. 

Readers of this article can use discount code: VN53TH for 50% discount on all packages.